Linux and Shell Programming

- Mohan

Why this Course?

Agenda

SECTION I

Introduction to Linux

SECTION VII

Basic Unix Tools

SECTION II

Command line Interface

SECTION VIII Regular Expressions

SECTION III

Shell Basics

SECTION IX VI Editor

SECTION IV

Pipes and Commands

SECTION X

Scripting

SECTION V

Cron Jobs

SECTION XI

User Management

SECTION VI

Linux File Tree

SECTION XII

File Security

SECTION I

How Linux came into this world?

Linux Architecture and Common Linux Terminology

Various Linux Distributions

Linux File System

Boot Process Have you ever wondered?

Display Manager - GUI

INTRODUCTION TO LINUX

How did the Linux came into this world?

In 1992.

LINUS TORVALDS
USING UNIX

How it is maintained now?

MODERATORS

DEVELOPER COMMUNITY

LINUS TORVALDS
5

History

In 1991, Linus Torvalds wrote his own OS kernel.

In 1992, Linux became an OS with GPL open source license.
Formed a strong developer community targeting intel x86 based pcs.
Developers created Patches add, edit, remove lines of code.
Patches from developer community Moderators Linus Torvalds Linux Kernel.
Subsequently ported for other hardware platforms.

Facts

Linux is based on UNIX.

Linux is Multi-user.
Linux uses a hierarchical file system with top node called root ( / )
Access to the OS through the shell
Offers a text based command interface

Linux Architecture and Common terminologies

OS

APPLICATION

KERNELBOOTLOADER

DAEMON

E
S
IU
T
L
U
M

SHELL

X11 WINDOW MANAGER

FILESYSTEM

PACKAGES/PACKAGE MANAGER

Common Linux Terminology

Kernel Glue between Hardware and applications

Distribution Collection of software making up a Linux distribution

Boot loader Program that boots the operating system (GRUB, LILO)

Service Programs that run as background processes (httpd, ftpd, dhcpd)

Shell Command line Interpreter

X11 window Manager Graphical subsystem for most of the Linux OS.

File system Method to store and organize files (ext3, ext4, Fat32, NTFS)

Package manager Manages the collection of software in the Linux OS.

8

Linux Distributions

Differences package management systems, software versions, and file locations.

Fedora (CentOS, RHEL)

The Linux kernel 2.6.32 is used in RHEL/CentOS 6.x

It uses the RPM-based yum package manager.

RHEL is widely used by enterprises which host their own systems.

SLES (OpenSUSE)

The Linux kernel 3.11 in openSUSE 12.3.

It uses the RPM-based zypper package manager.

It includes the YaST (Yet another System Tool) application for system administration purposes.
Debian (Ubuntu, Linux Mint)

The Linux kernel 3.13 is used in Ubuntu 14.04.

It uses the DPKG-based apt-get package manager.

Ubuntu has been widely used for cloud deployments.

10

Some questions worth thinking about before deciding on a distribution include:

What is the main function of the system? (server or desktop)

What types of packages are important to the organization? For example, web server, word
processing, etc.

How much hard disk space is available? For example, when installing Linux on an embedded
device, there will be space limitations.

How often are packages updated?

How long is the support cycle for each release? For example, LTS releases have long term
support.

Do you need kernel customization from the vendor?

What hardware are you running the Linux distribution on? For example, X86, ARM, PPC, etc.

Do you need long-term stability or short-term experimental software?

11

Linux File System

A file system storing and organizing

A partition is a logical part of the disk, whereas a file system is a method of storing/finding
files on a hard disk (usually in a partition).
ext2, ext3, ext4, XFS, JFS,NTFS, etc.

12

Linux File System contd..

Linux
Win

- /usr/bin
- C:\Windows\system32

Linux
Win

- case-sensitive
- not case-sensitive

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.pdf - Become an Linux Expert!!!

13

The Boot Process..

When the computer is started, POST (Power On Self Test) is run.

BIOS is stored in the ROM chip.
Using the information in bios keyboard, monitor and memory are initialized and tested.
After POST, Control shifts to the Boot loader.
Boot loader is stored in the hard disk ( Boot Sector/ Efi partition)

14

The Boot Process..

The Boot loader is responsible for loading the Operating System.

1st Stage BIOS/MBR method

Boot loader resides at 1st sector of hard disk (MBR)

MBR also has the partition table.

