UNIX

Introduction: UNIX is an operating system which was first developed in the 1960s, and has
been under constant development ever since. By operating system, we mean the suite of
programs which make the computer work. It is a stable, multi-user, multi-tasking system
for servers, desktops and laptops.

UNIX systems also have a graphical user interface (GUI) similar to Microsoft Windows which
provides an easy to use environment. However, knowledge of UNIX is required for
operations which aren't covered by a graphical program, or for when there is no windows
interface available, for example, in a telnet session.

Types of Unix: There are many different versions of UNIX, although they share common
similarities. The most popular varieties of UNIX are Sun Solaris, GNU/Linux, and MacOS X.

Here in the School, we use Solaris on our servers and workstations, and Fedora Linux on the
servers and desktop PCs.

The UNIX operating system is made up of three parts; the kernel, the shell and the
programs.

The kernel

The kernel of UNIX is the hub of the operating system: it allocates time and memory to
programs and handles the file store and communications in response to system calls.

As an illustration of the way that the shell and the kernel work together, suppose a user
types rm myfile (which has the effect of removing the file myfile). The shell searches the
file store for the file containing the program rm, and then requests the kernel, through
system calls, to execute the program rm on myfile. When the process rm myfile has
finished running, the shell then returns the UNIX prompt % to the user, indicating that it is
waiting for further commands.

The shell

The shell acts as an interface between the user and the kernel. When a user logs in, the
login program checks the username and password, and then starts another program called
the shell. The shell is a command line interpreter (CLI). It interprets the commands the user
types in and arranges for them to be carried out. The commands are themselves programs:
when they terminate, the shell gives the user another prompt (% on our systems).

The adept user can customise his/her own shell, and users can use different shells on the
same machine. Staff and students in the school have the tcsh shell by default.
 The tcsh shell has certain features to help the user inputting commands.

Filename Completion - By typing part of the name of a command, filename or directory and
pressing the [Tab] key, the tcsh shell will complete the rest of the name automatically. If
the shell finds more than one name beginning with those letters you have typed, it will
beep, prompting you to type a few more letters before pressing the tab key again.

History - The shell keeps a list of the commands you have typed in. If you need to repeat a
command, use the cursor keys to scroll up and down the list or type history for a list of
previous commands.

The programs

One of the main features of UNIX is that it includes a variety of small programs to meet
various needs. Typically, each of these programs does one thing and does it well. This
modular design allows the functionality of small programs to be mixed and matched. As you
become more familiar with UNIX, you will find that this design provides you great flexibility
and power to accomplish almost any task. Typically these programs operate on top of the
shell, but they may also interface directly with the kernel.

Linux is one of popular version of UNIX operating System. It is open source

as its source code is freely available. It is free to use. Linux was designed
considering UNIX compatibility. Its functionality list is quite similar to that of
UNIX.

Components of Linux System

Linux Operating System has primarily three components

• Kernel − Kernel is the core part of Linux. It is responsible for all major activities
of this operating system. It consists of various modules and it interacts directly
with the underlying hardware. Kernel provides the required abstraction to hide
low level hardware details to system or application programs.

• System Library − System libraries are special functions or programs using

which application programs or system utilities accesses Kernel's features. These
libraries implement most of the functionalities of the operating system and do
not requires kernel module's code access rights.

• System Utility − System Utility programs are responsible to do specialized,

individual level tasks.
Kernel Mode vs User Mode
Kernel component code executes in a special privileged mode called kernel
mode with full access to all resources of the computer. This code
represents a single process, executes in single address space and do not
require any context switch and hence is very efficient and fast. Kernel runs
each processes and provides system services to processes, provides
protected access to hardware to processes.

Support code which is not required to run in kernel mode is in System

Library. User programs and other system programs works in User
Mode which has no access to system hardware and kernel code. User
programs/ utilities use System libraries to access Kernel functions to get
system's low level tasks.

Basic Features
Following are some of the important features of Linux Operating System.

• Portable − Portability means software can works on different types of hardware

in same way. Linux kernel and application programs supports their installation
on any kind of hardware platform.

• Open Source − Linux source code is freely available and it is community based
development project. Multiple teams work in collaboration to enhance the
capability of Linux operating system and it is continuously evolving.

• Multi-User − Linux is a multiuser system means multiple users can access

system resources like memory/ ram/ application programs at same time.
 • Multiprogramming − Linux is a multiprogramming system means multiple
applications can run at same time.

