RH033

Redhat Enterprise Linux Essentials

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 1

Unit 1
 Redhat Linux Essentials
 Overview

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Redhat Enterprise Linux
 Certified with Leading OEM and ISV Products
 ISV  Independent Software Vendor
 OEM  Original Equipment Manufacturer
 ABI/API Compatibility
 Application Binary Interface
 Application Programming Interface
 ELF  Executable and Linking Format
 LSB  Linux Standards Base
 BEA  BEA System Inc, San Jose, California. “Think Liquid”
 HPC  High Performance Computing

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Unix Flavors
 UNIX from AT&T, at Bell Labs, in 1969.
 AIX from IBM
 HP/UX from Hewlett-Packard
 SunOS (Later Solaris) from Sun
 IRIX from SGI (Silicon Graphics)

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Unix Principles
 Everything is a file.
 Including hardware
 Configuration data stored in text
 Small, single-purpose programs
 Avoid Captive User Interfaces
 Ability to chain programs together to
perform complex tasks.
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GNU Project / FSF
 GNU Project started in 1984
 Goal : Create “Free” UNIX clone
 By, 1990, Nearly all required userspace application
created.
 gcc, emacs etc.
 Free Software Foundation
 Non-profit Organization that manages the GNU
Project
 Four Freedoms
 http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
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GPL – GNU General Public License
 Primary license for Open Source Software
 Encourages free software
 All enhancements and changes to GPL-software must
also be GPL
 Often called “CopyLeft”
 “All rights Reversed”
 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
 X Window System, has it’s own T&C.
 BSD code need to be abide the terms of Berkeley
Software Distribution. Visit http://www.bsd.com

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Linux Origins
 Linux Torvalds
 Finish College Student in 1991
 Created Linux Kernel
 When Linux Kernel Combined with GNU
Applications, complete free UNIX-like OS
possible.

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Why Linux?
 Fresh Implementation of UNIX APIs.
 Open Source Development model.
 Supports wide variety of hardware.
 Supports many networking protocols and
configurations.
 Fully supported.
 Linux is a UNIX-like OS.
 Multi-user and Multi-tasking.
 Wide hardware support. Checklist.
 Fully Supported.

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Redhat Enterprise Linux
 A distribution of Linux
 Custom version of a recent Linux Kernel.
 Utilities and applications.
 Installation and configuration software
 Support available.
 RHEL includes installation and configuration
software, a patched and rigorously tested recent
version of the Linux Kernel, and thousands of
utilities and applications.
 gdm is the default display manager for RHEL.

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Recommended Hardware Specifications
for RHEL

 Pentium Pro or better with 256 MB RAM

 Or
 64-bit Intel/AMD with 512 MB RAM
 2-6 GB Disk Space
 Bootable CD
 Other processor architectures supported
 Itanium 2, IBM Power, IBM Mainframe.

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Virtual Consoles
 Virtual Consoles are available through CTRL – ALT –
F[1-6]
 If X is running, it is available as CTRL – ALT – F7
 The virtual consoles enable a user to have multiple
logins even when not using an X Window system.
 You can scroll at the virtual consoles by using SHIFT-
PAGEUP and SHIFT-PAGEDOWN. The scroll buffer is
stored in video memory, so if you are running a
graphical program such as X, the scroll buffer is lost.

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The Xorg GUI Framework
 The goal of X.Org include a faster and more open development model
than Xfree86, support for a wide variety of video cards and input
devices and the development of a highly modular and flexible graphical
framework for Unix and Linux.
 http://xorg.freedesktop.org
 Or
 http://www.x.org/wiki
 X Client activity that spawns an X server event informing the web
browser to send an HTTP request to the link’s target ( or anchor). You
do not really see the X server, but X clients.
 X provides the data I/O infrastructure for X clients, like a human
nervous system, it sends messages when touched by client activity.
 An X Client running on one system can display on any X server running
on any operating system, if sufficient access is granted.
 For each managed display, this socket is /tmp/.X11-unix/X# where # is
0 to the greatest number of permitted connections.

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Xorg Graphical Environments
 Collections of applications that provide
a graphical working environment with a
consistent look and feel.
 GNOME (GNU Network Object Model
Environment) The default desktop
environment.
 KDE ( K before L)  Environment
based on the Qt toolkit.

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Starting Xorg
 Nothing needed if system boots to a
graphical login. Just authenticate.
 If system boots to a virtual console
login, Xorg must be started manually.
 Run startx to manually start Xorg.
 Changing Password.
 At least 6 but no more that 255 characters.
 Other criteria depends on particular OS.

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Unit 2
 Running Commands and Getting Help

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Getting Help
 --help
 whatis -- with makewhatis
 man
 info
 /usr/share/doc/html/en/
 Software source code
 Documentations
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Running Commands
 Commands have the following syntax:
 Command [ options] [arguments]
 Each item is separated by a space.
 Options modify the command’s behavior
 Word options usually preceded by “--”
 Single-letter options usually preceded by “-”
 Can be passed as “-a –b –c “ or “-abc”
 Arguments are filenames or other date needed
by the commands.
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The –help option
 Anything in straight braces ([]) is optional.
 Anything followed by “…” represents an arbitrary-
length list of that thing.
 If you see multiple options separated by pipes (|), it
means you can use any one of them.
 Text in straight brackets(<>) represents variable
date. So <filename> means “insert the filename you
wish to use here”.
 Sometimes, such variables are simply written in all
CAPS.

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The man Command
 The collection of all man pages on a system is called the Linux
Manual. The Linux is divided into sections, each of which covers
a particular topic, and every man page is associated with
exactly one of these sections.
 The sections are:
 Manual Sections.
 1 User Commands
 2 System Calls
 3 Library Calls
 4 Special Files
 5 File Formats
 6 Games
 7 Miscellaneous
 8 Administrative Commands
 man and man –k commands

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The info command
 info pages are structured like a website.
 Each page is divided into “nodes”.
 Links to nodes are preceded by “*”.
 info [<command>]
 If you run info with no arguments you
will be presented with a list links to the
top nodes of every available info page.

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Navigating info Pages
 While viewing an info page
 Navigate with arrows, pgUp, pgDown
 Tab Move to next link
 Enter Follow link the cursor is on
 n/p/u View next/previous/up-one node
 s[<text>] Search for text (default: last search)
 q Quit Viewing page
 If you prefer the navigation keys used by man, such
as using “/”, “n” and “N” to search, you can start info
with the –vi-keys arguments.

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Extended docs
 /usr/share/doc
 http://www.redhat.com/docs

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Miscellaneous
 ‘man –f foo’ is the same as ‘whatis foo’.
 If your system has just been installed,
neither man –f nor whatis will work
until an administrator runs makewhatis.
 ls –lh

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Unit 3

Browsing the File system

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Linux File Hierarchy Concepts
 Files and directories are organized into a
single-rooted inverted tree structure.
 Filesystem begins at the “root” directory,
represented by a lone “/” (Forward slash)
character.
 Names are case-sensitive.
 Paths are delimited by “/”.
 A user’s path is a list of directories that are
searched for commands typed at the
command line.

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Some Important Directories
 The essential binaries necessary to boot and maintain the
system reside in /bin for regular binaries and /sbin for
system binaries.
 Non-essential binaries, such as graphical environments,
web browsers, office tools and so forth, are installed in
/usr/bin and /usr/sbin.
 On a newly installed system, there will also be /usr/local/bin
and /usr/local/sbin directories, but they will be empty.
 CD-ROM is mounted under /media/cdrom folder.
 Filesystems that are on non-removable media but are not
part of the RHEL, hierarchy are usually mounted under
/mnt.
 Visit http://www.pathname.com/fhs

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Other Important Directories
 /etc -System Configuration Files
 /tmp -Temporary files
 /boot -Kernel and boot loader
 /var and /svr -Server data
 /proc and /sys -system Information
 The lib directories
 /lib, /usr/lib, /usr/local/lib
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On Folders
 Once a day the system automatically deletes
any files over seven days old in /tmp and it’s
subdirectories.
 The /var directory contains regularly-changing
system files such as logs, print spools and
email spools.
 In the future, server data may be moved to
the /srv directory so that /var only contains
logs, spools and so forth.
 Each shell and system process has a current
working directory (cwd).
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File and Directory Names
 Names may be up to 255 characters.
 All characters are valid, except the “/”.
 It may be unwise to use certain special
characters in file or directory names.
 Some characters should be protected with quotes when
referencing them.
 Names are case sensitive.
 Example: MAIL, Mail, mail and mAiL
 Again, possible but may not be wise.
 To access a file with name contains special
characters, enclose the filename in quotes.

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Absolute Pathnames
 Absolute pathnames begin with a slash (/)
 Complete “road map” to file location.
 Can be used anytime you wish to specify a file
name.
 To change to your previous working directory
 $ cd –
 A dash (-) represents your previous working
directory. It’s a handy shortcut to use to switch
back and forth between two directories.

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Copying Files and Directories
 cp – copy files and directories
 Usage:
 cp [options] file destination
 More than one file may be copied at a time if the
destination is a directory.
 cp [options] file1 file2 dest
 If final argument is an existing directory, a copy of
the source files are placed in that directory with the
same name as the source.
 Otherwise, the destination is interpreted as a file
name, and a copy of the source file is created with
that.

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On Copying
 When copying a single file to a destination, cp
first checks to see if a directory exists with
the destination name.
 If it does, a copy of the source file is placed
there with it’s original name.
 If not, the destination is assumed to be a new
file name, and a copy of the source file is
made with the destination name.

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Moving and Renaming Files
and Directories
 mv – move and/or rename files and directories.
 Usage:
 mv [options] file destination

 More than one file may be moved at a time if the

destination is a directory.
 mv [options] file1 file2 dest

 If the destination directory does not exit, the slash will

cause the command to fail with an error message.
 If the destination directory does not exist (but the
destination pathname is valid), the source directory
will be moved to the destination directory with the
new name.

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Creating and Removing Files
 rm – remove files
 Usage:
 rm [options] filenames…
 -i – interactive
 -r – recursive
 -f – force
 touch – create empty files or update file timestamps
 The –r option tells rm to remove files recursively and thus it will
delete directories and their contents.
 There is no way to undo the effects of rm, except to restore
from a backup.
 rmdir will only remove empty directories. To remove a directory
and it’s contents, use rm –r.

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Using Nautilus
 Gnome graphical Filesystem browser
 Can run in “Spatial” or “Browser” mode
 Accessed via …
 Desktop icons
 Home: Your home directory
 Computer: Root Filesystem, network resources
and removable media.
 “File Browser” option on Application menu.
 Typing CTRL-SHIFT-w closes all parent
windows.
 “Spatial” or “Browser Mode” can be edited.

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Moving and Copying in Nautilus
 Drag and Drop
 Left-button: Move on same filesystem,
copy on different system.
 Ctrl-Left-button : Always Copy
 Ctrl-Left-button: Ask whether to copy,
move or create symbolic link (alias)
 Context Menu
 Right-click or rename, cut, copy or paste.
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Determining File Content
 Files can contain many types of data.
 Check file type with file before opening to determine
appropriate command or application to use.
 Syntax
 file [options] filename(s)
 file prints its best guess of the type of data contained
in a file whose name is given as an argument. It
bases it’s guess on a comparison of the contents of
the file and the patterns and offsets in it’s reference
file, /usr/share/magic.