Boot loader finds the bootable partition and searches 2nd stage of bootloader.
1st Stage EFI/UEFI method

UEFI Firmware contains a boot manager which has the location of EFI partition.

Boot loader resides in EFI partition in hard disk.

2nd Stage

2nd stage of boot loader resides under /boot.

Loads and compresses the kernel Image.

Analyses the hardware and loads the device drivers.

15

The Boot Process..

Besides starting the system, init is responsible for keeping the system running and for shutting it down cleanly
Getty -> responsible for asking you username and password

16

The Boot Process..

Generally, in a Linux desktop system, the X Window System is loaded as the final step in the
boot process.
A service called the display manager keeps track of the displays being provided, and loads
the X server (so-called because it provides graphical services to applications, sometimes
called X clients).
Session manager, starts and maintains the components of the graphical session.
Window manager, controls the placement and movement of windows.

17

Display Manager (X Window System)

GNOME is the default to display manager in most of the environment.

Unity, KDE, Xfce are the other desktop environments.

It is not mandatory for a Linux to have an X-system (Try ctrl+alt+fn)

18

SECTION II

INTRO TO LiNUX CLI

19

Why CLI

2 Ways GUI, CLI

NO overhead in CLI interface.

How do you change your username and password in linux?

GUI (GNOME) System Preferences AboutMe change password.
CLI
Open Terminal type passwd
How do you enter 50 files? How do you rename 50 files?
Which is easier for repetitive tasks?
How do you automate things?

graphical user interfaces make easy tasks easier, while command line interfaces
make difficult tasks possible
20

Working with directories

Commands

Description

cd

Change Directory

tree

Display the Directories and files in tree structure

pwd

Display current working directory

ls

List files

ls -a

List all files

ls -l

List file details

ls -lh

List file details human readable form

mkdir

Make a directory

rmdir

Remove a directory

rmdir -rf

Force remove a directory recursively

ln -s

Create soft link

Absolute and Relative Paths

Auto path Completion (tab)

Relative Paths..
Root directory

Home directory

Parent directory

..

Current directory

Previous directory

21

Try it Yourself
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

11.
12.
13.

14.

Display your current directory. Change to the /etc directory. Check your current directory again.
Now change to your home directory using only three key presses.
Change to the /boot/grub directory using only eleven key presses.
Go to the parent directory of the current directory using relative path.
Go to the root directory.
List the contents of the root directory. List a long listing of the root directory.
Stay where you are, and list the contents of /etc. Also, list the contents of /bin and /sbin.
Stay where you are, and list the contents of ~.
List all the files (including hidden files) in your home directory.
List the files in /boot in a human readable format.
Create a directory testdir in your home directory.
Change to the /etc directory, stay here and create a directory newdir in your home directory.
Create in one command the directories ~/dir1/dir2/dir3 (dir3 is a subdirectory from dir2, and dir2 is a
subdirectory from dir1 ).
Remove the directory testdir.

22

Working with files

File/Dir names are case sensitive

Everything is a file (directories are special cases)
Use i for interactive option

Commands

Description

file <>

Displays what type of file

touch

Create an empty file

touch -t

Change timestamp

rm

remove a file

rm -f

force remove file

rm -rf

Recursive force

cp <file1> <file2>
<dest>

Make copy of file/files

cp -r <dir1> <dir2> <dest>

Recursive copy (for directories)

mv

Rename/move

23

Try it Yourself
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.
6.

7.
8.
9.

10.

List the files in the /bin directory.

Display the type of file of /bin/cat, /etc/passwd and /usr/bin/passwd.
Download 46220.pdf using wget http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/46220.pdf
1.
Display the type of file of 46220.pdf
2.
Rename 46220.pdf to datasheet.jpg (use mv).
3.
Display the type of file of datasheet.jpg
Create a directory ~/touched and enter it. Create a empty file today.txt in touched.
Create a file yesterday.txt to match yesterday's date.
Copy yesterday.txt to copy.yesterday.txt
Create a directory called ~/testbackup and copy all files from ~/touched into it.
Create a sub-directory subdir in the directory testbackup
Use one command to remove the directory ~/testbackup and all files into it.
Create a directory ~/etcbackup and copy all *.conf files from /etc into it. Did you include all
subdirectories of /etc ?
24

Working with file contents

Commands

Description

head -<no_of_lines>
<file>

display the first ten lines of a file

Tail -<no_of_lines> <file>

display the last ten lines of a file

cat

Display/concatenate

cat > <filename>

Create a file

tac

Display the file reverse (line order)

more / less

displaying files that take up more than one screen

du h <file/dir>

25

Try it Yourself
1.
2.
3.

