A Brief Introduction to Unix

-Developed in the 1960s. -Consists of 3 parts: Kernel, Shell and Programs.

Kernel: -It is the hub of the Operating System. -Allocates time and memory to programs. -Handles file storage and communication response to system calls.

Shell: -Acts as an interface between the user and the Kernel. -It is the Command Line Interpreter (CLI). It interprets the commands user types and arranges for them to be carried out. Programs: -Anything the user types are programs. -All commands are considered programs. -A Process is a program that has a PID (Process ID).

File Structure: -The UNIX file structure is hierarchical. -Top of the hierarchy is called the ROOT. -During first log in, the current working directory is the home directory. -Home directorys name is the same as the user name. -All files are organized by user and group. -A user can belong to more than one group. -All files are owned only by 1 user and 1 group.

Commands
Ls (list): -Lists the contents of the current directory. Ls command has many variants.

-a: shows hidden files and folders (hidden files start with a .) -l: shows detailed listing of all files and folders (permissions, owners, groups, last modified, size). -r: lists files in descending order. -t: lists files according to timestamp.

-To hide a file, touchcommand is used. Touch <filename> hides the file. -When using the ls l command, the 1st column contains _rw-rwx-rwx

The 1st _ is either d or blank. If it is d, then it means that the displayed content is a directory. If it is blank, then it is a file. The rwx stands for read-write-execute. It is displayed 3 times and they are in the order user-groupothers. If any of them are blank, then the corresponding user or group or others donot have the permission for that file.

Mkdir: -Creates a new directory. Mkdir <filename> -Can be used to create a directory in a different hierarchy also. In such cases, the path where the directory needs to be created has to be mentioned. -To create a directory in hierarchy, -p can be used. Mkdir p ~/a/b/d creates directory d in the given hierarchy. Existing files are not overwritten.

Cd (Change Directory): -cd <dir_name> Changes the current directory to <dir_name> -Can be used to change to a directory in a different hierarchy also. In such cases, the path of the desired directory needs to be mentioned.

Cd .. : changes the current directory to the parent directory (moves one level up in the hierarchy).

Pwd (Present Working Directory): Displays the full path of the current directory. Alternatively . Can also be used for the same purpose.

The ~ character represents the home directory. It can be used to specify paths staring from home instead of typing the name of the home directory.

Cp(copy): -cp <file1> <file2> copies the contents of <file1> in the current directory to <file2>. If we need to copy a file from a different directory to the current directory, we can use the . Operator. Cp ~/something/something/file1 . copies <file1> into the current directory. The name remains the same. To copy a directory, we need to use r.

Mv (move/rename): -mv command is used to move or rename a file. Mv <file1> <file2> moves the contents of <file1> to <file2> if <file2> already exists. In such a case, contents of <file2> is overwritten. If <file2> doesnot exist, then the operation is equivalent to rename operation.

Rm (Remove dir/ifle): -rm <file> deletes the file. To delete directories, rm r <dir> is used. The r command specifies that the directory needs to be deleted recursively until no fie is left.

Clear: clears the screen of all contents and leaves the prompt at the top of the terminal.

Cat: Displays the contents of a file. Cat <file> is the command used.

Less: Displays the contents of a file one page at a time.

Head: Displays the 1st 10 lines of a file.

Tail: Displays the last 10 lines of a file.

Grep(search for keywords in a file): -grep <keyword> <file> searches for <keyword> in file and prints out the lines containing <keyword>. -it is case sensitive. i can be used to make the search case insensitive. -to search for a phrase, enclose it in single quotes. -i: case insensitive. -v: display all lines that DO NOT math. -n: displays the line number of every displayed line. -c: prints only the count of the number of matched lines.

Wc (word count): -wc <file> Displays the number of words in the file. Wc l counts the number of lines.

Man( manual): Man <cmd> : Displays the help section for the given command.

Wildcards: These can be used in special cases to make file handling easier. -* : any number of characters. Eg: ls *.doc displays all files ending with .doc. -? : only one character. Eg : ls ?.doc displays all files that have only one character as name and is followed by the extension .doc -[]: range of characters. Eg: ls [a-b]*.doc displays all files starting with a or b and having the extension .doc.

Chmod ( modify access permissions): -chmod [options] <file/dir> modifies the permissions for that file/dir. -To modify the permissions recursicely use R command. -To give permission: +w +r +x (gives write, read and execute permissions respectively). -To revoke permission: -w r -x (revokes write, read and execute permissions respectively). -We can give/revoke permission for the whole user, group or others using u, -g and o. Eg: chmod g w +r <filename> revokes write permission and gives read permission for the whole group for <filename>. -Another way of changing access permissions is by using specially assigned numbers for read write and execute operations. Read=4, Write=2, execute=1. Eg: chmod 741 <filename> gives read, write and execute permission for user, read permission for group and execute permission for others.

Find (search for a file): -It finds both files and directories in the specified path. Eg: find <path> pattern. This searches for the pattern in the given path and displays all the files and directories whose name contains the specified pattern. To find only directories: find <path> -type d <pattern> To find only files: find <path> -type f <pattern>