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Viewing an Entire Text File
 Syntax:
 cat [options] [files..]
 Contents of the files are displayed sequentially
with no break.
 Files display “concatenated”.
 -A Show all characters, including control
characters and non-printing characters.
 -s “Squeeze” multiple adjacent blank lines
into a single blank line.
 -b Number each (non-blank) line of output.

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Viewing Text Page by Page
 Syntax:
 less [options] [filename]
 Scroll with arrows/pgUp/pgDown
 Useful commands while viewing:
 /text --search for text
 n --next match
 v -- open file in text editor.
 less is the pager used by man
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On less
 Less navigation commands:
 <space> move ahead one full screen
 <return> move ahead one line
 <Ctrl-d> move ahead (down) half a
screen
 g move to the top of the file.
 /text search forward for text
 n repeat last search
 q quit
 b move back one full screen
 k move back one line
 <Ctrl-u> move back (up) half a screen
 G move to the bottom of the file
 ?text search backward for text
 N repeat last search, but in opposite direction.
 v open file in a text editor (vi by default)

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less options
 -c Clear before displaying. Screen is
redrawn instead of scrolled between
screens.
 -r Display raw control characters. (May
cause display problems)
 -s “squeeze” multiple blank lines into a single
blank line
 -e Exit the second time it reaches the end of
the line.
 -m Verbose prompt, like more (by default it
uses a colon).

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Unit 4
 The bash Shell

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bash introduction
 “Bourne Again Shell”
 Successor to sh, the original Unix shell
 Developed for the GNU Project
 The de factor standard Linux Shell
 Backward-compatible with Bourne shell
(sh)- the original (Standard) UNIX shell

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bash Heritage and Features
 Bourne Again Shell (bash)
 Implements many of the best features
from earlier shells: sh, csh, ksh , tcsh
 Command line completion
 Command line editing
 Command line history
 Sophisticated prompt control

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Command Line Shortcuts:
File Globbing
 Globbing is wildcard expansion:
 * - matches zero or more characters
 ? – matches any single character
 [a-z] – matches a range of characters
 [^a-z] – matches all except the range.
 The use of wildcards, or metacharacters, allows one
pattern to expand to multiple filenames by a process
called globbing.
 RHEL uses UTF-8 encoding of characters, which
means that each capital letter comes directly after
the corresponding lower-case letter.
 Use echo ?o* to find the effect of wild characters.

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Some topics: Tab, history, ~
 The TAB Key
 history
 !! – to repeat last command
 !c – to repeat last command that started with c
 !n – to repeat a command by its number in history output
 !?abc – to repeat last command that contains (as opposed to
“started with”) abc
 !-n – to repeat a command entered n commands back.
 User ^old^new to repeat the last command with old changed to
new.
 Tilde(~)
 May refer to your home directory ( ~/.bash_profile)
 May refer to another user’s home directory. (~gmustafa/.bashrc)

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Command Line Expansion:
Variable and String
 Parameter/Variable: ($)
 Substitute the value of a variable in a command
line.
 $ cd $HOME/public/html
 To see a list of variables and their values, run the
set command.
 Curly braces: { }
 A string is created for every pattern inside the braces
regardless if any file exists.
 $ rm hello.{c,o}
 Curly braces are useful for generating patterned strings.

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Command Line Expansion:
Command and Math
 Command Output – ‘’ or $ ()
 Substitute output from a command in a command
line.
 $ echo “Hostname: `hostname`”
 $ echo “Hostname: $(hostname)”
 Arithmetic - $[]
 Substitute result of arithmetic expression in a command
line.
 $echo Area : $[$X * $Y]
 $echo Area : `expr $X\*$Y`

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Protecting form Expansion:
Backslash
 Backslash (\) is the escape character
and makes the next character literal.
 $echo Your Cost :\$5.00
 Used as last character on line to
“Continue command on next line”
 $find / -name foo*
 $find / -name foo\*

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Protecting From Expansion:
Quotes
 Quotes prevents expansion
 Single quotes (‘) inhibit all expansion
 $echo ‘*** SALE ***`
 Double quotes(“) inhibit all expansion except :
 $ (dollar sign variable expansion
 ‘ (backquotes), command substitution
 \ (backslash), single character inhibition
 ! (exclamation point), history substitution
 Double quotes inhibit file name generation
expansion, but not other types.

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History Tricks
 Use the up and down arrow keys to scroll through
previous commands.
 Type <CTRL-R> to search for a command in
command history.
 {reverse-i-search)`’:
 To recall last argument from pervious command:
 <ESC>, (the escape key followed by a period)
 <ALT -.> (hold down the alt key while pressing the period)
 You can ignore repeated duplicate commands and
repeated lines that only differ in pre-pended spaces
by adding the following in your .bashrc
 export HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth

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Command Editing Tricks
 <Ctrl-a> moves to beginning of
line.
 <Ctrl-e> moves to the end of line.

 <Ctrl-u> deletes to beginning of

line
 <Ctrl-k> deletes to end of line.

 <Ctrl-arrow> moves left or right by

word.
* Inherited from emacs.

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Command Editing Tricks:
Editing Modes
 By default, bash uses emacs-style
keybindings for command editing.
 Type set –o vi to change keybinding to
vi-style.
 Make vi the default by adding the
command above to $HOME/.inputrc

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gnome-terminal
 Applications/System Tools/Terminal
 Graphical terminal emulator with
support for maintaining multiple
“tabbed” shells simultaneously.
 <Ctrl-Shift-t> Open a new tab
 <Ctrl-PgUp/PgDn> Next/Prev tab
 <Ctrl-Shift-c/v> Copy/Paste
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Unit 5
 Standard I/O and Pipes

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Standard Input and Output
 Linux provides three I/O channels to
processes
 Standard input – keyboard is default
 Standard Output – Terminal windows is default
 Standard Error – Terminal window is default.
 Error messages could be saved in a file with
the normal output going to the monitor.
 0,1,2 are called file descriptor.

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Redirecting Input and Output
 Standard Input, Output, and Error can be
reconnected to alternate locations.
 Shell redirection operators allow standard I/O
channels to be redirected to/from a file.
 Pipes allow standard I/O channels to connected to
the input or output of programs.
 Although it is also possible to pipe standard
error into a file using some fairly complex
syntax, this is generally not done.

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Redirecting and Piping
 Redirecting
 > command > file Directs standard output of command to file
 >> command > file Appends standard output of command to file.
 < command < file command receives it’s input from file.
 2> command 2>file Error messages from command are directed to file.
 2>> command 2>>file Error messages from command are appended to file.

 Piping
 | command1 | command 2 Pipes the standard output of command1 into the
standard input of command2.

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Overwriting or Appending
 If the target file of file redirection with >
already exists, the existing file will be
overwritten.
 To append data to an existing file, use >> to
redirect instead of >.
 Redirect standard output with >
 Example: redirect standard output to a file.
 Find /etc –name passwd > findresult.
 Standard error is still displayed on the screen.

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Redirecting Standard Error
 Redirect Standard Error with 2>
 Example: redirect standard error to a file:
 find /etc –name passwd 2> finderrors
 Standard output is displayed on the
screen.
 Redirecting further standard error,
appending to the same file, with 2>>.

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Redirecting Both Standard
Output and Error
 Redirection of Standard Output and
Standard Error can be performed
simultaneously.
 find / -name passwd 2> errs > results
 Each I/O Channel can be redirected to
different files, or to the same file:
 find / -name passwd > alloutput 2>&1
 (or) find / -name passwd &> alloutput

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Redirecting Input
 Redirecting Standard Input with <
 Some commands only operate on
Standard Input
 tr doesn’t accept filenames as arguments-
it requires it’s input to be rediected from
somewhere.
 tr ‘A-Z’ ‘a-z’ <.bash_profile
 This command will translate the uppercase
characters in .bash_profile to lowercase.

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Using Pipes To Connect Processes
 Pipes ( the | character) let you redirect
output from one command to become
the input to another command.
 $ ls /usr/lib | less
 Can create pipelines –a powerful
feature of Linux.
 $ cut –f1 –d: passwd | sort –r | less

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On Pipes
 Two of the basic tenets of UNIX philosophy are:
 Make small programs that do one thing well.
 And
 Expect the output of every program to become the input to
another, as yet unknown, program.
 And then Use pipes to do complex jobs on the fly.
 Any command that writes to standard output can be used on
the left-hand side of a pipe.
 Any command that reads from standard input can be used
on the right-hand side of a pipe.
 Multiple commands can be chained together with pipes.

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Useful Pipe Targets
 ls –l | less
 ls – l | mail –s “Files” [email protected]
 ls –l | lpr
 cat files_to_delete.txt | xargs rm –f
 tee
 Lets you tee a pipe: redirect output to a file while still piping
it to another program.
 $set | tee set.out | less
 In example, output from set is written to file set.out while
also being piped to less.
 Command | tee stage1.out | sort | tee stage2.out | uniq –c | \
tee stage3.out | sort –r | tee stage4.out | less

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Unit 6
 Users, Groups and Permissions

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 67

The Linux Security Model
 Users and groups are used to control access
to files and resources.
 User log in to the system by supplying their
user name and password.
 Every file on the system is owned by a user
and associated with a group.
 Every process has a owner and group
affiliation, and can only access the resources
it’s owner or group can access.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 68

Users
 Every user of the system is assigned a unique
User ID number( the uid).
 Users’ names and uids are stored in
/etc/passwd
 Users are assigned a home directory and a
program that is run when they log on (Usually
a shell).
 User cannot read, write or execute each
others’ files without permission.

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Groups
 Users are assigned to groups with unique
group ID numbers (the gid).
 gids are stored in /etc/group.
 Each user is given their own private group.
 They can also be added to other groups to gain
additional access.
 All users in a group can share files that
belong to the group.
 The primary group can be changed using the
newgrp command.

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The root user
 The root user: a special administrative
account.
 Sometimes called the superuser.
 root has complete control over the system.
 An ultimate capacity to damage the system.
 You should not log in as root without a very
good reason.
 Normal (“unprivileged”) users’ potential to do a
damage is limited.

