Linux Commands

Linux command review

• Help
• Filesystem
• Text Handling
• Redirection
• Piping
Help commands
• whereis
• whatis
• man
• apropos
• info
• --help
File and Directory Names
• Names may be up to 255 characters
• All characters are valid, except the forward- slash
• 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
• e.g, MAIL, Mail, mail, and mAiL are different files
• Again, possible, but may not be wise
Absolute and Relative Pathnames
• Absolute pathnames
• ALWAYS begin with a forward slash
• Complete "road map" to file location
• Can be used anytime you wish to specify a file name
• Relative pathnames
• NEVER begin with a slash
• Specify location relative to your current working directory
• Can be used as a shorter way to specify a file name
Filesystem commands
• pwd – display current directory
• as absolute pathname
• cd – change directory
• ls – list directory contents
Filesystem Search commands
• find – find files in a directory tree
• which – find command in a directory PATH
• PATH=/usr/bin;/bin/;/usr/sbin;/usr/local/bin
• whereis – show pathname to command
• locate – find pathnames that match
pattern
File and Directory Commands
• cp – copy a file or directory
• mv – move or rename a file or directory
• touch – create a file
• rm – remove a file or directory
• mkdir – create a directory
• rmdir – remove an empty directory
• file – determine file type

Navigating the Filesystem (38:13)

Linux directory structure
Relative pathname exercises
From /home/his/bin, cd to
• /home/his/notes
• /home/his
• /home/sam
• /etc
•/
using relative pathnames; e.g. cd ..
Change Directory
• cd - change directory
• cd /home/joshua/work // absolute path
• cd project/docs // relative path
• To a directory one level up: cd .. // <dot><dot>
• To your home directory: cd // no argument
• To your home directory: cd ~ // <tilde>
• To your previous working directory: cd - // <dash>

5 Basic Linux Commands (7:14)

List Directory Contents
ls – list directory contents
• Usage: ls [options] [<pathname>]
• ls -a (include hidden files)
• ls -l (long display of extra information)
• ls -R (recurse through directories)
• ls -ld (directory and symlink information)
• ls -1 (shows information in a single column)
• ls –t (shows most recently modified files first)

NOTE: file beginning with a dot are hidden (.bashrc)

ls –l output
Filetypes
ls -l symbol File Type
- regular file
d directory
l symbolic link
b block special file
c character special file
p named pipe
s socket
Copy 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

$ cd // change to home directory

$ cp /etc/passwd . // copy file to current
directory
$ cp /etc/groups /etc/hosts /home/labuser
// copy two files to /home/labuser
cp File Scenarios
• cp file1 to existing dir1
• Creates file1 in dir1
• cp file1 to non-existing dir1/dir2
• Creates file dir2 in directory dir1
• cp file1 to existing file2
• Overwrites file2
• cp file1 to non-existing file2
• Creates file2
Use –p option to preserve file attributes
cp Directory Scenarios
• cp dir1 to existing dir2
• Creates directory dir2/dir1
• cp dir1 to non-existing dir2/dir3
• Creates directory dir3 in directory dir2
• cp dir1 to existing file1 (invalid)
• cp dir1 to non-existing file1
• Creates directory with new name file1
Must use –r option; entire directory tree is copied
Use –p option to preserve directory attributes
Move/Rename Files and Directories
• mv – move/rename files and directories
• Usage:
• mv [options] file destination
• mv [options] directory destination
• More than one file may be moved at a time if the
destination is a directory:
• mv [options] file1 file2 destination
• Entire directory tree is moved
mv File Scenarios
• mv file1 to existing dir1
• file1 moved to dir1, same file name file1
• mv file1 to non-existing dir1/dir2
• file1 moved to directory dir1, renamed to file dir2
• mv file1 to existing file2 (invalid)
• mv file1 to non-existing file2
• file1 renamed as file2
mv Directory Scenarios
• mv dir1 to existing dir2
• dir1 moved to dir2, same dir name dir1
• mv dir1 to non-existing dir2/dir3
• dir1 moved to directory dir2, renamed to directory dir3
• mv dir1 to existing file1 (invalid)
• mv dir1 to non-existing file1
• dir1 renamed as directory file1
• mv dir1 to non-existing dir2/file1
• dir1 moved to directory dir2, renamed to directory file1
Creating and Removing Files
• touch <file>
• if <file> does not exist, create empty file
• if <file> exists, update its timestamps
• rm - remove files
Usage: rm [options] <file>...
• rm -i file (interactive)
• rm -r directory (recursive)
• rm -f file (force)
Creating and Removing Directories
• mkdir dir1 creates directory dir1
• mkdir –p dir1/dir2/dir3 creates all directories
• rmdir dir1 removes empty dir1
• dir1 cannot have files or directories
• rm -r dir1 removes dir1 and its entire directory tree
Wildcard Characters
• ? – match a single character
$ ls file?
$ ls file?.txt

• * – match multiple characters (any)

$ ls *
$ ls *.*
$ ls file*.txt
$ ls *.zip
File Globbing
• Globbing is wildcard expansion:
• * - matches zero or more characters
• ? - matches any single character
• [0-9] - matches a range of numbers. Here, from 0 to 9
• [abc] - matches any of the characters in the list. Here, a or b
or c
• [^abc] - matches all except the characters in the list. Here, all
but a, b or c
• Predefined character classes can be used

Globbing in Linux – How to use Wildcards (4:38)

