UNIX commands

Misc commands
Man ual Command.
man man This is help command, and will explains you about online manual pages you can also
use man in conjunction with any command to learn more about that command for example.

 man ls will explain about the ls command and how you can use it.
 man -k pattern command will search for the pattern in given command.

Banner Command.
Banner prints characters in a sort of ascii art poster, for example to print wait in big letters. I will
type
banner wait at unix command line or in my script. This is how it will look.

# # ## # #####
# # # # # #
# # # # # #
# ## # ###### # #
## ## # # # #
# # # # # #

Cal Command
cal command will print the calendar on current month by default. If you want to print calendar of
august of 1965. That's eightht month of 1965.
cal 8 1965 will print following results.

August 1965
S M Tu W Th F S
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31

Clear Command
clear command clears the screen and puts cursor at beginning of first line.
Calendar Command
calendar command reads your calendar file and displays only lines with current day.
For example in your calendar file if you have this

12/20 Test new software.

1/15 Test newly developed 3270 product.
1/20 Install memory on HP 9000 machine.
On dec 20th the first line will be displayed. you can use this command with your crontab file or
in your login files.

Nohup Command.
nohup command if added in front of any command will continue running the command or
process even if you shut down your terminal or close your session to machine. For example, if I
want to run a job that takes lot of time and must be run from terminal and is called
update_entries_tonight .
nohup update_entries_tonight will run the job even if terminal is shut down in middle of this job.

Tty command
Tty command will display your terminal. Syntax is
tty options

Options

 -l will print the synchronous line number.

 -s will return only the codes: 0 (a terminal), 1 (not a terminal), 2 (invalid options) (good
for scripts)

File Management commands.

Pwd Command.
pwd command will print your home directory on screen, pwd means print working directory.

/u0/ssb/Dinesh
is output for the command when I use pwd in /u0/ssb/Dinesh directory.

Ls Command
ls command is most widely used command and it displays the contents of directory.

options

 ls will list all the files in your home directory, this command has many options.
  ls -l will list all the file names, permissions, group, etc in long format.
 ls -a will list all the files including hidden files that start with . .
 ls -lt will list all files names based on the time of creation, newer files bring first.
 ls -Fxwill list files and directory names will be followed by slash.
 ls -Rwill lists all the files and files in the all the directories, recursively.
 ls -R | more will list all the files and files in all the directories, one page at a time.

Mkdir Command.
mkdir Dinesh will create new directory, i.e. here Dinesh directory is created.

Cd Command.
cd Dinesh will change directory from current directory to Dinesh directory.
Use pwd to check your current directory and ls to see if Dinesh directory is there or not.
You can then use cd Dinesh to change the directory to this new directory.

Cat Command
cat cal.txt cat command displays the contents of a file here cal.txt on screen (or standard out).

Head Command.
head filename by default will display the first 10 lines of a file.
If you want first 50 lines you can use head -50 filename or for 37 lines head -37 filename and so
forth.

Tail Command.
tail filename by default will display the last 10 lines of a file.
If you want last 50 lines then you can use tail -50 filename.

More command. More command will display a page at a time and then wait for input which is
spacebar. For example if you have a file which are 500 lines and you want to read it all. So you
can use

more filename

Wc Command
wc command counts the characters, words or lines in a file depending upon the option.

Options

 wc -l filename will print total number of lines in a file.

 wc -w filename will print total number of words in a file.
 wc -c filename will print total number of characters in a file.
File Command.
File command displays about the contents of a given file, whether it is a text (Ascii) or binary
file. To use it type
file filename. For example I have cal.txt which has ascii characters about calendar of current
month and I have resume1.doc file which is a binary file in Microsoft word. I will get
file resume.doc

resume1.doc: data
file cal.txt
cal.txt: ascii text

Cp Command.
cp command copies a file. If I want to copy a file named oldfile in a current directory to a file
named newfile in a current directory.
cp oldfile newfile
If I want to copy oldfile to other directory for example /tmp then
cp oldfile /tmp/newfile. Useful options available with cp are -p and -r . -p options preserves the
modification time and permissions, -r recursively copy a directory and its files, duplicating the
tree structure.

Rcp Command.
rcp command will copy files between two unix systems and works just like cp command (-p and
-i options too).
For example you are on a Unix system that is called Cheetah and want to copy a file which is in
current directory to a system that is called lion in /usr/john/ directory then you can use rcp
command
rcp filename lion:/usr/john
You will also need permissions between the two machines. For more infor type man rcp at
command line.

Mv Command.
mv command is used to move a file from one directory to another directory or to rename a file.