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Linux File Security
 Every file and directory has permissions set
that determine who can access it.
 Permission are set for:
 The owner of the file (called the “user”, arguably
a misnomer)
 The group members
 All others
 Permissions that are set are called read,
write, and execute permissions.
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 72
Permission Types
 Four symbols are used when displaying permissions:
 r permission to read a file or list a
directory’s content
 wpermission to write to a file or
create of remove files from a
directory.
 x permission to execute a program or
change into a directory and do a long
listing of the directory.
 - no permission (in place of r, w, or x)
 A file may be removed by anyone who has write permission to
the directory in which the file resides regardless of the
ownership or permissions on the file itself.
 The first character of the long listing is the file type.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 73

Linux Process Security
 When a process accesses a file the user and
the group of the process are compared with
the user and group of the file.
 If the user matches, the user permission apply.
 If the group matches, but the user doesn’t, the
group permission apply.
 If neither match, the other permissions apply.
 Every process runs as a under the authority
of a particular user and with the authority of
one or more groups, this is called the
process’s security context.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 74

Changing Permissions-
Symbolic Method
 To change access modes:
 chmod [-R] mode file…
 Where mode is:
 u,g or o (a) for user, group and other
 + or – (=) for grand or deny
 r,w or x (s,t) for read, write and execute
 Examples:
 ugo+r Grant read access to all.
 o-wx Deny write and execute to others.
 Multiple comma separated operations can be give in
a single command

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Changing permissions-
Numeric Method
 Uses a three-digit mode number.
 First digit specifies owner’s permissions.
 Second digit specifies group permissions.
 Third digit represents other’s permissions.
 Permissions are calculated by adding:
 4(for read)
 2(for write)
 1(for execute)
 Example:
 chmod 640 myfile

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 76

Unit 7
 vi and vim Editor Basics and Printing

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 77

Overview of vi and vim
 vi: the “visual editor”, standard Linux
and Unix editor
 vim: the “vi improved” editor, standard
Red Hat editor
 On Redhat operating systems, the vi
command invokes vim.
 Derived from earlier Unix editors
 ed  ex  vi  vim

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Starting vi and vim
 To start vim: vi filename
 If the file exists, the file is opened and the
contents are displayed.
 If the file doesn’t exit, vi creates it when the
edits are saved for the first time.
 To use vi instead:
 unalias vi or
 \vi

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 79

Starting vi with different options
 vi -m myfile file is non-modifiable
 vi –R myfile file is only modifiable by using the
exclamation point :w!
 vi –n myfile do not use a swap file for backup
(useful for floppies)
 vi –r myfile recover data from a swap file after a
crash
 vi –x myfile encrypt file when saving, decrypt when
editing

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 80

Three modes of vi and vim
 Command Mode
 Cursor movement
 Change, delete, yank, put, search
 Insert mode
 Type in new text
 Return to command mode with <ESC>
 ex mode
 Configuring, exiting, saving
 Search and replace

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 81

Cursor Movement
 h left
 j down
 k up
 l right
 w word ahead
 b word back
 ( Sentence Back
 ) Sentence forward
 { Paragraph above
 } Paragraph below
 Arrow keys (, , etc) also work.
 A word is defined as a series of letters of the alphabet and numbers
uninterrupted by white space or punctuation.
 If the cursor is on a punctuation character, the word is terminated by
white space or a letter of the alphabet or number.

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Entering Insert Mode
 a append after the cursor.
 i insert before the cursor.
 o open a line below.

 A append to end of line.

 I insert at beginning of line.
 O Open a line above.
 Pattern such as these permeate the vi and
vim commands.

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Leaving Insert Mode: <Esc>
 <Esc> Takes you from insert mode
back to command mode
 Hint: When in trouble, press <Esc>
and then press <Esc> again.
 By doing this, you can guarantee that,
regardless of the mode you were in,
you will be now in command mode.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 84

Change, Delete and Yank
Change Delete Yank(Copy)
Line cc dd yy
Letter cl dl yl
Word cw dw yw
Sentence ahead c) d) y)
Sentence behind c( d( y(
Paragraph ahead c{ d{ y{
Paragraph behind c} d} y}

A line is yanked into a buffer, presumably to be put (or

pasted) back into the document at another location.

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Put (Paste)
 Use p or P to put (paste) copied or deleted data
 For line oriented data:
 p puts the data below the current line
 P puts the data above the current line
 For character oriented data:
 p puts the data after the cursor.
 P puts the data before the cursor.
 Jus as in vi and vim, we “yank” instead of “copy”, we
“put” instead of “paste”; take data from a buffer and
place it in the documents.

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Undoing Changes
 u undo most recent change
 U undo all changes to the
current line since the cursor
landed on the line.
 <Ctrl-r> redo last “undone”
change.
 The ‘u’ will not undo a previous u; that is, it will not toggle a
change, but rather undo several pervious changes.
 To undo all successive changes to the current line, use the U
command.
 To redo a change undone by a ‘u’ command, use the ‘<Ctrl-r>’
command.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 87

Searching for Text
 /text search downwards for “text”
 ?text Search upwards for “text”
 n continue search in the same
direction.
 N Continue search in the opposite
direction.

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Command-Mode Tricks
 dtc delete from cursor to the letter c
(does not span lines)
 5dd delete five lines( a number can
precede any of the two character
change, delete, yank or put
commands).
 x delete a character
 rc replace a character with c
 r replace character-for-character until
<Esc>

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 89

Saving and Exiting: ex mode
save changes Abandon changes
Exit :wq :q or :q!
Do not exit :w :e!

Forcing Changes:
Save changes
Exit :wq!
Do not Exit :w!
Abandon changes, staying in the editor, through :e! and force a
write through :w!. Finally, force a write through :w1!. Finally,
force a write and quit with :wq!. The last command will forcibly
write the file, but only quit if the forcible write was successful.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 90

Printing in Linux
 Printers may be local or networked.
 Print requests are sent to queues.
 Queued jobs are sent to the printer on a first
come first server basis.
 Jobs may be canceled before or during
printing.
 It support CUPS IPP (Common Unix Printing
Subsystem), lpd( Linux printing daemon),
windows, Netware and JetDirect printers.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 91

Printing commands
 lpr Send a job to the queue to be
printed
 Accepts ASCII, PostScript, PDF, others.
 lpq View the contens of the queue.
 lprm Remove a job from the queue.
 System V printing commands such as lp,
lpstat and cancel are also supported.
 A user may only remove his own print jobs
from the queue.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 92

Printing Utilities
 enscript Converts text to PostScript
 a2ps Converts text to PostScript
 ggv(GNOME GhostView) PostScript and PDF Viewer
 xpdf PDF viewer.
 ps2pdf PostScript to PDF converter.
 pdf2ps PDF to PostScript converter.
 mpage Prints multiple pages per sheet.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 93

Section 2
Red Hat Enterprise Linux:
A Deeper Look

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 94

Unit 8
 The Linux Filesystem In-Depth

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Partitions and Filesystems
 Disk drives are divided into partitions.
 Partitions are formatted with filesystems, allowing user to store
data.
 Default filesystem: ext3, the Third Extended Linux Filesystem.
 Other common filesystems:
 Ext2 and msdos (typically used for floppies)
 Iso9660 (typically used for CDs)
 A filesystem is a data structure written to the media that allows
users to store and access files.
 Ext2 at 1993, ext3 has Journaling to improve filesystem data
integrity.
 EA  Extended Attributes
 ACLs  POSIX Access Control Lists

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Inodes
 An inode table contains a list of all files in an
ext2 or ext3 filesystem.
 An inode (index node) is an entry in the table,
containing information about a file (the
metadata), including:
 File type, permissions, link count, UID, GID
 The file’s size and various time stamps
 Pointers to the file’s data blocks on disk.
 Other metadata about the file
 An individual entry in the inode table is called
an inode.
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 97
Directories
 The computer’s reference for a file is the inode
number.
 The human way to reference a file is by the file name.
 A directory is a mapping between the human name for
the file and the computer’s inode number.
 When a filename is referenced by a command or
application, Linux references the directory in which the
file resides, determines the inode number associated
with the file name, looks up the inode information in
the inode table, and , if the user has permission,
returns the contends of the file.
 The ls –i command displays the inode number.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 98

cp and inodes
 The cp command:
 Allocates a free inode number, placing a new
entry in the inode table.
 Creates a directory entry, referencing the files
human file name to the inode number.
 Copies data into the new file.
 When a file is copied to a new name in the
same directory, the directory and the inode
table get a new entry.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 99

mv and inodes
 If the destination of the mv command is on
the same filesystem as the source, the mv
command:
 Creates a new directory entry with the new file
name
 Deletes the old directory entry with the old file
name
 Has no impact on the inode table (except for a
time stamp) or the location of data on the disk.
 No data is moved!

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rm and inodes
 The rm command:
 Decrements the link count, thus freeing the
inode number to be reused.
 Places data block on the free list.
 Removes the directory entry.
 Data is not actually removed, but will be
overwritten the data blocks are used by
another file.
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Symbolic (or Soft) Links
 A symbolic link points to another file
 ls –l displays the link name and the
referenced file.
 File type: l for symbolic link
 The content of a symbolic link is the name of the
file that it references.
 Syntax:
 ln -s filename [linkname]
 Removing a symbolic link removes the actual
link itself, not the underlying file

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About Symbolic Links
 Symbolic link is a separate file from the
original.
 The first character of along listing for a
symlink is the letter l.
 Symlink has permission of 777.
 Permission of symlink are irrelevant; the
permissions set on the file pointed to by the
symlink control access rights.
 The size of the symlink is always the number
of characters in the path name.

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Hard Links
 One physical file on the system.
 Each link reference the file’s inode.
 File is present in the filesystem as long as at
least one link remains.
 Cannot span drives or partitions.
 Syntax:
 ln filename [linkname]
 A hard link is a path name that references an
inode: that is , all files are hard linked at least
once.

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On Hard Links
 The file names must be on the same
filesystem: because they share an inode
number and an inode table is unique to
a file system, both must be on the same
file system.
 It is not possible to use the ln command
to create additional hard links to
directories.
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The Seven Fundamental
Filetypes
 - regular files
 d directory
 l symbolic link
 b block special file
 c character special file
 p named pipe
 s socket
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 106
Extra Filetypes
 c character special file:
 Files referencing hardware are not regular files; they are one of the two
types of special files. Character special files are used to communicate with
hardware one character at a time.
 b block special file:
 Used to communicate with hardware a block of data at a time: 512 bytes,
1024 bytes, 2048 bytes: whatever is appropriate for that type of hardware.
Run the following command to see a list of block and character special files:
 ls –l /dev | less
 p named pipe:
 A file that passes data between processes. It stores no data itself, but
passes between one process writing data into the named pipe and another
process reading data from the named pipe. A named pipe can be created
using the mknod command:
 mknod mypipe p
 s socket:
 A stylized mechanism for interprocess communication. It is extremely rare
for a user or even a system administrator to explicitly create a socket.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 107

Miscellaneous tools
 df
 du
 mount
 umount
 eject
 mtools(mdir,mcopy)

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Unit 9
 Configuring the Bash Shell

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 109

Configuring the Bash Shell
 The Shell is configured through a
variety of mechanisms:
 Local Variables
 Aliases and functions
 The set and shopt commands
 The shell can also configure other
commands or applications through
environment variables.

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Variables
 A variable is a label that has a value.
 Used to configure the shell or other programs.

 Variables are resident in memory.

 Two types: local and environment

 Local Variables are used only by the shell.

 Environment variables are passed onto other commands.

 Display variables and values using:

 set to display all variables.

 env to display environment variables.