• Hierarchical File System − Linux provides a standard file structure in which

system files/ user files are arranged.

• Shell − Linux provides a special interpreter program which can be used to

execute commands of the operating system. It can be used to do various types
of operations, call application programs. etc.

• Security − Linux provides user security using authentication features like

password protection/ controlled access to specific files/ encryption of data.

Architecture
The following illustration shows the architecture of a Linux system −

The architecture of a Linux System consists of the following layers −

• Hardware layer − Hardware consists of all peripheral devices (RAM/ HDD/ CPU
etc).

• Kernel − It is the core component of Operating System, interacts directly with

hardware, provides low level services to upper layer components.

• Shell − An interface to kernel, hiding complexity of kernel's functions from

users. The shell takes commands from the user and executes kernel's functions.

• Utilities − Utility programs that provide the user most of the functionalities of
an operating systems.
Role of System Administrator and Ordinary User

There are three types of accounts on a Unix system −

Root account
This is also called super user and would have complete control of the
system. A super user can run any commands without any restriction. This
user should be assumed as a system administrator.

System accounts
System accounts are those needed for the operation of system-specific
components for example mail accounts. This account is usually needed for
some specific function on your system, and any modifications to them could
adversely affect the system.

User accounts
User accounts provide interactive access to the system for users and groups
of users. General users are typically assigned to these accounts and usually
have limited access to critical system files and directories.

Unix supports a concept of Group Account which logically groups a number

of accounts. Every account would be a part of another group account. A
Unix group plays important role in handling file permissions and process
management.

Managing Users and Groups

There are four main user administration files −

• /etc/passwd − Keeps the user account and password information. This file
holds the majority of information about accounts on the Unix system.

• /etc/shadow − Holds the encrypted password of the corresponding account.

Not all the systems support this file.

• /etc/group − This file contains the group information for each account.

• /etc/gshadow − This file contains secure group account information.

Check all the above files using the cat command.

The following table lists out commands that are available on majority of
Unix systems to create and manage accounts and groups −
S.No. Command & Description

1
useradd

Adds accounts to the system

2 usermod

Modifies account attributes

3 userdel

Deletes accounts from the system

4 groupadd

Adds groups to the system

5 groupmod

Modifies group attributes

6 groupdel

Removes groups from the system

You can use Manpage Help to check complete syntax for each command
mentioned here.

Create a Group
We will now understand how to create a group. For this, we need to create
groups before creating any account otherwise, we can make use of the
existing groups in our system. We have all the groups listed
in /etc/groups file.

All the default groups are system account specific groups and it is not
recommended to use them for ordinary accounts. So, following is the
syntax to create a new group account −

groupadd [-g gid [-o]] [-r] [-f] groupname

The following table lists out the parameters −

S.No. Option & Description

1
-g GID

The numerical value of the group's ID

2 -o

This option permits to add group with non-unique GID

3 -r

This flag instructs groupadd to add a system account

4 -f

This option causes to just exit with success status, if the specified group
already exists. With -g, if the specified GID already exists, other (unique)
GID is chosen

5 groupname

Actual group name to be created

If you do not specify any parameter, then the system makes use of the
default values.

Following example creates a developers group with default values, which is

very much acceptable for most of the administrators.

$ groupadd developers

Modify a Group
To modify a group, use the groupmod syntax −

$ groupmod -n new_modified_group_name old_group_name

To change the developers_2 group name to developer, type −

$ groupmod -n developer developer_2

Here is how you will change the financial GID to 545 −

$ groupmod -g 545 developer

Delete a Group
We will now understand how to delete a group. To delete an existing group,
all you need is the groupdel command and the group name. To delete
the financial group, the command is −

$ groupdel developer

This removes only the group, not the files associated with that group. The
files are still accessible by their owners.

Create an Account
Let us see how to create a new account on your Unix system. Following is
the syntax to create a user's account −

useradd -d homedir -g groupname -m -s shell -u userid accountname

The following table lists out the parameters −

S.No. Option & Description

1
-d homedir

Specifies home directory for the account

2 -g groupname

Specifies a group account for this account

3 -m

Creates the home directory if it doesn't exist

4 -s shell

Specifies the default shell for this account

5 -u userid

You can specify a user id for this account

6 accountname
 Actual account name to be created

If you do not specify any parameter, then the system makes use of the
default values. The useradd command modifies
the /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, and /etc/group files and creates a
home directory.