Some examples:

 mv oldfile newfile will rename oldfile to newfile.

 mv -i oldfile newfile for confirmation prompt.
 mv -f oldfile newfile will force the rename even if target file exists.
 mv * /usr/bajwa/ will move all the files in current directory to /usr/bajwa directory.

Ln Command.
Instead of copying you can also make links to existing files using ln command.
If you want to create a link to a file called coolfile in /usr/local/bin directory then you can enter
this command.
ln mycoolfile /usr/local/bin/coolfile

Some examples:

 ln -s fileone filetwo will create a symbolic link and can exist across machines.
 ln -n option will not overwrite existing files.
 ln -f will force the link to occur.

Rm Command.
To delete files use rm command.

Options:

 rm oldfile will delete file named oldfile.

 rm -f option will remove write-protected files without prompting.
 rm -r option will delete the entire directory as well as all the subdirectories, very
dangerous command.

Rmdir Command.
rmdir command will remove directory or directories if a directory is empty.

Options:

 rm -r directory_name will remove all files even if directory is not empty.

 rmdir Dinesh is how you use it to remove Dinesh directory.
 rmdir -p will remove directories and any parent directories that are empty.
 rmdir -s will suppress standard error messages caused by -p.

Comparison and Searching

Diff Command.
diff command will compare the two files and print out the differences between.
Here I have two ascii text files. fileone and file two.
Contents of fileone are

This is first file

this is second line
this is third line
this is different as;lkdjf
this is not different

filetwo contains
This is first file
this is second line
this is third line
this is different xxxxxxxas;lkdjf
this is not different

diff fileone filetwo will give following output

4c4
< this is different as;lkdjf
---
> this is different xxxxxxxas;lkdjf

Cmp Command.
cmp command compares the two files. For exmaple I have two different files fileone and filetwo.

cmp fileone filetwo will give me

fileone filetwo differ: char 80, line 4

if I run cmp command on similar files nothing is returned.

-s command can be used to return exit codes. i.e. return 0 if files are identical, 1 if files are
different, 2 if files are inaccessible.
This following command prints a message 'no changes' if files are same
cmp -s fileone file1 && echo 'no changes' .
no changes

Dircmp Command.
dircmp command compares two directories. If i have two directories in my home directory
named
dirone and dirtwo and each has 5-10 files in it. Then
dircmp dirone dirtwo will return this

Dec 9 16:06 1997 dirone only and dirtwo only Page 1

./cal.txt ./fourth.txt
./dohazaar.txt ./rmt.txt
./four.txt ./te.txt
./junk.txt ./third.txt
./test.txt

Grep Command
grep command is the most useful search command. You can use it to find processes running on
system, to find a pattern in a file, etc. It can be used to search one or more files to match an
expression.
It can also be used in conjunction with other commands as in this following example, output of
ps command is passed to grep command, here it means search all processes in system and find
the pattern sleep.
ps -ef | grep sleep will display all the sleep processes running in the system as follows.

ops 12964 25853 0 16:12:24 ttyAE/AAES 0:00 sleep 60

dxi 12974 15640 0 16:12:25 ttyAH/AAHP 0:00 sleep 60
ops 12941 25688 0 16:12:21 ttyAE/AAEt 0:00 sleep 60
ops 12847 25812 0 16:11:59 ttyAH/AAH6 0:00 sleep 60
ops 12894 25834 0 16:12:12 ttyAE/AAEX 0:00 sleep 60
dxi 13067 27253 2 16:12:48 ttyAE/ABEY 0:00 sleep 1
ops 13046 25761 0 16:12:44 ttyAE/AAE0 0:00 sleep 60
dxi 12956 13078 0 16:12:23 ttyAG/AAG+ 0:00 sleep 60
ops 12965 25737 0 16:12:24 ttyAE/AAEp 0:00 sleep 60
ops 12989 25778 0 16:12:28 ttyAH/AAHv 0:00 sleep 60
ssb 13069 26758 2 16:12:49 ttyAH/AAHs 0:00 grep sleep
pjk 27049 3353 0 15:20:23 ? 0:00 sleep 3600
Options:

 -b option will precede each line with its block number.

 -c option will only print the count of matched lines.
 -i ignores uppercase and lowercase distinctions.
 -l lists filenames but not matched lines.

other associated commands with grep are egrep and fgrep. egrep typically runs faster. for more
information type man egrep or man fgrep in your system.

Find Command.
Find command is a extremely useful command. you can search for any file anywhere using this
command provided that file and directory you are searching has read write attributes set to
you ,your, group or all. Find descends directory tree beginning at each pathname and finds the
files that meet the specified conditions. Here are some examples.