 The set, env and echo commands can be used to display all
variables, environment variables, and a single variable value,
respectively.
 set | less

 env | less

 echo $HOME

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 111

Configure the Shell: Local Variables
 Data in Shell scripts and environment settings stored
in variables.
 Conventionally all upper-case.
 Setting variable value:
 $FAV_COLOR=blue
 To retrieve variable value, use $ before the variable
name
 $echo $FAV_COLOR
 $blue
 For a list of variables that configure the shell, see the
Shell Variables section of the bash man page.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 112

Common Local Variables
 HISTFILESIZE
 Determines how many commands to be saved in the history file

on logout.
 COLUMNS
 Sets the width of the terminal( xterm, gonme-terminal or

kterm)
 LINES
 Sets the height of the terminal ( xterm, gonme-terminal or

kterm)
 HISTFILE
 Specifies the file in which history commands are stored on

logout
 HISTSIZE
 Specifies the number of history commands to keep while

operating interactively.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 113

The PS1 Local Variable
 PS1 sets the prompt
 Uses escape sequences to insert variable information in the
prompt.
 \d the date
 \h short hostname (not the FQDN)
 \tthe current time
 \u user name (useful if you have multiple
accounts)
 \w the current working directory.
 \!The history number of the current command.
 \$ show $ if you are non-privileged user and a # if
you are a privileged user, useful if you sometimes
become superuser.
 For a complete list of these prompting escape sequences, see
the PROMPTING section of the bash man page.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 114

Aliases
 Aliases let you create shortcuts to commands
 $ alias dir=‘ls –laF’

 Use alias by itself to see all set aliases.

 Use alias follow by an alias name to see alias value.
 $ alias dir

 $alias dir=‘ls –laF’

 In this case, if you ever want to use the rm

command itself, instead of your alias, you can
precede the command with a blackslash.
 \rm –r Junk

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 115

Other Shell Configuration
Methods
 Less common, but powerful commands to configure elements of the shell.
 set
 shopt
 set –b report termination of
background commands
immediately, rather than
waiting for next prompt.
 set –u unset variables generate an
error.
 set –o noclobber do not clobber with > and
>& operators.
 set –o vi use vi syntax on bash command
line instead of default emacs
syntax.
 For a complete list of set values, see the set command under the SHELL
BUILTIN COMMANDS section of the bash man page. Also in this section is a list
of items configurable through the shopt command.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 116

Configuring Commands:
Environment Variables
 Shell variables exit only in current shell
instance.
 Environment variables passed to subshells.
 Shell variables can be exported into
environment
 EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim; export EDITOR
 Export EDITOR=/usr/bin/pico
 To “blank” the value of an environment
variable, use the ‘unset’ built-in command.
 $unset EDITOR

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 117

Common Environment Variables
 HOME Path to user’s home directory
 LANG Identification of default language programs should
use; example: en_US.UTF-8 for U.S. English.
 PWD User’s current working directory.
 EDITOR Default editor programs should invoke for text
editing.
 LESS Options to pass to the less command.
 The less command has many options; to force a set of options to
always be used, set the LESS variable. For example: LESS=“-emqs”
 SHELL path to loging shell
 USER Username of user
 DISPLAY X Display Name
 VISUAL Name of visual editor

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 118

The TERM Environment
Variable
 TERM Environment variable setting the terminal
type.
 reset Command (not variable) used to reset a
terminal should the screen become corrupted.
 If a terminal is improperly set, the computer will not
be able to properly display data.
 For more complex adjustments to your terminal
settings, set the stty command.
 The stty command can perform a number of
terminal settings to your system.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 119

The PATH Environment
variable
 PATH colon separated list of locations where commands
can be found.
 When a command is executed and the path is not specified,
then the shell will look in these directories in the given order,
stopping on first match, to find the command.
 which command showing location in the PATH of an
executable
 $which xterm
 $ /usr/bin/xterm
 Executable’s location may be specified.
 $/bin/ls /etc
 ./myls /etc
 Use the built-in shell type command to ask the shell what is
using to fulfill the following commands.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 120

How the Shell Expands the
Command line
 A simplification:
 Split the line into words
 Function and alias expansion
 Curly brace string expansion
 Tilde expansion
 Parameter and variable expansion
 Split the line into words again
 File glob expansion
 File redirection
 Run the command!

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Shell Startup Scripts
 Scripts of commands executed at login
 Uses include:
 Configure the shell by setting local
variables or running the set and shopt
commands.
 Configure other programs through
environment variables
 Establish aliases
 Run program on Startup.
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 122
Login Shells
 Login shells are first shells started (i.e. when
you log in)
 Shells launched from a login shell typically are
not login shells.
 Login shells and non-login shells run different
startup scripts.
 A login shell is a shell that someone started
by login onto the system. A non-login shell is
a shell started up in some other way, perhaps
by a user or a program issuing the bash
command.
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 123
Startup scripts: Order of
Execution
 Login Shells
 /etc/profile
 /etc/profile.d
 ~/.bash_profile
 ~/.bashrc
 /etc/bashrc
 Non-login Shells
 ~/.bashrc
 /etc/bashrc
 /etc/profile.d
 Typical sorts of commands placed in startup scripts include:
 Local variable settings, particularly PS1
 Environment variable settings, such as PATH or LESS.
 Aliases, or perhaps unalias to remove undesired aliases set globally in
earlier scripts.
 A umask can be setted.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 124

/etc/profile
 System-wide startup script for login shells.
 Parsed by all users with Bourne-style shells, including
bash and sh.
 Usually sets default PATH variable, user limits, and
other variables and settings.
 Bash only sources /etc/profile if the shell is a login
shell.
 This script will set a series of variables including
PATH, USER, LOGNAME, MAIL, HOSTNAME,
HISTSIZE and INPUTRC.
 It will also run scripts in the /etc/profile.d directory.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 125

/etc/profile.d
 Some application-specific startup scripts in
this directory.
 Scripts called by a for-loop in /etc/profile
 Scripts set up variables and run initialization
procedures.
 Two copies of each script are listed in this
directory, a Bourne Shell style with a .sh
suffix, and a C shell style with a .csh suffix.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 126

~/.bash_profile and ~/.bashrc
 For user-specific settings
 Common to place variable settings, aliases
 Commands that place output to the screen, such
as the date command, should go in
.bash_profile, not .bashrc.
 The ~/.bash_profile file is only called by login
shells.
 Never put any command that may echo something
to the screen in the ~/.bashrc file; such command
belong in the ~/.bash_profile file only.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 127

~/.bash_logout
 Resides in home directory
 Executed when exiting a login shell.
 Useful for running programs
automatically at logout
 Example uses:
 Make backup of files
 Delete temporary files
 Display Date and time of logout.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 128

Mounting USB Media
 Detected by the kernel as SCSI devices.
 /dev/sdaX
 Automatically mounted in GNOME/KDE.
 Icon created in Computer window
 Mounted under /media/<Device ID>
 Device ID is build into device by vendor.
 Most vendors give USB disks a label. fstab-sync
reads that label and automatically puts an entry in
the /etc/fstab for it, mounting it in /media/<label>
 Like other disks, you can use fdisk and mke2fs to
create partitions and filesystems on USB disks.

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Mounting Floppy Disks
 Must be manually mounted and unmounted
 mount /media/floppy
 umount /media/floppy
 DOS floppies can be accessed with mtools.
 mount and unmounts device transparently.
 Uses DOS naming conventions.
 mdir a:
 mcopy /home/file.txt a:
 For a complete list of the mtools commands, run
mtools and/or consult the mtools info page.

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Formatting Floppy Disks
 Two types of format needed to prepare a floppy:
 A low level format (rarely needed)
 $fdformat /dev/fd0H1440
 A filesystem, one of :
 $mkfs –t ext2 /dev/fd0
 $mke2fs /dev/fd0
 $mkfs –t vfat /dev/fd0
 mformat a:
 Only the superuser or a non-privileged user logged
into the system console can run these commands.
Others do not have permission to do this.

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Why archive Files?
 Archiving places many files into one
target file.
 Easier to backup, store and transfer.
 tar – standard Linux archiving
command.
 Originally, tar was used to create
archieves on tap devices, hence it’s
name- which stand for tape achieve.

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Creating an Archive
 Syntax:
 tar cvf archive_name files…
 c creates a new archive.
 v produces verbose messages.
 F archive_name is the name of the
new file.

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Inspecting Archives
 Syntax:
 tar tf archive_name.tar
 tar tvf archive_name.tar
 First form displays a list of all files in the
archive.
 The v causes a long listing (like ‘ls –l’)
of each file in the archive.

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Extracting an Archive
 Syntax
 tar xvf archive_name.tar
 The archive will be extracted in the
current directory.
 Change to the target directory first.
 Files maintain their hierarchy relative to
the current directory.

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Why Use file Compression?
 Results in smaller file size
 Text files can be compressed over 75%
 Binary files usually don’t compress much, if any.
 tar archives are often compressed.
 When text files often have patterns that lead to
compression ratios of up to 75%, binary files rarely
compress well with 0-25% being, typical.
 In fact, it is possible for a “compressed” binary file to
actually be larger than the original.

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Compression Utilites
 gzip, gunzip
 Standard Linux compression utility
 Up to 75% compression for text files.
 bzip2, bunzip2
 Newer Linux compression utility.
 Generally achieves better compression than gzip.
 The gunzip command can also uncompress files,
compressed with the traditional Unix compress
command, making compress essentially obsolete.
 zip
 Compatible with DOS/Windows PKzip/Winzip utilites and can
compress more than one file into a single file.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 137

On Compression
 The traditional compress command can reduces the
text file by more than half. The Standard gzip
command does a better job, reducing the file to less
than 1/3 of the original size. Finally, the newer bzip2
command reduces the file to /14 of the original file.
 The –c option to the gzip command leaves the
original compressed file alone, but sends and
uncompressed copy of the file to standard output.
The –d option decompresses a file, making ‘gzip –d
file.gz’ equivalent to ‘gunzip file.gz’

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Compressing Archives
 Often tar archives are compressed
 tar can compress/uncompress archives.
 Compression switches- use during
creation and extraction
 z for gzip compression
 j for bzip2 compression.

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tar to Unformatted Floppies
 Floppies can be used like tape drives
 Low level format requied
 File system not needed
 Use tar to write to the floppy.
 /dev/fd0 is the destination
 Floppy cannot be mounted
 Example:
 tar czvf /dev/fd0 mydir

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Unit 11
 Advanced Topics in Users, Groups, and
Permissions

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User and Group ID Numbers
 User names map to user ID numbers.
 Group names map to group ID numbers.
 Data Stored on the hard disk is stored
numerically.
 The user name and group affiliation of the
file are not stored; rather, the user ID
number and the group ID number are
stored.
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 142
/etc/passwd, /etc/shadow,
and /etc/group files
 Authentication information is stored in plain is stored in plain text files:
 /etc/passwd
 /etc/shadow
 /etc/group
 /etc/gshadow
 The /etc/passwd file contains seven fields: user name, password
placeholder (for historical reasons), uid number, gid number of the
user’s primary group, GECOS filed (usually containing the user’s real
name), home directory, and shell to be run when the user logs in.
 The /etc/group file contains four fields: group password placeholder,
gid number, and a comma separated list of group members.
 The /etc/shadow file is referenced when someone logs in: the file
contains a mapping of a user name to a password.
 For a complete list of fields, see the man page
 $man 5 shadow

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System Users and Groups
 Server programs such as web or print servers
typically run as unprivileged users, not as
root.
 Examples: daemon, mail , lp, nobody.
 Running programs in this way limits the
amount of damage any single program can
do the system.
 These accounts exist primarily so that server
programs can run as non-privileged users or
as particular groups.