Following is the example that creates an account mcmohd, setting its

home directory to /home/mcmohd and the group as developers. This
user would have Korn Shell assigned to it.

$ useradd -d /home/mcmohd -g developers -s /bin/ksh mcmohd

Before issuing the above command, make sure you already have
the developers group created using the groupadd command.

Once an account is created you can set its password using

the passwd command as follows −

$ passwd mcmohd20
Changing password for user mcmohd20.
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

When you type passwd accountname, it gives you an option to change

the password, provided you are a superuser. Otherwise, you can change
just your password using the same command but without specifying your
account name.

Modify an Account
The usermod command enables you to make changes to an existing
account from the command line. It uses the same arguments as
the useradd command, plus the -l argument, which allows you to change
the account name.

For example, to change the account name mcmohd to mcmohd20 and to

change home directory accordingly, you will need to issue the following
command −

$ usermod -d /home/mcmohd20 -m -l mcmohd mcmohd20

Delete an Account
The userdel command can be used to delete an existing user. This is a
very dangerous command if not used with caution.
There is only one argument or option available for the command .r, for
removing the account's home directory and mail file.

For example, to remove account mcmohd20, issue the following command

−

$ userdel -r mcmohd20

If you want to keep the home directory for backup purposes, omit the -
r option. You can remove the home directory as needed at a later time.

A file system is a logical collection of files on a partition or disk. A partition

is a container for information and can span an entire hard drive if desired.

Your hard drive can have various partitions which usually contain only one
file system, such as one file system housing the /file system or another
containing the /home file system.

One file system per partition allows for the logical maintenance and
management of differing file systems.

Everything in Unix is considered to be a file, including physical devices such

as DVD-ROMs, USB devices, and floppy drives.

Tree Structure:

Directory Structure
Unix uses a hierarchical file system structure, much like an upside-down
tree, with root (/) at the base of the file system and all other directories
spreading from there.
A Unix filesystem is a collection of files and directories that has the
following properties −

• It has a root directory (/) that contains other files and directories.

• Each file or directory is uniquely identified by its name, the directory in which it
resides, and a unique identifier, typically called an inode.

• By convention, the root directory has an inode number of 2 and

the lost+found directory has an inode number of 3. Inode
numbers 0 and 1 are not used. File inode numbers can be seen by specifying
the -i option to ls command.

• It is self-contained. There are no dependencies between one filesystem and

another.

The directories have specific purposes and generally hold the same types of
information for easily locating files. Following are the directories that exist
on the major versions of Unix −

S.No. Directory & Description

1
/

This is the root directory which should contain only the directories needed
at the top level of the file structure

2
/bin

This is where the executable files are located. These files are available to
all users

3
/dev

These are device drivers

4
/etc

Supervisor directory commands, configuration files, disk configuration

files, valid user lists, groups, ethernet, hosts, where to send critical
messages
5 /lib

Contains shared library files and sometimes other kernel-related files

6 /boot

Contains files for booting the system

7
/home

Contains the home directory for users and other accounts

8 /mnt

Used to mount other temporary file systems, such

as cdrom and floppy for the CD-ROM drive and floppy diskette drive,
respectively

9
/proc

Contains all processes marked as a file by process number or other

information that is dynamic to the system

10
/tmp

Holds temporary files used between system boots

11
/usr

Used for miscellaneous purposes, and can be used by many users.

Includes administrative commands, shared files, library files, and others

12 /var

Typically contains variable-length files such as log and print files and any
other type of file that may contain a variable amount of data

13 /sbin

Contains binary (executable) files, usually for system administration. For

 example, fdisk and ifconfig utlities

14
/kernel

Contains kernel files

Navigating the File System

Now that you understand the basics of the file system, you can begin
navigating to the files you need. The following commands are used to
navigate the system −

S.No. Command & Description

1 cat filename

Displays a filename

2 cd dirname

Moves you to the identified directory

3
cp file1 file2

Copies one file/directory to the specified location

4 file filename

Identifies the file type (binary, text, etc)

5
find filename dir

Finds a file/directory

6 head filename

Shows the beginning of a file

7 less filename
 Browses through a file from the end or the beginning

8
ls dirname

Shows the contents of the directory specified

9
mkdir dirname

Creates the specified directory

10 more filename

Browses through a file from the beginning to the end

11
mv file1 file2

Moves the location of, or renames a file/directory

12 pwd

Shows the current directory the user is in

13
rm filename

Removes a file

14 rmdir dirname

Removes a directory

15 tail filename

Shows the end of a file

16
touch filename

Creates a blank file or modifies an existing file or its attributes

17 whereis filename
 Shows the location of a file

18
which filename

Shows the location of a file if it is in your PATH

You can use Manpage Help to check complete syntax for each command
mentioned here.