Some Examples:
find $HOME -print will lists all files in your home directory.
find /work -name chapter1 -print will list all files named chapter1 in /work directory.
find / -type d -name 'man*' -print will list all manpage directories.
find / -size 0 -ok rm {} \; will remove all empty files on system.

Conditions of find

 -atime +n |-n| n will find files that were last accessed more than n or less than -n days or
n days.
 -ctime +n or -n will find that were changed +n -n or n days ago.
 -depth descend the directory structure, working on actual files first and then directories.
You can use it with cpio command.
 -exec commad {} \; run the Unix command on each file matched by find. Very useful
condition.
 -print print or list to standard output (screen).
 -name pattern find the pattern.
  -perm nnnfind files whole permission flags match octal number nnn.
 -size n find files that contain n blocks.
 -type c Find file whole type is c. C could be b or block, c Character special file, d
directory, p fifo or named pipe, l symbolic link, or f plain file.

Text processing
Cut Command.
cut command selects a list of columns or fields from one or more files.
Option -c is for columns and -f for fields. It is entered as
cut options [files]
for example if a file named testfile contains

this is firstline
this is secondline
this is thirdline
Examples:
cut -c1,4 testfile will print this to standard output (screen)
ts
ts
ts
It is printing columns 1 and 4 of this file which contains t and s (part of this).
Options:

 -c list cut the column positions identified in list.

 -f list will cut the fields identified in list.
 -s could be used with -f to suppress lines without delimiters.

Paste Command.
paste command merge the lines of one or more files into vertical columns separated by a tab.
for example if a file named testfile contains

this is firstline
and a file named testfile2 contains
this is testfile2
then running this command
paste testfile testfile2 > outputfile
will put this into outputfile
this is firstline this is testfile2
it contains contents of both files in columns.
who | paste - - will list users in two columns.
Options:

 -d'char' separate columns with char instead of a tab.

 -s merge subsequent lines from one file.
Sort Command.
sort command sort the lines of a file or files, in alphabetical order. for example if you have a file
named testfile with these contents

zzz
aaa
1234
yuer
wer
qww
wwe
Then running
sort testfile
will give us output of
1234
aaa
qww
wer
wwe
yuer
zzz
Options:

 -b ignores leading spaces and tabs.

 -c checks whether files are already sorted.
 -d ignores punctuation.
 -i ignores non-printing characters.
 -n sorts in arithmetic order.
 -ofile put output in a file.
 +m[-m] skips n fields before sorting, and sort upto field position m.
 -r reverse the order of sort.
 -u identical lines in input file apear only one time in output.

Uniq Command.
uniq command removes duplicate adjacent lines from sorted file while sending one copy of each
second file.
Examples

sort names | uniq -d will show which lines appear more than once in names file.

Options:

 -c print each line once, counting instances of each.

 -d print duplicate lines once, but no unique lines.
 -u print only unique lines.
Awk and Nawk Command.
awk is more like a scripting language builtin on all unix systems. Although mostly used for text
processing, etc.
Here are some examples which are connected with other commands.
Examples:
df -t | awk 'BEGIN {tot=0} $2 == "total" {tot=tot+$1} END {print (tot*512)/1000000}' Will
give total space in your system in megabytes.
Here the output of command df -t is being passed into awk which is counting the field 1 after
pattern "total" appears. Same way if you change $1 to $4 it will accumulate and display the
addition of field 4
which is used space.
for more information about awk and nawk command in your system enter man awk or man
nawk.

Sed Command.
sed command launches a stream line editor which you can use at command line.
you can enter your sed commands in a file and then using -f option edit your text file. It works as

sed [options] files

options:

 -e 'instruction' Apply the editing instruction to the files.

 -f script Apply the set of instructions from the editing script.
 -n suppress default output.

for more information about sed, enter man sed at command line in your system.

Vi editor.
vi command launches a vi sual editor. To edit a file type
vi filename
vi editor is a default editor of all Unix systems. It has several modes. In order to write characters
you will need to hit i to be in insert mode and then start typing. Make sure that your terminal has
correct settings, vt100 emulation works good if you are logged in using pc.
Once you are done typing then to be in command mode where you can write/search/ you need to
hit :w filename to write
and in case you are done writing and want to exit
:w! will write and exit.

options:

 i for insert mode.

o I inserts text at the curson
o A appends text at the end of the line.
 o a appends text after cursor.
o O open a new line of text above the curson.
o o open a new line of text below the curson.
 : for command mode.
o <escape> to invoke command mode from insert mode.
o :!sh to run unix commands.
o x to delete a single character.
o dd to delete an entire line
o ndd to delete n number of lines.
o d$ to delete from cursor to end of line.
o yy to copy a line to buffer.
o P to paste text from buffer.
o nyy copy n number of lines to buffer.
o :%s/stringA/stringb /g to replace stringA with stringB in whole file.
o G to go to last line in file.
o 1G to go to the first line in file.
o w to move forward to next word.
o b to move backwards to next word.
o $ to move to the end of line.
o J join a line with the one below it.
 /string to search string in file.
 n to search for next occurence of string.