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Changing Your Identity
 To change your password, run passwd
 Insecure passwords are rejected.
 To start a new shell as a different user:
 su
 su –
 su username
 su - username

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User Information Commands
 Find out who you are
 whoami
 Find out what groups you belong to
 groups, id
 Find out who is logged in
 users, who, w
 Login/reboot history
 last
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 146
Default Permissions
 Default permission for files is 666
 Default permission for directories is 777
 umask is subtracted from default to determine new
file/directory permissions.
 Non-privileged users’ umask is 002
 Files will have permission of 664.

 Directories will have permission of 775.

 Root’s umask is 022.

 Executive privilege is always denied a newly-create file,
regardless of the umask in effect. Execute privilege always
has to be explicitly granted to a file. Execute permission is
given to a directory upon creation, unless explicitly denied
by the umask.

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Special Permissions
 Special permissions: a fourth permission set
(in addition to user/group/other)
 Applicable in four cases:
 suid for an executable (4)
 sgid for an executable (2)
 sgid for a directory (2)
 sticky bit for all directory (1)
 Set with chmod or Nautilus.
 chmod 3775 groupdir

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Special Permission for
Executiables
 Special Permission for Executables:
 suid: Command run with permission of the owner of the
command, not the executor of the command. Like passwd.
 sgid: command runs with group affiliation of the group
of the command.
 In a long listing, the suid permission is displayed as a
lower case “s” where the “x” would otherwise be
located for the user permission (an upper case “S”
would be present if the underlying executable
permission is not set.)
 Commands running with the sgid permission run
with the group affiliation of the group of the
command.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 149

Special Permission for Directories
 Special permissions for directories:
 Sticky bit: files in directories with the sticky
bit set can only be removed by the owner
and root, regardless of the write
permissions of the directory.
 Sgid : files created in directories with the
sgid bit set have group affiliations of the
group of the directory.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 150

On Sticky Bits
 The sticky bit for a directory sets a special
restriction on deletion of files: with the sticky
bit set, only the owner of the file, and the
superuser, can delete files within the
directory.
 The sgid permission for a directory means
that files created in the directory will inherit
its group affiliation from the directory, rather
than inheiriting it from the user.
 Often both the sticky bit and the sgid
permission will be set on a group directory.
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 151
Section 3
 RHEL Power Tools

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 152

Unit 13
 Introduction to String Processing

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 153

head
 Displays first few lines (default: 10
lines) of the text in a file.
 $head /tmp/output.txt
 Use –n or --lines displayed
 $head –n 20 /tmp/output.txt

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 154

tail
 Displays last few lines (default: 10 lines) of text in a
file
 $tail /etc/passwd
 Use –n or –-lines to change number of lines
displayed.
 $tail –n 5 /etc/passwd
 tail is often used by the system administrator to
read the most recent entries in the log files.
 Use -f to follow the end of a text file as it changes.
 $tail –f make.out
 Used to “watch” log files.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 155

wc
 “word count” – also counts lines and
characters
 $wc story.txt
 Use –l for only line count
 Use –w for only word count
 Use –c for only character count

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 156

sort
 Sorts text to stout – original file unchanged
 $ sort [options] files…
 Common options
 -r Reverses sort to sort descending
 -n Numeric sort
 -f ignore (fold) case of characters in strings.
 -u unique (remove duplicate lines in output).
 -t‘ x’ – use x as field separator.
 -k POS1 – sort from field POS1
 -k POS1.POS2 – Sort using fields POS1 ending at POS2.
 The argument to the –k can be two numbers separated by a
dot. In this case, the number before the dot is the field number
and the number after the dot is the character within that field
with which to begin the sort.

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uniq
 Removes successive, duplicate lines in a file.
 Can use in conjunction with sort to remove all
duplicates ( or use sort –u)
 Use –c to count number of occurrences of duplicate
data.
 To print only unique line occurrence in a file
(“removing” all duplicate lines), input to uniq must
first be sorted.
 Since uniq can be given fields or columns on which to
base it’s decisions, these are the fields or columns
upon which it’s input must be sorted.

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On uniq
 Use –u to output only the lines that are truly unique
– only occurring once in the input.
 Use –d to output only print one copy of the lies that
are repeated in the input.
 Use –c to produce a frequency listing. Each line will
be prepended with a number indicating how many
times it appears in the input.
 Use –fn or -sn to avoid comparing the first n fields or
characters in each line respectively.
 $cut –d: -f7 /etc/passwd | sort | uniq

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 159

cut
 Display specific columns of file data
 $cut –f4 results.data
 -f specifies field or column
 -d specifies field delimiter (default is
TAB)
 $cut –f3 –d: /etc/passwd
 -c cuts by characters
 $cut –c2-5 /user/share/dict/words

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 160

Other String processing Tools
 paste – paste files together
 tr – character translator
 paste combines files “horizontally”. It takes a line
from each file and “pastes” them together to
standard output, separated by a tab. Use –d option
to change the output of the output delimeter.
 $paste –d: ids.txt data.txt > merged.txt
 tr is used to translate characters; that is, given two
ranges of characters, any time a character in range 1
is found, it is translated into the equivalent character
in range 2. This command is commonly used in shell
scripts to ensure that data is in an expected case.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 161

Version Comparison with diff
 Compares two files for differences
 $diff area.c /tmp/area.c
 33c33
 < x = y +2;
 ----
 > x = y+4;
 33c33 indicates line where files differ
 < indicates line in first file.
 > indicates line in second file.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 162

Spell checking with aspell
 Interactive spell-checker
 Easy way to check spelling in a file.
 $aspell check letter.txt
 Can create personal dictionary
 look – quick spell check.
 $look must
 $aspell –l will non-interactively list the
misspelled words in a file read from standard
input.
 Visit http://aspell.sourceforge.net

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 163

Formatting Tools
 expand – expand tabs into spaces
 fmt - reformat text into paragraph.
 fmt formats its input paragraphs of the line width you
specify with –wn. You can also request uniform spacing
(with two spaces after each sentence) with u. fmt interprets
blank line in its input as paragraph delimiters.
 pr -reformat text for printing
 By default, it outputs 66-line pages including 56 lines of text
and a header (which can be suppressed)
 $ pr –f /usr/share/dict/words | lpr

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 164

Awk , tcl, perl
 Advanced!
 More advanced.
 Simple

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 165

Unit 12
 Advanced Uses of the vi and vim
Editors

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 166

File Repositioning
 G go to last line in the file
 1G go to first line in file (any
number can be given and curser
will jump to that line)
 <Ctrl-f> go forward one full screen
 <Ctrl-b>go back one full screen
 <Ctrl-d>go down half a screen
 <Ctrl-u>go up half a screen
 This is useful when an error message tells you that
an error exists on the particular line of a file. You can
use the G command preceded by that number to
jump right to the offending line.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 167

Screen Repositioning
 H go to first line on screen(high)
 M go to middle line on screen
(middle)
 L go to last line on screen(low)
 z<Enter> Make current line first line on
screen.
 z- make current line last line on
screen.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 168

Filtering
 The output of a command can be placed in the file.
 The data in the file can be used as input of a
command.
 Examples:
 !!date
 Replace current line with the output of date command.
 !}sort
 The paragraph will then be replaced with the output of the sort
command.
 !}fmt -66
 Will replace the paragraph with a paragraph formatted to be
less than 66 characters wide.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 169

ex mode: Search and Replace
 sed style search and replace
 Different default addressing rule.
 No address current line only.
 1,12 Change lines 1 through 12
 1,$ or % for changes in the entire file.
 .,.+10 from current line(“.”) to
current line plus 10 lines (“.+10”)
 Example: :%s/Ohiho/Iowa/g
 :%s’/dev/had’ /dev/sda’g
 :%s/\/dev\/had/\/dev/\sda/g
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 170
Visual Mode
 Allow selection of blocks of text
 v character-oriented highlighting
 Vline-orienting highlighting
 <Ctrl-v> block orienting highlighting
 Visual Keys can be used in conjunction with movement keys:
w, ), }, arrows, etc.
 Highlighted text can be deleted, yanked, changed, filtered,
search/replaced, etc.
 c change d delete y yank(copy)
 gg format to ‘textwidth’ columns
 > indent
 < unindent

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 171

Advanced Reading and Saving
 :r newfile
 :r !date
 :1,20w xfile
 :.,$w yfile
 :1,20w >>zfile
 :n otherfile
 :n! otherfile
 :n#
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 172
Configuring vi and vim
 Configuring on the fly
 :set or :set all
 Configure permanetly
 ~/.vimrc or ~/.exrc
 A few common configuration items
 :set showmatch or :se sm or :se nosm
 :set autoindent or :se ai or :se noai
 :set textwidth=65 (vim only)
 :set wrapmargin=15 :set wrapmargin=0
 :se wm=15 and :se wm=0
 :set ignorecare or :se ic or :se noic
 :set number or :se nu or :se nonu

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 173

Expanding your vocabulary
 Learn more cursor movements
 Expanding change, delete, yank, and put
vocabulary
 Add the advanced material from the
appendix to your skill base.
 Learn more configuration features.
 Play with filters.
 :help
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 174
Cursor Movements
 0 start of current line
 $ end of current line
 ^ first nonblank character of current line.
 e end of next word
 gg top of current file
 n% go to a line n percent through the current file
 n| go to column n of the current line
 Read the material in :help. Learn to maneuver around
the online help. Place the cursor over one of the |
tags| and go to that with <Ctrl-]> keystroke,
returning to the previous screen with :n#. This is a
rich resource well worth being mined extensively.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 175

Unit 14
 String Processing with Regular
Expressions

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 176

Pattern Matching with Regular
Expressions
 Regular expressions are a pattern matching
engine
 Used by many tools, including: grep, sed,
less , vi, awk
 Values:
 Power over ease of use
 Greed!
 Two types:
 Basic
 Extended

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 177

Tools with Regular Expressions
 grep : the general regular expression
processor, which analyzes the contents of files a line
at a time, returning line that match a pattern.
 Sed : the stream editor, returns the contents of a file
(or stream of data), performing a specified search
and replace instruction.
 less : which uses regular expression in search
commands.
 vi : which uses regular expression for
searches (like less) or search and replace (like sed).
 awk : a data oriented programming language.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 178

More on Regular Expression
 Regular expressions are greedy. That is, if a
regular expression can match a smaller string
or a bigger string, it will always match the
largest string possible.
 Types:
 wildcard characters that stand for some other
character
 Modifiers, that modify the preceding character.
 Anchors that anchor a character sequence to the
beginning or end of a line or the beginning or end
of a word.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 179

Wildcard characters
 Wildcard characters stands for another single
characters:
 . Any single character
 [abc] any single character in the set
 [a-c] any single character in the range.
 [^abc] any single character not in the set
 [^a-c] any single character not in the
range.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 180

Modifiers
 Modifiers determine the number of previous character
 * zero or more of the previous char
 \+ one or more of the previous char
 \? Zero or one of the previous character
 \{i\} exactly ‘i’ of the previous character
 \{i,\} i or more of the previous char
 \{i,\j\} i to j of the previous character.
 The \+ and \? Sequences also modify the previous
character as described. Be warned that this syntax
may not be portable across all Unix-like operating
systems.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 181

Modifiers Example
 a*
 ab*c
 [a-z][0-9]*[a-z]
 r\{6\}
 #\{3,5\}
 [0-9]\{9,\}

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 182

Anchors
 Anchors match the beginning or end of a line
or word.
 ^ line begins with
 $ line ends with
 \< word beings with
 \> word ends with
 Absent the preceding backslashes, the <and>
characters are ordinary characters with no
special meaning.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 183

Example Anchors
 ^Hi
 ^Hello$
 \<cat
 can\>
 \<cat\>
 <cat>

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 184

regex combinations
 Regular expression are most useful in combination
with each other.
 .* zero or more of any character.
 [a-z]* zero or more character
 \<cat\> the word ‘cat’
 ab..ef ab and ef separated by two chars.
 .\{32\} 32 of any character
 \* a literal asterisk
 A special character in regular expression preceded by
a backslash, \, is said to be quoted and so had no
special meaning, but rather stands for itself only.