The df Command
The first way to manage your partition space is with the df (disk
free) command. The command df -k (disk free) displays the disk space
usage in kilobytes, as shown below −

$df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/vzfs 10485760 7836644 2649116 75% /
/devices 0 0 0 0% /devices
$

Some of the directories, such as /devices, shows 0 in the kbytes, used,

and avail columns as well as 0% for capacity. These are special (or virtual)
file systems, and although they reside on the disk under /, by themselves
they do not consume disk space.

The df -k output is generally the same on all Unix systems. Here's what it
usually includes −

S.No. Column & Description

1
Filesystem

The physical file system name

2 kbytes

Total kilobytes of space available on the storage medium

3 used

Total kilobytes of space used (by files)

4 avail
 Total kilobytes available for use

5
capacity

Percentage of total space used by files

6
Mounted on

What the file system is mounted on

You can use the -h (human readable) option to display the output in a
format that shows the size in easier-to-understand notation.

The du Command
The du (disk usage) command enables you to specify directories to show
disk space usage on a particular directory.

This command is helpful if you want to determine how much space a

particular directory is taking. The following command displays number of
blocks consumed by each directory. A single block may take either 512
Bytes or 1 Kilo Byte depending on your system.

$du /etc
10 /etc/cron.d
126 /etc/default
6 /etc/dfs
...
$

The -h option makes the output easier to comprehend −

$du -h /etc
5k /etc/cron.d
63k /etc/default
3k /etc/dfs
...
$

Mounting the File System

A file system must be mounted in order to be usable by the system. To see
what is currently mounted (available for use) on your system, use the
following command −

$ mount
/dev/vzfs on / type reiserfs (rw,usrquota,grpquota)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nodiratime)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
$

The /mnt directory, by the Unix convention, is where temporary mounts

(such as CDROM drives, remote network drives, and floppy drives) are
located. If you need to mount a file system, you can use the mount
command with the following syntax −

mount -t file_system_type device_to_mount directory_to_mount_to

For example, if you want to mount a CD-ROM to the

directory /mnt/cdrom, you can type −

$ mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

This assumes that your CD-ROM device is called /dev/cdrom and that you
want to mount it to /mnt/cdrom. Refer to the mount man page for more
specific information or type mount -h at the command line for help
information.

After mounting, you can use the cd command to navigate the newly
available file system through the mount point you just made.

Unmounting the File System

To unmount (remove) the file system from your system, use
the umount command by identifying the mount point or device.

For example, to unmount cdrom, use the following command −

$ umount /dev/cdrom

The mount command enables you to access your file systems, but on
most modern Unix systems, the automount function makes this process
invisible to the user and requires no intervention.

User and Group Quotas

The user and group quotas provide the mechanisms by which the amount of
space used by a single user or all users within a specific group can be
limited to a value defined by the administrator.

Quotas operate around two limits that allow the user to take some action if
the amount of space or number of disk blocks start to exceed the
administrator defined limits −

• Soft Limit − If the user exceeds the limit defined, there is a grace period that
allows the user to free up some space.
 • Hard Limit − When the hard limit is reached, regardless of the grace period, no
further files or blocks can be allocated.

There are a number of commands to administer quotas −

S.No. Command & Description

1
quota

Displays disk usage and limits for a user of group

2 edquota

This is a quota editor. Users or Groups quota can be edited using this
command

3
quotacheck

Scans a filesystem for disk usage, creates, checks and repairs quota files

4 setquota

This is a command line quota editor

5
quotaon

This announces to the system that disk quotas should be enabled on one
or more filesystems

6 quotaoff

This announces to the system that disk quotas should be disabled for one
or more filesystems

7 repquota

This prints a summary of the disc usage and quotas for the specified file
systems