Shell and programming

Shell programming concepts and commands.
Shell programming is integral part of Unix operating systems. Shell is command line
userinterface to Unix operating system, User have an option of picking an interface on Unix such
as ksh, csh, or default sh., these are called shells(interface). Shell programming is used to
automate many tasks. Shell programming is not a programming language in the truest sense of
word since it is not compiled but rather an interpreted language. Unix was written in C language
and thus c language is integral part of unix and available on all versions. Shells, like ksh and csh
are popular shells on unix although there are 5 or 6 different shells available but I will only be
discussing ksh and csh as well as sh. Common features among all shells are job control, for
example if I am running a processes which is searching the whole system for .Z files and output
is directed to a file named compressedfiles.

example:

 find / -name *.Z -print > compressedfiles

then after entering this command hitting
 <control z>
key will suspend this job, then entering
  bg
at command line will put this job in background, entering
 fg
will put this job in foreground. Entering
 jobs
at command line will show me all my concurrent jobs that are running.

Other common features

o > will redirect output from standard out (screen) to file or printer or whatever you
like.
o >> filename will append at the end of a file called filename.
o < will redirect input to a process or commnand.
o | pipe output, or redirect output, good for joining commands, i.e. find command
with cpio, etc.
o & at the end of command will run command in background.
o ; will separate commands on same line.
o * will match any characters in a file or directories. junk* will match all files with
first 4 letters
o ? will match single characters in a file.
o [] will match any characters enclosed.
o () execute in subshell.
o ` ` to run a command inside another command and use its output.
o " " partial quote for variables.
o ' ' full quote for variables.
o # begin comment (if #/bin/ksh or csh or sh is entered at first line of script it runs
script in that shell)
o bg background execution.
o break break from loop statements.
o continue Resume a program loop.
o Kill pid number will terminate running jobs
o stop will stop background job.
o suspend will suspend foreground job.
o wait will wait for a background job to finish.

Bourne Shell (sh shell).

sh or Bourne shell is default shell of Unix operating systems and is the most simplest shell in
Unix systems.

Examples:

 cd; ls execute one after another.

  (date;who;pwd)> logifile will redirect all the output from three commands to a
filenamed logfile.
 sort file | lp will first sort a file and then print it.
 alias [options] [name[='command']] will let you create your own commands. i.e.
o alias ll="ls -la" will execute `ls -la` command whenever ll is entered.
 let expressions is syntax of let statement.
o let i=i+1 will work as a counter with i incrementing each time this statement is
encountered.
 for x[in list] do commands done is syntax for for do loop.
 function name {commands;} is the syntax of a function which can be called from
anywhere in program.
 if condition1 then commands1 elif condition2 then commands2 ... ... ... else commands3
fi

Ksh shell (Korn).

Ksh or Korn shell is widely used shell.

Csh or C shell
csh is second most used shell.

Echo command
echo command in shell programming.

Line command.
line command in shell programming.

Sleep command.
sleep command in shell programming.

Test Command.
test command in shell programming.
CC compiler (c programming language compiler).
Since Unix is itself written in C programming language, most Unix operating systems come with
c compiler called cc.

Communications

Cu Command.
cu command is used for communications over a modem or direct line with another Unix system.
Syntax is
cu options destination

Options

 -bn process lines using n-bit characters (7 or 8).

 -cname Search UUCP's device file and select local area network that matches name.
 -d Prints diagnostics.
 -e sends even parity data to remote system
 -lline communicate on this device (line=/dev/tty001, etc)
 -n prompts for a telephone number.
 -sn set transmission rate to n(e.g 1200,2400,9600, BPS)

Destination

 telno is the telephone number of the modem to connect to.

 system is call the system known to uucp.
 aadr is an address specific to LAN.

Ftp Command (protocol).

ftp command is used to execute ftp protocol using which files are transferred over two systems.
Syntax is
ftp options hostname

options

 -d enable debugging.
 -g disable filename globbing.
 -i turn off interactive prompts.
 -v verbose on. show all responses from remote server.
ftp hostname by default will connect you to the system, you must have a login id to be able to
transfer the files. Two types of files can be transferred, ASCII or Binary. bin at ftp> prompt will
set the transfer to binary. Practice FTP by ftping to nic.funet.fi loggin in as anomymous with
password being your e-mail address.

