Linux System Administration

(basic commands)
OS Architecture
• Application Programs: (USER)

• Shell: Interprets the instructions/ commands typed

by the user to machine language.

• Kernel: It interacts with hardware in machine

language for managing resources. Has direct dealing
with the hardware.
CHAPTER 1
ACCESSING THE COMMAND LINE
The bash shell
• A command line is a text-based interface which can be used to
input instructions to a computer system.
• The Linux command line is provided by a program called the
shell.
• The default shell for users in Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the
GNU Bourne-Again Shell ( bash ).
CHAPTER 1
ACCESSING THE COMMAND LINE
The bash shell

• When a shell is used interactive, it displays a string when it is

waiting for a command from the user.
• This is called the shell prompt. When a regular user starts as ,
the default prompt ends with a $ character.

[student@desktopX -]$
CHAPTER 1
ACCESSING THE COMMAND LINE
The bash shell
[student@desktopX ~]$

• 1. username
• 2. workstation of which that user is created/working.This is
called the shell prompt.
• 3. ~ : home directory of the user, where user data is stored.
• 4. $ : shell is ready to accept normal user commands.
When a regular user starts, the default prompt ends with a $
character.
CHAPTER 1
ACCESSING THE COMMAND LINE

The $ is replaced by a # if the shell is running as the

super user, root .
• [root@desktopX ~]#
CHAPTER 1
ACCESSING THE COMMAND LINE

Shell basics
• Commands entered at the shell prompt have three basic
parts:
• Command to run
• Options to adjust the behavior of the command
• Arguments, which are typically targets of the command
CHAPTER 1
ACCESSING THE COMMAND LINE

• Usage statements become much simpler to

understand once a user becomes familiar with
a few basic conventions :

• Square brackets, [ ] , surround optional items .

CHAPTER 1
ACCESSING THE COMMAND LINE

• Any thing followed by ‘...’ represents an arbitrary-

length list of items of that type.

• Multiple items separated by pipes, | means only one

of them can be specified.
• Text in angle brackets, < > , represents variable data.
For example, < file name> means “insert the file
name you wish to use”
CHAPTER 1
Accessing the Command Line Using the
Desktop

• The desktop environment is the graphical user

interface on a Linux system . The default desktop
environment in Red Hat Enterprise Linux is provided
by GNOME 3.
• GNU Network Object Model Environment. (GNOME)
CHAPTER 1
Accessing the Command Line Using the
Desktop
GNOME Shell is the graphical shell of the GNOME desktop
environment with version 3, which was released on April 6,
2011. It provides basic functions like launching applications,
switching between windows and is also a widget engine.

• GNOME is part of the GNU project and part of the free

software, or open source, movement.

• GNOME is a Windows-like desktop system that works on UNIX

and UNIX-like systems and is not dependent on any one
window manager
CHAPTER 1
Accessing the Command Line Using the
Desktop
Parts of the GNOME Shell
These parts include the following :
1. top bar: The top bar provides the Applications and Places
menus , and controls for volume, networking , calendar
access, lock the screen, switch users, log out of the system , or
shut it down etc.
2. Applications menu: to start applications, categorized into
submenus. The Activities Overview can be started from this
menu .
CHAPTER 1
Accessing the Command Line Using the
Desktop
3. Places menu: This menu to the right of the Applications menu
provides quick access through a graphical file manager to
important menus in the user's home directory, to / , and to
exports and file shares on the network.

4. window list: The bar that runs along the bottom of the screen.
The window list provides an easy way to access, minimize, and
restore all windows in the current workspace.
CHAPTER 1
Executing Commands Using the Bash Shell
Basic command syntax
• The GNU Bourne-Again Shell ( bash ) is a program that
interprets commands typed in by the user.
• Each string typed into the shell can have upto thre e parts: the
command , options (that begin with a - or --), and an
arguments.

• If a user wants to type more than one command on a single

line, a semi colon ; can be used as a command separator.
 Contents
• Shell Intro
• Command Format
• Shell I/O
• Command I/O
• Command Overview

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 Shell Intro
• A system program that allows a user to execute:
– shell functions (internal commands)
– other programs (external commands)
– shell scripts
• Linux/UNIX has a bunch of them, the most common are
– tcsh, an expanded version of csh (Bill Joy, Berkley, Sun)
– bash, one of the most popular and rich in functionality shells, an
expansion of sh (AT&T Bell Labs)
– ksh, Korn Shell
– zhs
– ...

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 Command Format
• Format: command name and 0 or more arguments:
% commandname [arg1] ... [argN]
• % sign means prompt here and hereafter.
• Arguments can be
– options (switches to the command to indicate a mode of
operation); usually prefixed with a hyphen (-) or two (--) in
GNU style
– non-options, or operands, basically the data to work with
(actual data, or a file name)

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 Shell I/O
• Shell is a “power-user” interface, so the user interacts with
the shell by typing in the commands.
• The shell interprets the commands, that may produce some
results, they go back to the user and the control is given back
to the user when a command completes.
• These system commands are often wrapped around a so-
called system calls, to ask the kernel to perform an operation
(usually privileged) on your behalf.