4.
5.
6.
7.

8.
9.

10.

11.

Display the first 12 lines of /etc/services.

Display the last line of /etc/passwd.
Use cat to create a file named count.txt that looks like this: One Two Three Four Five
Use cp to make a backup of this file to cnt.txt.
Use cat to make a backup of this file to catcnt.txt.
Display catcnt.txt, but with all lines in reverse order (the last line first).
Use more to display /var/log/messages.
Use ls to find the biggest file in /etc. Use du find the biggest file.
Open two terminal windows (or tabs) and make sure you are in the same directory in both. Type echo
this is the first line > tailing.txt in the first terminal, then issue tail -f tailing.txt
in the second terminal. Now go back to the first terminal and type echo This is another line >>
tailing.txt (note the double >>), verify that the tail -f in the second terminal shows both lines. Stop the
tail -f with Ctrl-C.
Use cat to create a file named tailing.txt that contains the contents of tailing.txt followed by the
contents of /etc/passwd.
Use cat to create a file named tailing.txt that contains the contents of tailing.txt preceded by the contents
of /etc/passwd.
26

SECTION IV

SHELL CONCEPTS And Commands

27

Shell Expansion

arguments
White space removal (test with echo)
Single quotes & double quotes (double quotes allow parsing of variables, single quotes dont)
which command will search for binaries in the $PATH environment variable
External or builtin commands? (use type to check)
aliases

Can be used to temporarily substitute or abbreviate a commands. alias ll='ls -lh --color=auto'
Providing no argument will display all the aliases.
How to make permanent? (write in .bashrc)
unalias using unalias command.

display shell expansion with set x, and stop displaying it with set +x

28

Try it yourself
1.

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

How many arguments are in this line (not counting the command itself).
touch '/etc/cron/cron.allow' 'file 42.txt' "file 33.txt"
Is tac a shell builtin command ?
Is there an existing alias for rm ?
Read the man page of rm, make sure you understand the -i option of rm. Create and
Remove a file to test the -i option.
Execute: alias rm='rm -i' . Test your alias with a test file. Does this work as expected ?
List all current aliases.
Create an alias called 'city' that echoes your hometown.
Use your alias to test that it works.
Execute set -x to display shell expansion for every command.
Test the functionality of set -x by executing your city and rm aliases.
Execute set +x to stop displaying shell expansion.
Remove your city alias.
What is the location of the cat and the passwd commands ?
29

Try it yourself
13. Explain the difference between the following commands:
echo
/bin/echo
14. Explain the difference between the following commands:
echo Hello
echo -n Hello
15. Display A B C with two spaces between B and C.
16. Complete the following command (do not use spaces) to display exactly the
following output:
4+4
=8
10+14
=24
17. Use echo to display the following exactly:
??\\commands and arguments
85
Find two solutions with single quotes, two with double quotes and one without quotes
18. Use one echo command to display three words on three lines.
30

Shell Variables

Permanent shell variables called Environment variables, often needed by applications.

Shell variables can be created temporarily like aliases.( Use .bashrc to create Env variables)
Some examples to try $HOSTNAME, $USER, $UID, $SHELL, and $HOME.
Starts with a $sign and they are case sensitive.

Use the set command to display a list of both shell and environment variables. env only
gives environment variables, which are passed along to child processes.
Use the unset command to remove a variable from your shell environment.
Customize your terminal using $PS1
$PATH variable is determines where the shell is looking for binaries.
Use {} to combine variable to string. ${prefix}man
Unbound variables warning : set u and set +u
31

Try it Yourself
1. Use echo to display Hello followed by your username. (use a bash variable!)
2. Create a variable answer with a value of 42.
3. Copy the value of $LANG to $MyLANG.
4. List all current shell variables.
5. List all exported shell variables.
6. Do the env and set commands display your variable ?
6. Destroy your answer variable.
7. Create two variables, and export one of them.
8. Display the exported variable in an interactive child shell.
9. Create a variable, give it the value 'Dumb', create another variable with value 'do'. Use
echo and the two variables to echo Dumbledore.
10. Find the list of backslash escaped characters in the manual of bash. Add the time to your
PS1 prompt.

32

Different types of Shell..