Login Command.
login command invokes a login session to a Unix system, which then authenticates the login to a
system. System prompts you to enter userid and password.

Rlogin Command.
rlogin command is used to log on to remote Unix systems, user must have permissions on both
systems as well as same userid, or an id defined in .rhosts file. Syntax is
rlogin options host

options

 -8 will allow 8 bit data to pass, instead of 7-bit data.

 -e c will let you use escape character c.
 -l user will let you to login as user to remote host, instead of same as local host.

Talk Command.
talk command is used to invoke talk program available on all unix system which lets two users
exchange information back and forth in real time. Syntax is
talk userid@hostname

Telnet Command.
Telnet command invokes a telnet protocol which lets you log on to different unix, vms or any
machine connected over TCP/IP protocol, IPx protocol or otherwise. Syntax is
telnet hostname

Vacation Command.
vacation command is used when you are out of office. It returns a mail message to sender
announcing that you are on vacation. to disable this feature, type mail -F " " .
syntax is
vacation options

Options

 -d will append the date to the logfile.

 -F user will forward mail to user when unable to send mail to mailfile.
 -l logfile will record in the logfile the names of senders who received automatic reply.
 -m mailfile will save received messages in mailfile.
Write command will initiate an interactive conversation with user. Syntax is
write user tty

Storage commands
Compress Command.
Compress command compresses a file and returns the original file with .z extension, to
uncompress this filename.Z file use uncompress filename command. syntax for compress
command is
compress options files

Options

 -bn limit the number of bits in coding to n.

 -c write to standard output (do not change files).
 -f compress conditionally, do not prompt before overwriting files.
 -v Print the resulting percentage of reduction for files.

Uncompress Command.
Uncompress file uncompresses a file and return it to its original form.
syntax is
uncompress filename.Z this uncompresses the compressed file to its original name.

Options

 -c write to standard output without changing files

Cpio Command.
cpio command is useful to backup the file systems. It copy file archives in from or out to tape or
disk, or to another location on the local machine. Its syntax is
cpio flags [options]

It has three flags, -i, -o, -p

 cpio -i [options] [patterns]

o cpio -i copy in files who names match selected patterns.
o If no pattern is used all files are copied in.
o It is used to write to a tape.

cpio -o

o Copy out a list of files whose name are given on standard output.
 cpio -p

o copy files to another directory on the same system.

Options

o -a reset access times of input files.

o -A append files to an archive (must use with -o).
o -b swap bytes and half-words. Words are 4 bytes.
o -B block input or output using 5120 bytes per record.
o -c Read or write header information as Ascii character.
o -d create directories as needed.
o -l link files instead of copying.
o -o file direct output to a file.
o -r rename files interactively.
o -R ID reassign file ownership and group information to the user's login ID.
o -V print a dot for each file read or written.
o -s swap bytes.
o -S swap half bytes.
o -v print a list of filenames.

Examples

o find . -name "*.old" -print | cpio -ocvB > /dev/rst8 will backup all *.old files to a
tape in /dev/rst8
o cpio -icdv "save"" < /dev/rst8 will restore all files whose name contain "save"
o find . -depth -print | cpio -padm /mydir will move a directory tree.

Dump Command is useful to backup the file systems.

dump command copies all the files in filesystem that have been changed after a certain date. It is
good for incremental backups. This information about date is derived from /var/adm/dumpdates
and /etc/fstab .
syntax for HP-UX dump is
/usr/sbin/dump [option [argument ...] filesystem]

Options

 0-9 This number is dump level. 0 option causes entire filesystem to be dumped.
 b blocking factor taken into argument.
 d density of tape default value is 1600.
 f place the dump on next argument file instead of tape.
 This example causes the entire file system (/mnt) to be dumped on /dev/rmt/c0t0d0BEST
and specifies that the density of the tape is 6250 BPI.
o /usr/sbin/dump 0df 6250 /dev/rmt/c0t0d0BEST /mnt
 for more info type man dump at command line.
Pack Command.
pack command compacts each file and combine them together into a filename.z file. The original
file is replaced. Pcat and unpack will restore packed files to their original form.
Syntax is
Pack options files

Options

 - Print number of times each byte is used, relative frequency and byte code.
 -f Force the pack even when disk space isn't saved.

 To display Packed files in a file use pcat command

pcat filename.z
 To unpack a packed file use unpack command as unpack filename.z .