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Quote your regex’s!
 On the command line, quote regular expressions.
 $grep ‘mail.*tar’ *.txt
 File name generation characters must remain
unquoted.
 Do not user quotes in regular expressions within
commands.
 Command using regular expressions outside
command line do not require quotes. For example,
using regular expressions to search for text search
for text while in the less command do not require
quotes.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 186

grep
 Prints lines of files where a pattern is
matched
 $grep gmustafa /etc/passwd
 Also used as filter in pipelines.
 $ls | grep .c
 Uses regular expressions
 $grep ‘[0-9][A-Z]\{3\}[0-9]\{3\}’ cars

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 187

Common options of grep
 -v return lines that do not contain
pattern
 -n precede returned lines with line numbers.
 -c only return a count of line with the
matching pattern.
 -l only return the names of the files that have
at least one line containing the pattern.
 -r perform a recursive search of files,
starting with the named directory.
 -i perform a case-sensitive search.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 188

On grep
 “ One afternoon I asked Ken Thompson if he
could lift the regular expression recognizer
out of the editor and make a one-pass
program to do it. He said yes. The next
morning I found a note on my mail
announcing a program named grep. It
worked like a charm. When asked what that
funny name meant. Ken said it was obvious.
It stood for the editor command that it
simulated. g/re/p (global regular expression
print).” – Doug McIlroy

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 189

Using cron
 Must edit and install your cron table file
 Cron table file cannot be edited directly
 Edit the file and then install with crontab or
 Edit the file through crontab
 Syntax:
 contab [-u user] file
 crontab [-l|-r|-e]
 Cron table files( crontabs ) are stored in
/var/spool/cron, which is not accessible by
non-privileged users.

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Using sed
 Quote search and replace instructions
 Sed addresses
 $ sed ‘s/dog/cat/g’ pets
 $ sed ‘1,50s/dog/cat/g’ pets
 $ sed ‘/digby/,/duncan/s/dog/cat/g’ pets
 Multiple sed instructions
 $ sed –e ‘s/dog/cat/’ –e ‘/s/hi/lo’ pets
 $ sed –f myedits pets

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 191

less and slocate
 Searches in less use regular expressions
 /h[aeiou]t
 Searches in slocate can use regular
expression.
 $ slocate –r ‘tig.*png’
 With the –r option, place the regular
expression in quotes and all files matching
this pattern will be returned.
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 192
Regular Expressions in vi and vim
 Regular expressions operate in less-like search
operations.
 Example:
 /1RKZ[68][0-9]3
 ?\<[0-9]\{3\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{4\}\>
 This would search upward in the file for social security
numbers.
 And in sed-like search and replace commands
 Example:
 :1,$s/\<[Cc]at\>\& and dog/g

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 193

Extended Regular Expressions
 An extended of the regular expression
set
 Tools that use extended regex’s
 egrep
 grep –E ( same as egrep)
 awk

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Extended regex Syntax
 Most basic regular expression are
supported.
 Basic regular expressions requiring a
preceding backslash no longer require
backslash
 a{10,12} counter: 10,11, or 12 letter “a”s
 Exception: word anchors (“\<“ and “\>”)
still require backslashes.
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awk
 Programming language for editing text
 Searches a file for lines matching a
pattern or patterns.
 Performs specified actions on matching
lines.
 Search patterns are extended regular
expressions.
 $ awk ‘/tcsh/ {print}’ /etc/passwd
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Using awk
 awk programs are data-driven.
 awk rules contain a pattern and an action in curly braces
 Pattern {action}
 The action is taken on any line matching the pattern.
 $awk ‘/[2-5]+/ {print}’ /etc/inittab
 $awk ‘{print}’ /etc/fstab
 $awk ‘{print $2,$1}’ /etc/fstab
 $awk ‘{print $2” “$1} /etc/fstab
 All extended regular expression should work with awk, except
for the curly brace counters. To use these, you must use the –
posix or –re-interval options to awk.

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Unit 15
 Finding and processing Files

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slocate
 Can be invoked as slocate or locate
 Queries a pre-built database of paths to files on the system.
 Database is updated nightly with cron.
 Full path is searched, not just filename.
 May only search directories where the uses has read and
execute permission.
 slocate is the “Security Enhanced Version of Locate”.
 If you look at the /usr/bin/locate command you will see that it is
really a symbolic link to the slocate command.
 locate and slocate can use regular expressions when searching
this database to provide information to perform a “fuzzy”
search.

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slocate examples
 $slocate foo
 Search for files with foo in the name or path.
 $slocate -r ‘\.foo$’
 Regex search for files ending in .foo
 Useful options
 i: case-insensitive
 -n X: show only the first X matches.
 slocate only accepts basic regular expressions not
extended regular expressions.
 If you decide to use –n to limit the number of results
printed by slocate, slocate will only print the first –n
<num> results.

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find
 $ find [directory…] [criteria…]
 Searches directory trees in real-time
 Slower but more accurate than slocate
 CWD is used if no starting directory given
 All files are matched if no criteria given.
 Can execute commands on found files
 May only search directories where the user has read and
execute permission.
 Find has a huge amount of options that can be provided to
describe exactly what kind of file should be found.
 You can search bases on file name, file size, last modified time
stamp, inode number, and many, many more.
 find allows you to perform arbitrary actions on arbitrary files.

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Basic find examples
 $ find –name show.png
 Search for files named show.png
 $find / -name “*.png”
 $find -iname show.png
 Case-insensitive search for files named show.png, Snow.png,
SNOW.PNG, etc.
 $find –user gmustafa –group gmustafa
 Search for files owned by the user gmustafa and the group
gmustafa
 The –regex option in find does not work quite the way one
would expect. –regex applies the regular expression to the
name of the file, including the absolute path to the file.

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find and Logical operators
 Criteria and ANDed together by default.
 Can be OR’d or negated with –o and –not
 Parentheses can be used to determine logic order, but must be
escaped in bash.
 $ find –user gmustafa –not –group root
 $ find -user gmustafa –o –user root
 $ find –not\(-user gmustafa –o –user root \)
 $ find / -name “*.png” –user gmustafa –mtime+12
 $ find / -name “*.png” –not –user abcd
 Logical ANDs have a higher priority than a logical OR, and a
logical NOT has a higher priority than an AND or an OR.
 To force precedence of an expression, you can enclose options
that should be grouped together in parentheses.

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find and Permissions
 Can match ownership by name or id (-user, -group, -uid, -gid)
 $ find / -owner gmustafa –gid 500
 Can match octal or symbolic permissions
 $ find –perm 755 # if anyone can write
 $ find –perm +2 #if anyone can write
 $ find –perm -2 #if everyone can write
 $ find –perm +o+w# if other can write
 Use –not to test denied permissions.

 A numeric permission preceded by – will match files that have at least one
bit (user, group or other) for that permission set.
 Symbolic permission by a + will match any file where all criteria are met.
 To match files where someone has been denied a permission, simply write
a search for files where the permission is granted and then negate it. In
other words, to find files where neither the user nor the group have read
access you could use something like: find –not –perm +ug+r

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find and Numeric Criteria
 Many find criteria take numeric values
 $ find –size 10M
 Files with a size of exactly 10 Megabytes.
 $ find –size +10M
 Files with a size over 10 Megabytes
 $ find -size -10M
 Files with a size less than 10 Megabytes
 $ find / -atime 5
 The date of the last time the file was read (-atime)
 $ find / -mtime +5
 The date of the last change to the file’s data (-mtime)
 $ find / -ctime -5
 The date of the last changes to the file’s metadata. (-ctime)

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find execution examples
 $find –name “*.conf” –exec cp {} {}.orig \;
 Create backup copies of configuration files, adding a .orig
extension
 $find /tmp –ctime +3 –user gmustafa –ok rm {} \;
 Prompt to remove gmustafa’s tmp files over 3 days old.
 $find ~ -perm +2 –exec chmod o-w {} \;
 Fix world-writable files in your home directory.
 If your –exec command does not include {}, find will
still execute the command once for each file that is
found.

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Find and Access times
 find can match by inode timestamps
 -atime : when file was last read
 -mtime : when file data last changed
 -ctime : when file metadata last
changed
 Value given is in days
 $find –mtime -10
 Files modified less than 10 days ago.

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More of *time
 While the values passed to –atime, -ctime and –mtime are
measured in days, there are also corresponding criteria that
perform searches in minutes: -amin, -cmin and –mmin.
 You can match access times relative to the timestamps of other
files using -anewer, -cnewer and –newer, which test
mtimes.
 $ find –newer recent_file.txt
 Would list all files with mtimes more recent that that of recent_file.txt.
 To match files older than recent_file.txt you would simply
negate the –mnewer criteria.
 $ find –not –newer recent_file.txt
 The metadata, including all three timestamps, for a file can be
manually examined using the stat command.

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Executing commands with find
 Commands can be executed on found files.
 Command must be proceeded with -exec or –ok
 -ok prompts before acting on each file.
 Command must end with <space>\;
 Can use {} as a filename placeholder
 $ find –size +100M –ok gzip {} \;
 -ok options, which caused find to ask for each file.
 When a character is prepended with a backslash (\),
bash is instructed to treat it literally, so typing \; at
bash’s command prompt will send; to find after bash
has done it’s interpretations.

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Unit 16
 Investigating and Managing processes

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What is a process?
 A process is an executing program which has
many components and properties
 Exec thread
 PID
 Priority
 Memory context
 Environment
 File descriptors
 Security credentials

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How Processes are created?
 Once process “forks” a child, pointing to the
same pages of memory, and marking the
area as read-only.
 Then the child “execs” the new command,
causing a copy-on-write fault, thus copying to
a new area of memory.
 A process can exec, without forking
 The child maintains the process ID of the parent.

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Process Ancestry
 init is the first process started at boot
time –always has PID 1
 Except init, every process has a parent.
 Processes can be both a parent and a
child at the same time.
 pstree shows the process ancestry for
all process running on the system.