Find default shell

Find all Shells available
Change shell
Change default shell

--->
--->
--->

grep <USERNAME> /etc/passwd

cat /etc/shells
Just type the shell name
---> csh

33

control operators
Operator

Description

Examples

Multiple commands run sequentially

echo Hello ; echo World

&

Run binaries in the background (shell will not wait)

vsim &

&&

second command is executed only if the first one

succeeds

cd <dir> && ls

||

second command is executed only when the

first command fails

echo first || echo second

&& and ||
#

rm file1 && echo It worked! || echo It

failed!
comment

\ escaping
\ backslash

echo escaping \\\ \#\ \&\ \"\ \'

Multiple arguments separated by backslash.

echo This command line \

> is split in three \
> parts

34

Try it yourself
Each question can be answered by one command line!
1. When you type passwd, which file is executed ?
2. What kind of file is that ?
3. Execute the pwd command twice. (remember 0.)
Demonstration of && and II
4. Execute ls after cd /etc, but only if cd /etc did not error.
5. Execute cd /etc after cd etc, but only if cd etc fails.
6. Echo it worked when touch test42 works, and echo it failed when the touch failed. All
on one command line as a normal user (not root). Test this line in your home directory and
in /bin/ .
7. Execute sleep 6, what is this command doing ?
8. Execute sleep 200 in background (do not wait for it to finish).
9. Write a command line that executes rm file55. Your command line should print 'success'
if file55 is removed, and print 'failed' if there was a problem.
(optional)10. Use echo to display "Hello World with strange' characters \ * [ } ~ \
\ ." (including all quotes)
35

Shell History
Example Commands

Descriptions

Up arrow Navigation

Execute the last command

!!

Execute the last command

!ec

Execute the last command that started with ec

history 10

History of last 10(n) commands.

!411

Executes the 411th (nth) command.

echo $HISTFILE

The commands are stored in .bash_history

36

Try it Yourself
1.
2.
3.
4.

5.

Issue the command - echo Hi welcome

Repeat the previous command using only two characters (there are two solutions!)
Display the last 5 commands you typed.
Issue the long echo from question 1 again, using the line numbers you received from the
command in question 3.
Where are these commands stored when exiting the shell ?

37

File Globbing generating file names

Examples
*

generate filenames, matching the asterisk

to any combination of characters (even none).

ls File*

matching the question mark with exactly one character.

ls file? ls file??

[]

any of the characters between [ and the first subsequent ]

ls file[A9] file[a-z]* ls [fF]ile[!1]

Try it Yourself
1. Create a test directory and enter it.
2. Create the following files : file1 file10 file11 file2
fileAB filea fileA fileAAA
file(

File2 File3
file 2

file33

38

Try it Yourself
3. List (with ls) all files starting with file
4. List (with ls) all files starting with File
5. List (with ls) all files starting with file and ending in a number.
6. List (with ls) all files starting with file and ending with a letter
7. List (with ls) all files starting with File and having a digit as fifth character.
8. List (with ls) all files starting with File and having a digit as fifth character and nothing else.
9. List (with ls) all files starting with a letter and ending in a number.
10. List (with ls) all files that have exactly five characters.
11. List (with ls) all files that start with f or F and end with 3 or A.
12. List (with ls) all files that start with f have i or R as second character and end in a number.
13. List all files that do not start with the letter F.

39

SECTION V

PIPES AND COMMANDS

40

Input/Output Redirection

)
1>
(
t
ou
d
t
S

Three basic streams (stream0, stream1, stream2)

Stdin(0<)

Bash
Stderr(2>)

>f

>Stdout
keyboard

ile

echo Hi! > file.txt

Bash

echo HI! 1> file.txt

display

>Stderr

ay
l
p
dis

keyboard

Bash

rm nothing.txt 2> err.txt

rm nothing.txt 1> out.txt 2> err.txt
rm nothing.txt 1> out.txt 2>&1

2> file

rm nothing.txt &> out_and_err.txt

41

Error
Redirection
To stdout

Redirection and pipes STDOUT (or) STDERR of one command to STDIN of a second
command

>> append append to the EOF

< stdin grep something (or) grep something < some_file

42

FILTERS
Examples
cat

putting stdin on stdout

tac sdf.txt | cat | cat | cat | cat | cat

tee

putting stdin on two stdout

cat sdf.txt | tee asdf.txt | cat

grep

lines matching the string.

cat sdf.txt | grep sachin

grep -v

lines not matching the string.