Tar Command.
tar command creates an archive of files into a single file.
Tar copies and restore files to a tape or any storage media. Synopsis of tar is
tar [options] [file]

Examples:
tar cvf /dev/rmt/0 /bin /usr/bin creates an archive of /bin and /usr/bin, and store on the tape in
/dev/rmt0.
tar tvf /dev/rmt0 will list the tape's content in a /dev/rmt0 drive.
tar cvf - 'find . -print' > backup.tar will creates an archive of current directory and store it in file
backup.tar.

Functions:

 c creates a new tape.

 r append files to a tape.
 t print the names of files if they are stored on the tape.
 x extract files from tape.

Options:

 b n use blocking factor of n.

 l print error messages about links not found.
 L follow symbolic links.
 v print function letter (x for extraction or a for archive) and name of files.
Mt Command
Mt command is used for tape and other device functions like rewinding, ejecting, etc. It gives
commands to tape device rather than tape itself. Mt command is BSD command and is seldom
found in system V unix versions.
syntax is
mt [-t tapename] command [count]

mt for HP-UX accept following commands

 eof write count EOF marks.

 fsf Forward space count files.
 fsr Forward space count records.
 bsf Backward space count files.
 bsr Backward space count records.
 rew Rewind tape.
 offl Rewind tape and go offline.
 eod Seek to end of data (DDS and QIC drives only).
 smk Write count setmarks (DDS drives only).
 fss Forward space count setmarks (DDS drives only).
 bss Backward space count setmarks (DDS drives only).
 Examples
o mt -t /dev/rmt/0mnb rew will rewind the tape in this device.
o mt -t /dev/rmt/0mnb offl will eject the tape in this device.

System Status
At Command.
at command along with crontab command is used to schedule jobs.
at options time [ddate] [+increment] is syntax of at command.
for example if I have a script named usersloggedin which contains.

#!/bin/ksh
who | wc -l
echo "are total number of people logged in at this time."
and I want to run this script at 8:00 AM. So I will first type at 8:00 %lt;enter>
usersloggedin %lt;enter>
I will get following output at 8:00 AM
30
are total number of people logged in at this time.
Options:

 -f file will execute commands in a file.

 -m will send mail to user after job is completed.
  -l will report all jobs that are scheduled and their jobnumbers.
 -r jobnumber will remove specified jobs that were previously scheduled.

Chmod Command.
chmod command is used to change permissions on a file.
for example if I have a text file with calender in it called cal.txt.
initially when this file will be created the permissions for this file depends upon umask set in
your profile files. As you can see this file has 666 or -rw-rw-rw attributes.

ls -la cal.txt

-rw-rw-rw- 1 ssb dxidev 135 Dec 3 16:14 cal.txt

In this line above I have -rw-rw-rw- meaning respectively that owner can read and write file,
member of the owner's group can read and write this file and anyone else connected to this
system can read and write this file., next ssb is owner of this file dxidev is the group of this
file, there are 135 bytes in this file, this file was created on December 3 at time16:14 and at
the end there is name of this file. Learn to read these permissions in binary, like this for
example Decimal 644 which is 110 100 100 in binary meand rw-r--r-- or user can read,write this
file, group can read only, everyone else can read only. Similarly, if permissions are 755 or 111
101 101 that means rwxr-xr-x or user can read, write and execute, group can read and execute,
everyone else can read and execute. All directories have d in front of permissions. So if you don't
want anyone to see your files or to do anything with it use chmod command and make
permissions so that only you can read and write to that file, i.e.
chmod 600 filename.

Chgrp Command.
chgrp command is used to change the group of a file or directory.
You must own the file or be a superuser.
chgrp [options] newgroup files is syntax of chgrp.
Newgroup is either a group Id or a group name located in /etc/group .

Options:

 -h will change the group on symbolic links.

 -R recursively descend through directory changing group of all files and subdirectories.

Chown Command.
chown command to change ownership of a file or directory to one or more users.
Syntax is
chown options newowner files

Options

 -h will change the owner on symbolic links.

  -R will recursively descend through the directory, including subdirectories and symbolic
links.

Crontab Command.
crontab command is used to schedule jobs. You must have permission to run this command by
unix Administrator. Jobs are scheduled in five numbers, as follows.

Minutes 0-59
Hour 0-23
Day of month 1-31
month 1-12
Day of week 0-6 (0 is sunday)
so for example you want to schedule a job which runs from script named backup_jobs in
/usr/local/bin directory on sunday (day 0) at 11.25 (22:25) on 15th of month. The entry in
crontab file will be. * represents all values.
25 22 15 * 0 /usr/local/bin/backup_jobs
The * here tells system to run this each month.
Syntax is
crontab file So a create a file with the scheduled jobs as above and then type
crontab filename .This will scheduled the jobs.