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Process States
 A process can be on of the many states:
 -R Runnable (on the run queue)
 process in the run queue. It is waiting for it’s turn to run or it is executing.
 -S Sleeping
 Process is not executing, not it is ready to run. It is waiting for an event to occur
or a signal to arrive to wake it up.
 -T stopped
 Process is not executing because it has been stopped.
 -D Uninterruptible sleep
 Process is sleeping and can not be woken up until an even occurs. It can be
woken by a signal. Typically, the result of an I/O Operations.
 -Z Defunct (Zombie) process
 Just before a process dies, it sends a signal to it’s parent and waits for an
acknowledgement before terminating. Even if the parent process does not
immediately acknowledge the signal, all resources except for the process identity
number (PID) are released. Zombie process are cleared from the system during
the next system reboot and do not adversely affect system performance.

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Viewing process
 ps
 Displays processes information
 Syntax: ps [options]
 Useful options:
 a Processes by all users
 x process from all terminal
 u show process owner
 w include command arguments
 f show process ancestry.
 The options described above are based on output conforming to the UNIX98
Standard.
 -l long listing. Includes more information such as the process owner’s UID.
 $ ps –alx | grep ‘lpd’
 $ pgrep lpd
 The above two command are identical.

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Sending Signals to Processes
 Syntax:
 $ kill [-signal ] pid(s)
 $ kill [-signal] %jobID
 Sends the specific signal to a process
 Defult signal is TERM
 $kill –l lists all available signals
 $killall
 Read man 7 signal.
 kill can send many signals, but processes only respond to the
signals they have been programmed to recognize.
 Signals may be sent to processes interactively using top and
gnome-system-monitor.

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Terminating Processes
 Most desirable way to end a process is
to let it end normally
 Commands finish, applications are exited.
 Can attempt to interrupt with <Ctrl-c>
(INT) or send a TERM signal
 If all else fails, send a KILL signal.
 Using KILL signals on a route basis may
cause zombie process and lost data.
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Interactive Process
Management Tools
 Display real-time process information
 Allow sorting, killing and renicing
 Command-line: top
 GUI: gnome-system-monitor
 Read: man top and help of gnome-
system-monitor

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Running a Process in the
Foreground
 When a command is entered, the shell
will not process further input until the
process is complete and the shell
prompt is redisplayed. i.e. job control.
 The typeahead buffer allows you to
type other command, but they will not
be processed until the pending process
completes, or “returns”.
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Altering process scheduling
priority
 At process invocation time
 Syntax:
 $ nice [-n adjustment] command
 Processes are scheduled with a Defult priority of 0
 Priority value can range from -20 (highest priority) to
19 (lowest).
 $ nice myprog
 $ nice –n 15 myprog
 Non-privileged users may not set niceness value to
less than zero; that is , they may not request a
higher than normal priority for their processes. This
is a function reserved for the superuser.

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Altering Process scheduling
Priority – (continued)
 renice changes the priority of a running process.
 $ renice # [ [ -p | g] PID] [[-u]user]
 # is the priority value.
 Once a priority value is raised, a non-privileged user can not
lower it.
 $ renice 15 –p < PID of user’s offending, greedy process>
 $ renice -15 –p <PID of some user’s critical process>
 The –p options is not necessary.
 If you wish to change the priority of an entire process group,
use the –g option.
 Use –u option, to modify the priority of all the process of a
particular user.
 $ renice 15 –u gmustafa

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Running a Process in the
Background
 Running a command in the background allows another
process to run concurrently on the same terminal.
 Launch a program as a background process by appending
an ampersand (&) to the end of a command:
 $firefox &

 When a process is started in the background, a new bash

“sub-shell” is created.
 The bash program is then replaced with the command
being executed (the fork then exec procedure).
 Background processes can be managed like any other
process.

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Suspending a Process
 Foreground jobs can be suspended:
temporarily halted without being killed
 Suspend a foreground process with <Ctrl-z>
 Suspended jobs can be:
 Resumed in the background (bg)
 Resumed in the foreground (fg)
 When the job resumes, it will continue
executing from the point at which it was
suspended, it will not have to start over from
the beginning.

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Listing Background and
Suspended Jobs
 jobs displays all process running in the
background or that suspended.
 The number in brackets is a job
number, used to kill jobs or bring them
back to the foreground.
 Job numbers are referenced with %.

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Resuming Suspended Jobs
 When a command is suspended or
backgrounded, it can be brought back
to the foreground with fg.
 Suspended jobs can be resumed in the
background with bg.
 Syntax:
 $ fg [%job_number]
 $ bg [%job_number]

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Compound Commands
 List of commands separated by semi-colons
 List inside () to run inside a subshell
 $ (cd /usr; du ) &
 A subshell group will combine the commands
so they are treated them as one unit.
 When a group of commands is placed inside
parentheses, a new subshell is spawned and
output can be redirected as if it were one
command.
 $ (date; who | wc –l) >> logfile

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Scheduling a Process to
Execute Later
 Syntax:
 $ at time
 <commands>
 $ atq [user]
 $ atrm [user|atJobID]
 Commands will be executed at the time indicated
 Non-redirected output is mailed to the user.
 $ at 8:00pm December 7
 $ at 7 am Thursday
 $ at now + 5 minutes
 $ at midnight +23 minutes

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Scheduling Periodic Processes
 The cron mechanism allows processes to be invoked
periodically
 User need not to be logged on
 Cron jobs are listed in a crontab file
 The cron mechanism is controlled by a daemon called
crond. This daemon wakes up every minute or so
and determines if any entry user’s cron tables need
to be executed. If the time passed for an entry to be
started, it is started. A cron job can be scheduled as
often as once a minute or as infrequently as once a
year.

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Using cron
 Must edit and install your cron table file
 Cron table file cannot be edited directly
 Edit the file and the install with crontab
 Or
 Edit the file through crontab
 Syntax
 $ crontab [-u user] file
 $ crontab [-l | -r | -e]

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Crontab File Format
 Entry consists of five space delimited
field followed by a command line
 One entry per line, no limit to the line
length.
 Fields are minute, hour, day of month,
month, and day of week.
 Comment line begin with #

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Unit 17
 Network Clients

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Other GUI Web Browsers
 Epiphany
 Uses same rendering engine as Firefox
 Fully Gnome-complaint, but fewer features.
 Konqueror
 KDE web browser/file manager
 Supports tabs, popup-blocking, etc.
 Uses khtml rendering engine.

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Non GUI Web browsers
 links
 Provided by the elinks rpm
 Full support from frames and ssl
 Examples
 $ links http://www.redhat.com
 $ links –dump http://www.redhat.com
 $ links –source http://www.redhat.com

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wget
 Retrieves files via HTTP and FTP
 Non-interactive –useful in shell scripts.
 Can follow links and traverse directly
trees on the remote server –useful for
mirroring web and FTP sites.
 Read info wget and wget –help.

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Remote access and file
transfer
 ssh/scp
 telnet and the ‘r’ services
 rsync
 FTP clients
 Nautilus

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ssh : Secure shell
 Public-key encryption technology replacement
for various unsecured services.
 Allows secure access to remote systems
 $ ssh gmustafa@oss2
 -or-
 $ ssh -l gmustafa oss2
gmustafa@oss2’s password:
 $ ssh oss2 ls /tmp
 $ ssh oss1 df -h
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scp : Secure copy
 Secure replacement for rcp
 Layered on top of ssh
 $ scp source destination
 Remote files can be specified using:
 user@host:/path/to/file
 -r optoin enables recursion
 -p preserves time and permissions
 -c compresses datastream
 Also available is sftp, an interactive file-transfer program
similar to a simple ftp client. The remote host’s sshd needs
to have support for sftp in order for the sftp client to work.
 scp requires that the destination be a directory if the
source is a directory or consists of more than one file.

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telnet and the ‘r’ services
 Insecure protocols mostly replaced by ssh
 telnet : login names and password pass over the
network in clear text
 “r” services (rsh, rlogin, rcp): generally insecure
authentication mechanism.
 telnet client can be used to connect to services
running on arbitrary ports
 Examples: testing your mail server
 $ telnet localhost 25
 These tools should never be used.

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rsync
 A drop-in replacement for rcp copying to or from remote systems.
 Can use ssh for transport
 $ rsync –e ssh mysong.mp2 172.27.12.13:/home/gmustafa
 Faster than scp – copies difference in like files.
 Useful options to rsync
 -e Use an external, rsh-compatible program to connect
(usually ssh)
 -a Recurse subdirectories, preserving permissions,
ownership, etc.
 -r Recurse subdirectories without preserving permissions,
etc.
 --partial continue partially downloaded files
 --progress print a progress bar while transferring
 -p Same as –partial –progress
 Read man 1 rsync

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lftp
 Versatile command line FTP client
 Anonymous or real-user sessions
 $ lftp ftp.cdrom.com
 $ lftp –u gmustafa ftp.myserver.com
 Automated transfer with non-interactive
lftpget
 Graphical tools gftp.

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gFTP
 Applications/Internet/gFTP
 Graphical FTP Client
 Allows Drag-and-Drop transfers
 Anonymous or Authenticated access
 Optional secure transfer via ssh (sftp).

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smbclient
 FTP-like client to access SMB/CIFS resources
 Examples:
 View shares on a server
 $smbclient –L server1
 Access a share
 $smbclient –U student //server1/homes
 CIFS is most commonly implemented as Microsoft
Windows Network Neighborhood.
 Useful options include:
 -w workgroup or domain
 -U Username
 -N Suppress password prompt (otherwise you will be
asked for a password).

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Network Diagnostic Tools
 ping
 Detects if it is possible to communicate with another system. Many systems no longer
respond to pings.
 tracroute
 Displays the computers through which a packet must pass to reach another system.
 mrt
 The mtr command is a repetitive version of traceroute, giving continually updated
connection time statistics.
 host
 Performs hostname to IP address translation, as well as the reverse.
 dig
 Performs a service similar to host in greater datail.
 netstat
 Provides a service similar to host in greater detail.
 gnome-nettool (GUI)
 A graphical front end of tools listed above (as well as some others) in a single, simple
interface. gnome-nettool can be run from the command line or by selecting it’s icon
from the internet section of the Application Menu. Note that, this tool may no be
installed by default.

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Unit 18
 Bash Shell Scripting

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Scripting Basics
 Shell scripts are text files that contains a
series of commands or statements to be
executed.
 Shell scripts are useful for:
 Automating commonly used commands.
 Performing system administration and
troubleshooting
 Creating simple applications
 Manipulations of text or files.
 Application prototyping

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Creating Shell Scripts
 Step 1: Use a text editor such as vi to create a text
file containing commnds.
 First line contains the magic “shbang” sequence : #!
 #!/bin/bash
 Comment your scripts
 Comments start with a #
 Create shell script which is self documenting.
 If you enter this by pressing \ key followed by the
Enter key on the most keyboards. This will enable
you to enter one command that spans multiple lines.

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Creating Shell Scripts cont.
 Step 2: Make the script executable
 $ chmod a+x myscript.sh
 To execute the new script:
 Place the script file in a directory in the
executable path –OR-
 Specify the absolute path or relative path
to the script on the command line.

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Generating Output
 Use echo to generate simple output
 $ echo ‘Welcome to Redhat Linux paradise!’
 $ echo –n “please enter the file name: “
 Use printf to generate formatted output.
 $ printf “the result is %0.2f\n” $RESULT
 Syntax similar to C printf() function
 Does not automatically put a newline at the end of
the output.