cat sdf.txt | grep v sachin

grep -i

Case insensitive

cat sdf.txt | grep i sachin

cut

Select columns from files, depending on a delimiter

cut -d: -f1,3 /etc/passwd | tail -3

echo 1:2:3:4:5 | cut -d: -f1,4

translate

Translate the characters

cat sdf.txt | tr 'e' 'E

cat sdf.txt | tr 'a-z' 'A-Z
cat sdf.txt | tr 'a-z' n-za-m
cat sdf.txt | tr s

wc

Count lines, words,

wc -l sdf.txt
wc -w
wc -c

43

Description

Examples

sort

Sort in order

sort sdf.txt
sort k2 sdf.txt

uniq

Remove reoccurrences and count reoccurences

sort sdf.txt | uniq

sort sdf.txt | uniq -c

comm

Compare two lists result in 3 columns

comm list1.txt list2.txt

sed

Streaming editor using regular expressions

echo level5 level7 | sed s/level/jump/g

cat sdf.txt | sed '/wor/d'

who | wc -l
who | cut -d' ' -f1 | sort
who | cut -d' ' -f1 | sort | uniq
grep bash /etc/passwd | cut -d: -f1

44

Try it Yourself

1. Put a sorted list of all bash users in bashusers.txt.

2. Put a sorted list of all logged on users in onlineusers.txt.
3. Make a list of all filenames in /etc that contain the string conf in their filename.
4. Make a sorted list of all files in /etc that contain the case insensitive string conf in their
filename.
5. Write a line that removes all non-letters from a stream.
6. Write a line that receives a text file, and outputs all words on a separate line.
7.Use grep and wc to find the no of modules in a netlist

45

Getting help
Commands

Description

man <command>

Manual page of a command

man <config_file>

Manual page of a command

man <daemon>

Manual page of a command

man k <partial_command>

List all relevant commands with one line description

apropos

Same as above

whatis

List the commands one line description

whereis

Displays the manual page location

mandb

Indexes the manual entries

Try it Yourself - Find what is the command to move a file. Where is the manual located?
Which.
Help
Go to bin dir

46

SECTION IX

FILESECURITY, CRON JOBS

47

Users and Groups

-

User

Type of File

Group

Others

Regular File

Directory

Permission

Access to files

Access to directory

Symbolic Link
/etc/motd

r (read)

Read contents (cat)

Read contents (ls)

w (write)

Edit contents (VI)

Create files/dirs (touch/mkdir)

Named Pipe

x (execute)

Execute the file (script.sh)

Open the directory (cd)

Block device
/dev/sda

Character device
/dev/console

socket

If you dont have access to a file, then you cant change its permissions
48

Permissions

Users and groups

ls lh

cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd | column

chgrp <groupname><filename>

Change group

chown <username> <filename>

Change Owner

chmod

chgrp
chmod g-r
chmod u+x
chmod o-r
chmod a+w

If you dont have access to a file, then you cant change its permissions
49

TRY IT YOURSELF

1. As normal user, create a directory ~/permissions. Create a file owned by yourself in there.
2. Copy a file owned by root from /etc/ to your permissions dir, who owns this file now ?
3. As root, create a file in the users ~/permissions directory.
4. As normal user, look at who owns this file created by root.
5. Change the ownership of all files in ~/permissions to yourself.
6. Make sure you have all rights to these files, and others can only read.
7. With chmod, is 770 the same as rwxrwx--- ?
8. With chmod, is 664 the same as r-xr-xr-- ?
9. With chmod, is 400 the same as r-------- ?
10. With chmod, is 734 the same as rwxr-xr--

50

Cron Job sheduler

30 10 * * * echo HI >file.txt
30 10 * * * cd ~ && echo HI >file.txt

crontab -l lists all the scheduled tasks

crontab -e schedule new task or edit running tasks(editor)

0 */2 * * * /home/verif.pl
00 20 * * * /home/dft.sh
51

TRY IT YOURSELF

Create cron directory in home folder.

Use the date command to see the current timing.
Schedule a job that puts Hi Welcome in the file hi.txt. hi.txt should be in the directory ~/cron
Schedule a job to append date and time every minute.

