Linux file system ,Basic and Advance

commands

08/06/11
 Understanding the Linux File System

• The file system is organized in a hierarchical

structure similar to an inverted tree
• Linux file structure files are grouped according to
purpose. Ex: commands, data files,
documentation.

2
Understanding the Standard Tree Structure

• The structure starts at the root level

– Root is the name of the file at this basic level and it is
denoted by the slash character (/)

• A directory is a file that can contain other files

and directories

• A subdirectory is a directory within a directory

– The subdirectory is considered the child of the parent
directory

3
Vishal
Kaushal
 File System
1. / – Root
– Every single file and directory starts from the root directory.
– Only root user has write privilege under this directory.
– Please note that /root is root user’s home directory
2. /bin – User Binaries
– Contains binary executables.
– Common linux commands you need to use in single-user modes are
located under this directory.
– Commands used by all the users of the system are located here.
– For example: ps, ls, ping, grep, cp.
3. /sbin – System Binaries
– Just like /bin, /sbin also contains binary executables.
– But, the linux commands located under this directory are used typically
by system aministrator, for system maintenance purpose.
– For example: iptables, reboot, fdisk, ifconfig, swapon
4. /etc – Configuration Files
– Contains configuration files required by all programs.
– This also contains startup and shutdown shell scripts used to start/stop
individual programs.
– For example: /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/logrotate.conf
5. /dev – Device Files
– Contains device files.
– These include terminal devices, usb, or any device attached to the
system.
– For example: /dev/tty1, /dev/usbmon0
6. /proc – Process Information
– Contains information about system processes.
– It contains runtime system info like: system memory, devices mounted,
hardware configuration, etc.
7. /var – Variable Files
– var stands for variable files.
– Content of the files that are expected to grow can be found
under this directory.
– This includes — system log files (/var/log); packages and
database files (/var/lib); emails (/var/mail); print queues
(/var/spool); lock files (/var/lock); temp files needed across
reboots (/var/tmp);
8. /tmp – Temporary Files
– Directory that contains temporary files created by system and
users.
– Files under this directory are deleted when system is rebooted.
9. /usr – all programs are installed here.
- /usr/local -The place for locally installed software and other files.
10. /home – Home Directories
– Home directories for all users to store their personal files.
– For example: /home/john, /home/nikita
11. /boot – Boot Loader Files
– Contains boot loader related files.
– Kernel initrd, vmlinuz, grub files are located under /boot
– For example: initrd.img-2.6.32-24-generic, vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-
generic
12. /lib – System Libraries
– Contains library files that supports the binaries located under
/bin and /sbin
– Library filenames are either ld* or lib*.so.*
– For example: ld-2.11.1.so, libncurses.so.5.7
13. /opt – Optional add-on Applications
– opt stands for optional.
– Contains add-on applications from individual vendors.
– add-on applications should be installed under either /opt/ or
/opt/ sub-directory.
– Google chrome need to be installed separately.
14. /mnt – Mount Directory
– Temporary mount directory where sysadmins can mount
filesystems.

15. /media – Removable Media Devices

– Temporary mount directory for removable devices.
– For examples, /media/cdrom for CD-ROM; /media/floppy for
floppy drives; /media/cdrecorder for CD writer

16. /srv – Service Data

– Srv is a serve folder.
– It holds site specific data to be served by the system for protocols
such as, ftp, rsync, www, cvs etc.

08/06/11
Logging
• You are now logged into the computer and will have a
prompt that reflects the computer's name.
sammy@webapp:~$

✓ sammy: The username of the current user

✓ webapp: The hostname of the server
✓ ~: The current directory. In bash, which is the default shell, the ~, or
tilde, is a special character that expands to the path of the current
user's home directory; in this case, it represents /home/sammy
✓ $: The prompt symbol. This denotes the end of the command prompt,
after which the user's keyboard input will appear

• At this point, you’re ready to enter your first linux

command
• exit—to sign off from the computer system.
entering exit shuts down all programs

10
 Every unix command is a sequence of letters,
numbers and characters. But there are no
spaces.
 It is also case-sensitive. This means that cat
and Cat are different commands.
 The prompt is displayed by a special program
called the shell.
 Shells accept commands, and run those
commands.
 They can also be programmed in their own
language. These programs are called “shell
scripts”.