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Handling Input
 Use read to assign an input value to a shell variable:
 echo –n “Enter the filename: “
 read FILENAME
 read reads from standard input and assigns one
word to each variable.
 Any leftover words are assigned to the last variable.
 A word is defined as a character string surrounding
with white space such as spaces and tabs.
 Can be changed by IFS. IFS=‘:’
 If there are more words than variables, the last
variable is assigned all the remaining words.
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bash scripts example
 #!/bin/bash
 echo –n ‘Enter name (First Last):’
 read FIRST LAST
 printf “Your First name is %s and your last name is %s \n” \ $FIRST
$LAST
 The (-p) option is used to display a prompt string. Place quotes around
the string if you need to prompt the user with a multiple-word
command
 #!/bin/bash
 read –p “Enter Several Values:” value1 value2 value3
 echo “value 1 is $value1”
 echo “value 2 is $value2”
 echo “value 3 is $value3”

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Exit Status
 Commands exit with an exit status
 0 for success, 1 to 255 for failure
 Exit status of most recently executed
command is kept in the $? Variable just like
return values form shell functions.
 Shell scripts may set an exit status with
the exit command.
 exit 1 # indicated an error
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Control Structures
 The three types in shell programming:
 Sequential structures – the program flows one line
after another
 Selection structures – code execution based on a
logical decision.
 if, if/else, if/elif/else and conditional operators.
 Repetition structures (loops) – code execution is
repeated based on a logical decision
 for, while and until

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Conditional Execution
 Commands may be executed conditionally,
based on the exit stats of the previous
command.
 && logical AND
 || logical OR
 Examples:
 $ grep gmustafa passwd || echo ‘No gmustafa!’
 $ cp –a /tmp/*.o . && echo ‘Done!’
 This structures can be used in the command
line as well.

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Selection Structures: Using
the if statement
 if selection structures execute the body
of the structure only if the condition
tested is true.
 if [condition]; then
 do something
 fi

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File Tests
 File tests:
 -f tests to see if file exist and is a
regular file
 -d tests to see if a file exists and is a
directory
 -x tests to see if a file exits and is
executable
 if [-f $HOME/lib/functions ]; then
 source ~/lib/functions
 fi

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More on File Tests
 -d FILE True if file is a directory
 -e FILE True if file exists.
 -f FILE True if file exits and is a regular file
 -h FILE True if file is a symbolic link.
 -L FILE True if file is a symbolic link.
 -r FILE True if the file is readable by you.
 -s FILE True if file exists and is not empty.
 -w FILE True if the file is writable to you.
 -x FILE True if the file is executable by you.
 -O FILE True if the file is effectively owned by you.
 -G FILE True if the file is effectively owned by your
group.
 Type ‘help test’ at the shell to see a complete list.

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String Tests
 Strings may be tested as well
 -z returns true if the string is empty
 -n returns true if the string is not empty.
 Operators such as =, !=, < and > may be used to
compare strings as well.
 if [ $(id –u) =“0”]; then
echo “You are logged in as root”
fi

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More on String Tests
 -z STRING True if string is empty.
 -n STRING True if string is not empty.
 STRING1=STRING2 True if the strings are equal.
 STRING1!=STRING2 True if the strings are not
equal.
 STRING1<STRING2 True if STRING1 sorts before
STRING2 lexicographically.
 STRING1>STRING2 True if STRING1 sorts after
STRING2 lexicographically.
 -o OPTION True if the shell option
OPTIOIN is enabled.
 ! EXPR True if EXPR is false.
 EXPR1 –a EXPR2 True if both EXPR1 AND EXPR2 is true.
 EXPR1 –o EXPR2 True if either EXPR1 OR EXPR2 is true.
 ARG1 OP ARG2 Arithmetic tests. OP is one of the –eq, -ne,
-lt, -le, -gt, or –ge.

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Selection Structures: Using
if/else Statements
 if/else selection structures execute the
body of the if structure only if the
condition tested is true, otherwise the
else is executed.
 if [ condition] ; then
 Do something
 else
 Do something else
 fi
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Selection Structures: Using
the case Statement
 The case statement provides an alternative
method for performing selections that may be
cleaner than multiple if/elif/else tests.
 case variable in
 pattern1)
 do something ;;
 pattern2)
 do another thing ;;
 esac

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Repetition Structures:
The for-loop
 The for repetition structure provides a
method for iterating, or looping,
through a list of values and executing
commands on each of these values.
 for variable in list-of-values
 do
 commands …
 done

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for and sequences
 For loops are useful for iterating
through numeric sequences
 Use bash notation for simple sequences
 for I in {0..10}
 Will use : 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
 Use seq command for arbitrary increments
 For I in $(seq 0 2 10)
 Will count by twos: 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10

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Selection Structures:
The while-loop
 The while loop structure provides a useful method for
performing a set of commands while a condition remains true.
The syntax is:
 while condition

 do

 commands

 done

 While loops are known as sentinel repetition structures.

 An until loop works in exactly the same way, except that it
continues to execute as long as the command following the until
statement executes successfully; that is, it will stop the loop
when the command succeeds.

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continue and break
 While loops can be disrupted during
execution
 continue stops the current execution of the loop
and reexamines the initial condition, possibly
restarting the loop.
 break stops the processing the loop entirely,
jumping past the done statement.
 exit exits from the shell scripts entirely
 You may provide an exit status.
 Without an explicit exit status, the exit command
will exit with at status of zero, indicating success.

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Using Positional Parameters
 Positional parameters are special variables that hold
the command-line arguments to the script.
 The positional parameters are available are $1, $2,
$3, etc. These are normally assigned to more
meaningful variable names to improve clarity.
 $* holds all command-line arguments.
 The variable $0 is reserved and specifies the program
name as it was executed on the command line.
 Variables above $9 require special handling and so
they must be enclosed in curly braces, e.g. ${11}.
 All positional parameters are read only variables.

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Handling Parameters with
Spaces
 Bash expects space-delimited parameters
 Causes problem when parameters have spaces
 Example : script.sh “arg 1” “arg 2”
 $* contains “arg” “1” “arg” “2”
 Solution: for VAR; do …; done
 Automatically assigns VAR with $1, $2, etc..
 Handles spaces in parameters gracefully.
 VAR would be set to “arg 1”, then “arg 2”

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 266

Handling Filenames with
Spaces
 Bash mis-interprets spaces in filenames
 Space treated as filename-delimiter by default
 “my file” interpreted as two files: my and file
 IFS environment variable can be used to
specify an alternate (or no) delimiter.
 Always reset after changing
 OLD_IFS=$IFS #Backup old delimiter
 IFS=$(echo) #Set empty delimiter
 <code> #Do Stuff
 IFS=$OLD_IFS #Restore IFS

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Using functions in shell scripts
 Shell scripts may include shell functions.
 Shell functions may improve program readability. They also help to
remove repetitious code from the scripts.
 Shell functions must be declared before they are used.
 If there is a section of shell code that is trying to accomplish the same
task and it is five or more lines long then it is good candidate for being
put in a separate function. This is known as functional
decomposition and will improve the program readability.
 If there are a piece of shell code that you are likely to use again then it
is also good candidate for being put in a separate function. This is
called code reuse.
 Shell functions must be declared in the shell script before they may be
used. This can be done by including the function before it gets called in
the script or by sourcing another shell script using the keyword
‘source’ or the (.) operator.

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Using functions, continued
 Arguments may be passed to a shell function by using their own
set of positional parameters ($1, $2 etc.)
 myFunction $filename
 The value of $filename will be available as $1 inside the body of
myFunction.
 Functions may return the values by using the ‘return’ keyword
which sets the value of the special variable $?.
 local make the variables unavailable outside the function. This
is called information hiding and is useful for keeping function
compartmentalized. In addition it will prevent us from
accidentally overwriting a global variables.
 Functions may return vales using the return keyword which
sets the value of the special variable $?.

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Scripting at the command line
 Scripts can be typed at the bash prompt.
 If/else/for/while statements cause extended
prompt
 Can also separate lines with semicolon (;)
 Define functions for code reuse
 Store common functions in ~/.bashrc
 Bash built-in “fc” for long commands
 Default editor is vi or $EDITOR

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Shell Script debugging
 In order to debug a shell script invoke
the shell interpreter with debug options
or change the shebang to include the
debug options.
 $bash –x script_name
 $bash –v script_name
 #!/bin/bash –x
 #!/bin/bash -v
(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 271
Appendix:
 Advanced Features of the vi and vim
Editors

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Advanced uses of vi and vim
 Special features of vim
 File and screen repositioning
 Setting marks in text
 Mapping complex commands to
keystrokes (:map)
 Advanced read and save

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Special Features of vim:
Multiple Buffers
 vim -o fn1 fn2 start with multiple windows
 <Ctrl-w>s split file horizontally
 <Ctrl-w>v split file vertically
 <Ctrl-w>n open new window, new file
 <Ctrl-w>q quit out of a window
 <Ctrl-w>[hjkl] move to different
window.
 <Ctrl-w>[+-] resize window
 :help windows show help for windows.

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Special Features of vim:
Reformatting Text Width
 gq reformats text width.
 Usage:
 Make sure textwidth is set:
 :set textwidth=65
 Issue the gq command followed by the
paragraph indicator:
 gq}
 1GgqG

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Other Special Features of vim
 Recording keystrokes and playback.
 qc record keystrokes saving to buffer c
 q stop recording keystrokes
 @c play back keystrokes from buffer c
 Other configuration options
 :syntax <LANGUAGE | off>
 :nohl

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Setting a mark in text
 Set a mark in text with a single quote
followed by a letter of the alphabet specifying
the mark name.
 Example: delete some lines
 Move the curson to the first line to delete
 Set mark a: ‘a
 Move the cursor to the last line to delete.
 Set mark b: ‘b
 Delete from marks a to b: :’a,bd

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Creating Commands with
:map
 You can create your own commands with the :map command
 Place: map commands in ~/.vimrc or ~/.exrc file
 Example: mapping <Ctrl-x> to : syntax off
 : map <Ctrl-x> : syntax off
 :map <Ctrl-x> :syntax off
 :map <Ctrl-l> :w!<CR>:!aspell check %<CR>:e!%<CR>
 The <Ctrl-l> keystroke may not be entered into the file. To
force it to be read, run <Ctrl-v> before the <Ctrl-l>: <Ctrl-
v><Ctrl-l>
 The <Ctrl-v> forces the <Ctrl-l> to be taken literally.
 The sequence <CR>, meaning “carriage return” should be
entered just as shown, with the four separate characters.

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Miscellaneous Commands
 ‘‘ Returns to your previous
location
 J Join with the next file.
 ~ Change character case
 >> Indent
 << Unindent.

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 279

What next?
 LUGs (bdlug)
 http://www.redhat.com/training
 http://www.redhat.com/training/developter/courses/
 http://www.redhat.com/training/architect/courses
 http://www.redhat.com/training/developter/courses/
 http://www.idiom.com/free-compilers
 http://www.redhat.com/apps/support/knowldedgeba
se
 http://www.tldp.org
 http://www.linuxquestions.org

(C) Mustafa Golam, 2007 280

Motto
 It is worth working hard today to learn
a thing and so be lazy tomorrow!!

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