52

SECTION VI

MISSED BASIC UNIX TOOLS

53

find
locate
date
cal
sleep
time
gzip
zcat
bzip and bzip2
tar
54

TRY IT YOURSELF
1. Explain the difference between these two commands. This question is very important. If
you don't know the answer, then look back at the shell chapter.
find /data -name "*.txt"
find /data -name *.txt
2. Explain the difference between these two statements. Will they both work when there are
200 .odf files in /data ? How about when there are 2 million .odf files ?
find /data -name "*.odf" > data_odf.txt
find /data/*.odf > data_odf.txt
3. Write a find command that finds all files created after January 30th 2010.
4. Write a find command that finds all *.odf files created in September 2009.
5. Count the number of *.conf files in /etc and all its subdirs.

55

6. Two commands that do the same thing: copy *.odf files to /backup/ . What would be a
reason to replace the first command with the second ? Again, this is an important question.
cp -r /data/*.odf /backup/
find /data -name "*.odf" -exec cp {} /backup/ \;
7. Create a file called loctest.txt. Can you find this file with locate ? Why not ? How do
you make locate find this file ?
8. Use find and -exec to rename all .htm files to .html.
9. Issue the date command. Now display the date in YYYY/MM/DD format.
10. Issue the cal command. Display a calendar of 1582 and 1752. Notice anything special ?

56

SECTION III

Linux File tree

57

Linux file tree

/bin

bin binaries for all users

sbin - binaries to configure the operating system

/lib

/bin and /sbin often use shared libraries located in /lib

Lib32 and lib64

/opt

/opt is to store optional software

Empty at the start

58

Linux file tree configuration and data directories

Data Directories

/etc

Editable Text Configuration

Contains machine-specific configuration files

/home

init.d

Start and stop daemons

/srv

Data served by your system

x11

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

/media

skel

Skeleton dir for new home dir

Mount point for removable

devices

sysconfig OS related config

/root

/mnt
/tmp

Temporary files

/boot

/boot directory contains all files needed to boot the

computer
.cfg or .conf
59

Linux file tree

Unix system resources
Memory Directories

/usr

Sharable, read only data

/dev

populated with files as the kernel

is recognising hardware

/usr/bin

User related binaries

/dev/sda

Harddisk related

/usr/include

Include files for c

/dev/tty
/dev/pts

Terminal files

/usr/local

Install software locally (admin)

/usr/share

architecture independent data

/proc

what the kernel manages, and is

a means to interact with it directly

/proc/cpuinfo
/
proc/interrup
ts

displays the interrupts

/proc/kcore

The physical memory is

represented in /proc/kcore

Variable data
/var/log

All log files

/var/log/messages

What has gone wrong

(event viewer)

/var/cache

cache data for several

applications.

60

Try it yourself
1. Does the file /bin/cat exist ? What about /bin/dd and /bin/echo. What is the type of these
files ?
2. What is the size of the Linux kernel file(s) (vmlinu*) in /boot ?
3. Create a directory ~/test. Then issue the following commands:
cd ~/test
dd if=/dev/zero of=zeroes.txt count=1 bs=100
od zeroes.txt
dd will copy one times (count=1) a block of size 100 bytes (bs=100) from the file /dev/zero
to ~/test/zeroes.txt. Can you describe the functionality of /dev/zero ?
4. Now issue the following command:
dd if=/dev/random of=random.txt count=1 bs=100 ; od random.txt
dd will copy one times (count=1) a block of size 100 bytes (bs=100) from the file /dev/
random to ~/test/random.txt. Can you describe the functionality of /dev/random ?
5. Issue the following two commands, and look at the first character of each output line.
ls -l /dev/sd* /dev/hd*
ls -l /dev/tty* /dev/input/mou*
The first ls will show block(b) devices, the second ls shows character(c) devices. Can you
tell the difference between block and character devices ?
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Try it yourself
6. Use cat to display /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf. What is your idea about the purpose
of these files ?
7. Are there any files in /etc/skel/ ? Check also for hidden files.
8. Display /proc/cpuinfo. On what architecture is your Linux running ?
9. Display /proc/interrupts. What is the size of this file ? Where is this file stored ?
10. Can you enter the /root directory ? Are there (hidden) files ?
11. Are ifconfig, fdisk, parted, shutdown and grub-install present in /sbin ? Why are these
binaries in /sbin and not in /bin ?
12. Is /var/log a file or a directory ? What about /var/spool ?
13. Open two command prompts (Ctrl-Shift-T in gnome-terminal) or terminals (Ctrl-Alt-F1,
Ctrl-Alt-F2, ...) and issue the who am i in both. Then try to echo a word from one terminal
to the other.
14. Read the man page of random and explain the difference between /dev/random and /
dev/urandom.
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