11
 When you first login, the prompt is
displayed by bash, and you are
running your first unix program, the
bash shell.
 As long as you are logged in, the bash
shell will constantly be running.

12
13
 Each command performs [variations of] a
single task
◦ “options” can be used to modify what a command does
◦ different commands can be “glued together” to perform
more complex tasks
 Syntax: Options can (usually)
command options arguments be combined
together:
Examples: these are equivalent

Command Options Arguments

pwd
cd /home/debray
ls -a -l
ls -al /usr/local
15
 Each command performs [variations of] a
single task
◦ “options” can be used to modify what a command does
◦ different commands can be “glued together” to perform
more complex tasks
 Syntax: Not always required: may
have default values
command options arguments typical defaults:
Examples: • input: stdin
• output: stdout
Command Options Arguments
• directory: current
pwd
cd /home/debray defaults to
ls -a -l current
directory
ls -al /usr/local

16
'ls -al' gives detailed information of the
files.
 Help for commands

Figuring out which command to use

apropos keyword
man –k keyword
“searches a set of database files containing short descriptions
of system commands for keywords”

19
Figuring out how to use a command
man command
“displays the on-line manual pages”

 Provides information about command

options, arguments, return values, bugs, etc.

20
 items within
square brackets
are optional

To exit
Press “q” 21
22
Logging In
• To log in to a Unix machine you can either:
◼ sit at the console (the computer itself)
◼ access remotely, via SSH, e.g.

• The system prompts you for your

username and password.
• Usernames and passwords are case
sensitive!
Password
• a password is a secret string that only the
user knows (not even the system knows!)
• When you enter your password the system
encrypts it and compares to a stored
string.
• passwords should have at least 6
characters
• It's a good idea to mix case, include
numbers and/or special characters (don't
use anything that appears in a dictionary!)
Home Directory
• The user’s personal directory. E.g.,
◼ /home/student
◼ /home/vit
• Your current directory when you log in
• cd (by itself) takes you home
• Location of many startup and customization
files. E.g.:
• .vimrc .bashrc .bash_profile .forward .plan
.mozilla/ .elm/ .logout
Files and File Names
• A file is a basic unit of storage (usually
storage on a disk).
• Every file has a name.
• Filenames are case-sensitive!
• File names can contain any characters
(although some make it difficult to access
the file) except the null character and the
slash (/).
Directories
• A directory is a special kind of file -
uses a directory to hold
information about other files.
• We often think of a directory as a
container that holds other files (or
directories).
• A directory is the same idea as a
folder on Windows.
More about File Names
• Review: every file has a name (at
least one).

• Each file in the same directory

must have a unique name.

• Files that are in different

directories can have the same
name.
The Filesystem (eg)
/

bin etc home/ tmp usr

VIT student bin etc

OS linux X ls who
Pathnames
• The pathname of a file includes the file name and the
name of the directory that holds the file, and the name
of the directory that holds the directory that holds the
file, and the name of the … up to the root
• The pathname of every file in a given filesystem is
unique.
• To create a pathname you start at the root (so you start
with "/"), then follow the path down the hierarchy
(including each directory name) and you end with the
filename.
• In between every directory name you put a "/".
Relative Pathnames
Prefixed w/the current directory, $PWD
So, relative to the current working
directory
$ cd /home/VIT
$ pwd
/home/VIT
$ ls linux/Syllabus
linux/Syllabus
$ ls X
ls: X: No such file or directory
$ ls /home/student/X
/home/student/X
Special Relative paths…
. – The current directory
.. – The parent directory
$ pwd
/home/VIT
$ ls ./os
./os
$ ls ../student
X
Commands for Traversing
Filesystem
ls – lists contents of a directory
◼-a – all files
◼-l – long listing
pwd – print working (current)
directory
cd – change directory
◼w/out argument, takes you home
 Listing files (ls)
• It shows the files /directories in your current directory.
• OPTIONS:
-l Lists all the files, directories and their mode, Number of links,
owner of the file, file size, Modified date and time and filename.

-t Lists in order of last modification time.