Copy directory
• To copy a directory, use the –r (recursive) option
• To preserve the creation date, use –rp option
$ cp –r /etc/init . // copy init directory tree to current directory
$ cp –rp /etc/init . // copy directory to current directory,
preserve permission
Remove a directory tree
Usage:
• rm –r (recursive)
• rmdir –p (parents)
$ mkdir –p dir2/dir3 // create directory dir3 under dir2
$ mkdir –p dir3/dir4 // create directory dir4 under dir3
$ rm –rf dir2 // remove dir2 and dir3 directory under it
$ rmdir –p dir3/dir4 // remove dir3 and dir4 under it
which
which – show path to command
• Usage: which [options] command…

NOTE: Useful when “Command not found” error returned

whereis
whereis – show path to command and man chapter
• Usage: whereis [options] command…

NOTE: Useful to help fix bad PATH

$ whereis echo
echo: /bin/echo
/usr/share/man/man1/echo.1.gz
find
find – search a directory tree
• Usage: find <directory> [option]
[expression]
• –i (case insensitive)
• –name (filtered by pattern)
• –user | –uid (filtered by user or UID
• –group | –gid (filtered by group or GID)
• –size (filtered by size)
• –perm (filtered by permission)
• –atime | –mtime | –ctime (by access, mod or
create time)
• –exec | –ok (execute command on output)
The Power of the Linux Find Command (2:43)
find examples
$ find -name car // if has ‘car’ in its name
$ find -name Car // if has ‘Car’ in its name
$ find /tmp –user root // if owned by user=root
$ find /tmp –gid 500 // if owned by group with gid=500
$ find /user/share -size 1024k // if size is exactly 1 mb
$ find /user/share -size +1024k // if size is > 1 mb
$ find /user/share -size -1024k // if size is < 1 mb
$ find /tmp -perm 755 // if mode is exactly 755
$ find /tmp -perm +222 // if anyone can write
$ find /tmp -perm -222 // if no one can write
$ find /tmp -perm -222 // if ‘other’ cannot write
$ find /tmp -mtime -10 // if modified < 10 days ago
$ find /tmp -ctime +20 // if created > 20 days ago

Linux: Finding Files (3:40)

Text handling commands
• file – show file type
• cat – show file contents
• more – page file contents
• less – page file contents
• head – show start of file
• tail – show end of file
• grep – show lines matching a pattern
• cut – show selected columns
Introduction to Linux File System (6:52)
grep
grep – print lines matching a pattern
• Usage: grep [options] pattern <pathname>…
• -i (case insensitive matching)
• -v (exclude lines that match)
• -n (display line number)
• -AX (include X lines after pattern match)
• -BX (include X lines before pattern match)
grep examples
$ cat /etc/passwd // show passwd contents
$ grep root /etc/passwd // find lines having root
pattern
$ grep –n root /etc/passwd // this time show line
number too
$ grep –v root /etc/passwd // exclude lines having
root pattern
$ grep –A3 nobody /etc/passwd
// show lines having nobody pattern and the 3 lines
after
$ grep –B3 nobody /etc/passwd
// show
Grep and lines
Regexhaving
– BASH- nobody pattern and the 3 lines
Linux (8:24)
before
Text Analysis commands
• wc – count words in a file
• sort – sort lines of a file
• uniq – show unique lines of a file
• diff – show differences between files
• cmp – show differences between files

Uniq utility (4:45)

Text Manipulation commands
• tr – translate file
• sed – stream editor

Shell Episode 002 - tr command (14:00)

SED Tutorial Basic Substitution Linux Shell
BASHl (8:38)
wc (word count)
wc – print counts in file(s)
• Usage: wc [options] <pathname>…
• wc -l file (count # lines)
• wc -w file (count # words)
• wc -c file (count # bytes)

$ wc –l /etc/profile // show number of lines

$ wc –w /etc/profile // show number of words
$ wc –c /etc/profile // show number of bytes
$ wc /etc/profile // show number of lines, words,
bytes
Standard I/O and Pipes
Standard Input and Output
Linux provides three I/O channels to Programs
Name Default File number
STDIN Keyboard 0
STDOUT Console 1
STDERR Console 2
Default STDIN/STDOUT/STDERR
• At command prompt, bash running on the console
listens on STDIN for characters typed on the keyboard
• Command writes output to STDOUT which is the console
• Command writes error messages to STDERR which is
also the console
Redirecting Output to a File
command <operator> filename
• > redirect STDOUT to file (overwrite)
• >> redirect STDOUT to file (append)
• 2> redirect STDERR to file (overwrite)
• 2>&1 redirect STDERR to STDOUT
• &> redirects STDOUT and STDERR
• >/dev/null discards STDOUT output
• 2>/dev/null discards STDERR output
• &>/dev/null discards all output
Redirecting Linux Command Line Output to a File (5:
30)
Redirection Examples

• This command generates output and errors when run as

non-root:

• Operators can /etc

$ find be used
–nameto store output and errors
passwd
$ find /etc –name passwd > find.1.out
$ find /etc –name passwd 2> /dev/null
$ find /etc –name passwd > find.1.out
2>find.err
$ find /etc –name passwd > find.all.out
2>&1
Piping
• Redirect STDOUT to STDIN for another command
• Pipes (the | character) can connect commands:
command1 | command2
• Sends STDOUT of command1 to STDIN of command2 instead
of the screen.
• STDERR is not forwarded across pipes
• Used to combine the functionality of multiple tools
• command1 | command2 | command3... etc

Pipes, Grep, Sort – Linux Tutorial (5:57

)
Piping examples
// only show lines with man8
$ find /usr/share/man –name man8
// equivalent to above
$ find /usr/share/man | grep man8
// show lines containing man8 and user
$ find /usr/share/man | grep man8 | grep
user
// show lines containing man8 but excluding user
$ find /usr/share/man | grep man8 | grep –v
user
// show lines containing man8 but sorted
alphabetically
$ find /usr/share/man | grep man8 | sort
BASH shell
// show thecommands
numberpipes (9:04)
of lines containing man8