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 Command I/O
• Input to shell:
– Command name and arguments typed by the user
• Input to a command:
– Keyboard, file, or other commands
• Standard input: keyboard.
• Standard output: screen.
• These STDIN and STDOUT are often together referred to as a terminal.
• Both standard input and standard output can be redirected from/to a
file or other command.
• File redirection:
– < input
– > output
– >> output append

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 man
• Manual Pages
• The first command to remember
• Contains info about almost everything :-)
– other commands
– system calls
– c/library functions
– other utils, applications, configuration files
• To read about man itself type:
man man

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 date
Displays dates in various formats
• date
• man date

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 cal

• % cal current month

• Calendar
• % cal 2 2000 Feb 2000, leap
– for month year
• % cal 2 2100 not a leap year
– entire year
• % cal 2 2400 leap year
• Years range: 1 - • % cal 9 1752 11 days skipped
9999 • % cal 0 error
• % cal 2002 whole year
• No year 0
• Calendar was
corrected in 1752 -
removed 11 days 23
 clear
• Clears the screen
• There’s an alias for it: Ctrl+L
• Example sequence:
– % cal
– % clear
– % cal
– Ctrl+L

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 sleep
• “Sleeping” is doing nothing for some time.
• Usually used for delays in shell scripts.
• % sleep 2 2 seconds pause

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 Command Grouping
• Semicolon: “;”
• Often grouping acts as if it were a single
command, so an output of different
commands can be redirected to a file:
• % (date; cal; date) > out.txt

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 alias
• Defined a new name for a command
• % alias dt=“date”

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 unalias
• Removes alias
• Requires an argument.
• % unalias dt

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 history
• Display a history of recently used commands
• % history
– all commands in the history

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 exit / logout
• Exit from your login session.
• % exit
• % logout

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 shutdown
• Causes system to shutdown or reboot cleanly.
• May require superuser privileges
• % shutdown -h now - stop
• % shutdown -r now - reboot

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 ls
• List directory contents
• Has whole bunch of options, see man ls for details.
• % ls
– all files except those starting with a “.”
• % ls -l

• % ls -a

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 cat
• Display and concatenate files.
• % cat
– Will read from STDIN and print to STDOT every line you enter.
• % cat file1 [file2] ...
– Will concatenate all files in one and print them to STDOUT
• % cat > filename
– Will take whatever you type from STDIN and will put it into the file
filename
• To exit cat or cat > filename type Ctrl+D to indicate
EOF (End of File).

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 Head/tail
Shows few entries of the data from a file

head /etc/passwd : first 10 entries by default

tail /etc/passwd : last 10 entries by default

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 touch
• By touch a file you either create it if it did not
exists (with 0 length).
• Or you update it’s last modification and access
times.
• There are options to override the default
behavior.
• % touch file
• Stat filename
• % man touch
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 cp

• Copies files / directories.

• % cp [options] <source> <destination>
• % cp file1 file2
• % cp file1 [file2] … /directory
• Useful option: -i to prevent overwriting existing files
and prompt the user to confirm.

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 mv
• Moves or renames files/directories.
• % mv <source> <destination>
– The <source> gets removed
• % mv file1 dir/
• % mv file1 file2
– rename
• % mv file1 file2 dir/
• % mv dir1 dir2

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 rm
• Removes file(s) and/or directories.
• % rm file1 [file2] ...
• % rm -r dir1 [dir2] ...
• % rm -r file1 dir1 dir2 file4 ...

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 script
• Writes a log (a typescript) of whatever happened in
the terminal to a file.
• % script [file]
• % script
– all log is saved into a file named typescript
• % script file
– all log is saved into a file named file
• To exit logging, type:
– % exit

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 mkdir
• Creates a directory.
• % mkdir newdir
• Often people make an alias of md for it.

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 cd
• Changes your current directory to a new one.
• % cd /some/other/dir
– Absolute path
• % cd subdir
– Assuming subdir is in the current directory.
• % cd
– Returns you to your home directory.

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 pwd
• Displays personal working directory, i.e. your current
directory.
• % pwd

rmdir
• Removes a directory.
• % rmdir dirname
• Equivalent:
– % rm -r dirname

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 ln
• Symbolic link or a “shortcut” in MS Windows
terminology.

• % ln –s <real-name> <fake-name>

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 chmod
• Changes file permissions
• Possible invocations
– % chmod 600 filename
– -rw------- 1 user group 2785 Feb 8 14:18 filename
(a bit not intuitive where 600 comes from)
– % chmod u+rw filename
(the same thing, more readable)

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 which
• Displays a path name of a command.
• Searches a path environmental variable for the
command and displays the absolute path.
• To find which tcsh and bash are actually in use,
type:
which tcsh
which bash

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 whereis
• Display all locations of a command (or some
other binary, man page, or a source file).
• Searchers all directories to find commands
that match whereis’ argument
• % whereis tcsh

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 locate and find commands
locate /bin/ls

find / [options] /bin/bash

 passwd
• Change your login password.

• It’s usually a paranoid program asking your password to have

at least 6 chars in the password, at least two alphabetical and
one numerical characters.

• Depending on a privilege, one can change user’s and group

passwords as well as real name, login shell, etc.
• man passwd

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