Date Command.
Date displays todays date, to use it type date at prompt.

Sun Dec 7 14:23:08 EST 1997

is similar to what you should see on screen.

Df Command.
df command displays information about mounted filesystems. It reports the number of free disk
blocks. Typically a Disk block is 512 bytes (or 1/2 Kilobyte).
syntax is
df options name

Options

 -b will print only the number of free blocks.

 -e will print only the number of free files.
 -f will report free blocks but not free inodes.
 -F type will report on an umounted file system specified by type.
 -k will print allocation in kilobytes.
 -l will report only on local file systems.
 -n will print only the file system name type, with no arguments it lists type of all
filesystems
Du Command.
du command displays disk usage.

Env Command.
env command displays all the variables.

Finger Command.
finger command.

PS Command
ps command is probably the most useful command for systems administrators. It reports
information on active processes.
ps options

options.

 -a Lists all processes in system except processes not attached to terminals.

 -e Lists all processes in system.
 -f Lists a full listing.
 -j print process group ID and session ID.

Ruptime Command.
ruptime command tells the status of local networked machines.
ruptime options

options.

 -a include user even if they've been idle for more than one hour.
 -l sort by load average.
 -r reverse the sort order.
 -t sort by uptime.
 -i sort by number of users.

Shutdown Command.
Shutdown command can only be executed by root. To gracefully bring down a system, shutdown
command is used.

options.

 -gn use a grace-period of n seconds (default is 60).

 -ik tell the init command to place system in a state k.
o s single-user state (default)
o 0 shutdown for power-off.
 o 1 like s, but mount multi-user file systems.
o 5 stop system, go to firmware mode.
o 6 stop system then reboot.
 -y suppress the default prompt for confirmation.

Stty Command
stty command sets terminal input output options for the current terminal. without options stty
reports terminal settings.
stty options modes < device

options

 -a report all options.

 -g report current settings.

Modes

 0 hang up phone.
 n set terminal baud.
 erase keyname, will change your keyname to be backspace key.

Who Command
who command displays information about the current status of system.
who options file
Who as default prints login names of users currently logged in.

Options

 -a use all options.

 -b Report information about last reboot.
 -d report expired processes.
 -H print headings.
 -p report previously spawned processes.
 -u report terminal usage.

Some Useful Unix System Commands and Tools

What we say here is minimal, just a suggestion that you look for more information using man.
[ps, uname, kill, strings, file, strace, ipcs, ipcrm, netstat, ifconfig, nslookup, ping, traceroute, arp, lsof,
iostat, vmstat, df, du, route, and a number of other tools ]

Here are some tool for privileged users: tcpdump, pathchar, and Sniffit and Ethereal sniffers.
Here are some system security pointers:

 CIAC: Network Security Tools

 Unix Host and Network Security Tools
 Mat's Unix Security

ps: displays current process status

To list all your processes, enter:
ps

To list all processes, enter:

ps aux

uname: displays information about the operating system

uname [-amnrsv]

-a Displays all information specified with the -m, -n, -r, -s, and -v
options.

-m Displays the type of hardware running the system.

-n Displays the name of the node (this may be a name that the system is
known by to a communications network).

-r Displays the release number of the operating system.

-s Displays the name of the implementation of the operating system. (This

option is on by default.)

-v Displays the operating system version.

kill: sends a signal to a running process

To kill a process with process id 21234
$ kill -KILL 21234

To stop a process with process id 21234

$ kill -STOP 21234

To resume a stopped process with process id 21234

$ kill -CONT 21234

strings: Finds strings in an ASCII or binary file

Used with non text files, such as object and executable files, prints out
all the
strings oconsisting of at least 4 consecutive printable characters found in
the
file.
 strings [-ao] [-n number] [file...]
-a Searches an entire object file, rather than just the initialized data
space.

-n number
Sets the minimum string length to number rather than the default of 4.

-o Precedes each string by its offset (in octal) in the file.

file: determine the kind of a file

file filename
Determines what kind of file filename is, if binary, text, if object
file, if source
in Java ..

strace: print information on system calls made and signals received by a

program
strace command
It executes the command printing out information about all the system
calls it makes and
signals it receives. With qualifiers you can obtain also information
about the time taken
in the calls and between the calls.
For example
strace -c a.out
prints information and timing statistics for the program a.out

ipcs: displays Interprocess Communication (IPC) facility status

ipcs [-a|-bcopt] [-mqs]
where
-a Same as specifying the -b, -c, -o, -p, and -t options.

-b Writes the maximum number of bytes in message queues, the size of seg-
ments for shared memory, and the number of semaphores in each semaphore
set.

-c Writes the username and group name of the user that made the facility.

-m Writes information about active shared memory segments.

-o Writes the following usage information:

Number of messages on queue
Total number of bytes in message queues
Number of processes attached to shared memory segments

-p Writes the Process number of last process to attach or detach on

shared memory segments

-q Writes information about active message queues.

 -s Writes information about active semaphore set.

-t Writes the following:

Time of the last control operation that changed the access permis-
sions for all facilities
Time of the last msgsnd() and last msgrcv() on message queues
Time of the last semop() on semaphore sets

ipcrm: removes message queue, semaphore set, or shared memory identifiers

ipcrm [-m shared_memory] [-M shared_memory_key] [-q message_queue] [-Q
message_key] [-s semaphore_ID] [-S semaphore_key]
where:
-m shared_memory
Removes the shared memory identifier shared_memory. The shared memory
segment and data structure associated with shared_memory are also
removed after the last detach operation.

-M shared_memory_key
Removes the shared memory identifier, created with key
shared_memory_key. The shared memory segment and data structure associ-
ated with it are also removed after the last detach.

-q message_queue
Removes the message queue identifier message_queue and the message
queue and data structure associated with it.

-Q message_key
Removes the message queue identifier, created with key message_key, and
the message queue and data structure associated with it.

-s semaphore_ID
Removes the semaphore identifier semaphore_ID and the set of semaphores
and data structure associated with it.

-S semaphore_key
Removes the semaphore identifier, created with key semaphore_key, and
the set of semaphores and data structure associated with it.

netstat: displays network statistics

To produce the default display for network connections, enter:
netstat

To show the state of the configured interfaces, enter:

$ netstat -i

To show the routing tables, enter:

$ netstat -r

To show the routing tables with network addresses, enter:

$ netstat -rn
ifconfig: configures or displays network interface parameters
To show information about all interfaces, enter:
$ ifconfig -a

To query the status of serial line interface sl0, enter:

$ ifconfig sl0

nslookup: queries Internet name servers interactively

To find the dotted decimal IP address of host name snowhite.cis.temple.edu
$ nslookup snowhite.cis.temple.edu

To find the hostname of the dotted decimal IP address 155.247.190.207

$ nslookup 155.247.190.207

ping: Sends ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts

To determine the status of host www.cs.stanford.edu:
$ ping www.cs.stanford.edu

To also have a record of the route to www.cs.stanford.edu:

$ ping -R www.cs.stanford.edu

traceroute: Print the route that packets take to the network host
To find the route to host rtfm.mit.edu, enter:
$ traceroute rtfm.mit.edu

arp:Displays and controls Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) tables

To display all current ARP entries:
$ arp -a

lsof: list information about files opened by processes

This is a complex command not available on all unix (you can obtain a copy from
ftp://vic.cc.purdue.edu/pub/tools/lsof/).

To list all open files, use:

lsof

To list all open Internet, x.25 (HP-UX), and UNIX domain files, use:
lsof -i -U

To list all files using any protocol on any port of snowhite.cis.temple.edu,

use:
lsof -i @snowhite.cis.temple.edu

To find the process that has /u/abe/foo open, use:

lsof /u/abe/foo
 To find any open file, including an open UNIX domain socket file, with the
name /dev/log, use:
lsof /dev/log

To obtain PID and command name field output for each process, file descrip-
tor, file device number, and file inode number for each file of each pro-
cess, use:
lsof -FpcfDi

To find an IP version 4 socket file by its associated numeric dot-form

address, use:
lsof -i@128.210.15.17

iostat: display I/O statistics

iostat [drive...] [interval] [count]
For example
iostat 1 5
displays 5 status reports taken at 1 second intervals.

vmstat: displays virtual memory statistics

vmstat interval [count]
vmstat [-f|-M|-P|-s]
where:
-f Displays only statistics about the number of forks since system startup
(see the fork() call).
-P Displays accumulated statistics about physical memory use.
-s Displays accumulated statistics along with the page size.

df: Displays statistics on free disk space

du:Displays a summary of disk usage

To display the disk usage of a directory tree and each of its sub-
trees, enter:
$ du /u/fran

To display the disk usage of each file, enter:

$ du -a /u/fran

To display only the total disk usage of a directory tree, enter:

$ du -rs /u/fran

route: Manipulates the routing tables manually

Requires system privilege.