-a Lists all entries including hidden files.
-d Lists directory files instead of contents.
-p Puts slash at the end of each directories.
-u List in order of last access time.
-i Display inode information.
-ltr List files order by date.
-lSr List files order by file size.
'ls -al' gives detailed information of the
files.
Basic Commands (cont)
1.date: To display current date & time of the system.
2. cal :To display calendar of current month.
3. who:List who is currently logged on to the system.
4. Whoami:Report what user you are logged on as.
5. echo :Echo a string (or list of arguments) to the terminal
6. bc:To perform mathematical operations
7. clear:To clear the screen
8. alias : Used to tailor commands
Ex alias erase=rm Generate an employee report using AWK
programming.
alias grep=”grep -i”
alias cp=“cp –i”
9. man <cmd name>: To get help for any command
10. passwd: To change the passward
11. exit: To logout from the terminal
passwd

• With the passwd command, you can change the

password associated with your individual account name.

• For example,

sariyer:~> passwd
Changing password for dag.
Old password:
New passwd:
Retype new passwd:
sariyer:~>

37
 Basic Commands (cont)
File & Directory Related Commands
1. cp <fromfile> <tofile>: Copy from the <fromfile> to the <tofile>
2. mv <fromfile> <tofile> : Move/rename the <fromfile> to the
<tofile>
3. rm <file>:Remove the file named <file>
4. mkdir <newdir>:Make a new directory called <newdir>
5. rmdir <dir>:Remove an (empty) directory
6. cd <dir> :Change the current working directory to dir
7. pwd : Print (display) the working directory
8. cat > <file> :To create new file and save it by pressing ^d
9. cat >> <file>: To append contents into existing file
10. cat <file>:To see the contents of existing file
11. more <file>:Paging out the contents of file
Basic Commands (cont)
12. file <file>:To check the type of file
13. wc <file>:To count lines,words,charaters of file
14. cmp <file1> <file2>:To compare two files
15. comm <file1> <file2>:To display common values between two
files
16. diff <file1> <file2>:To convert one file to another
17. gzip <file>:To compress the file
18. gunzip <file>:To unzip the contents of zipped file
19. ls :List the files in the current working directory
20. ls <dir>:List all files & directories in given directory
21. ln <fromfile><tofile>: Creates a symbolic link to a file
 Advance commands
1. pr <file> :Paginating the file
Ex: pr –h “test” –d –n fname
2. head <file>:Display first 10 lines of file
Ex: head –n -3 fname
3. tail <file> :To display last 10 lines of file
Ex: tail -3 fname ; tail –c 100 fname
4. cut <file> :Splitting file vertically
Ex: cut –c 2-10,12-14 fname
cut –d “|” –f 2,4 fname
5. paste <file1> <file2> :To combine two file vertically rather than
horizontally
Ex: paste –d “|” fname1 fname2
6. sort <file>:To sort file in order by field wise
Ex: sort –t”|” –k 2 fname
sort –r fname
 Advance commands
7. uniq <file> :Locate repeated & nonrepeated lines
Ex: uniq fname; uniq –d fname
8. tr ch1 ch2 < <file1>:To translate occurrence of ch1 by ch2
Ex: tr ‘|’ ‘+’ < fname1
9. tee: read from standard input and write to standard output and
files
Ex: ls *.txt | wc -l | tee count.txt
Some of the things these commands manipulate:

 The time stamp: Each file has three dates

associated with it. These are creation time, last
modification time and last access time.

 The owner: the owner of files

 The group: the group of users

 The permissions: read, write, execute permissions

of files. The permissions tell unix who can access
what file, or change it, or, in the case of programs,
execute it. Each of these permissions can be
toggled separately for the owner, the group, and all
the other users.

42
File Time Attributes

Time Attributes:
◼ when the file was last changed ls -l
◼ sort by modification time ls -lt
Types of Users

 user(owner): he is the user who create the file.

 Group: They are the users who belong to the
same group that the owner of the file belongs.
 Others : they are any other users in the system.
 And there is a super user (the root) is the
administrator of the computer system which have
access privileges to all files.
 The login name for the super user is root and user id
is 0.
Utilities for Manipulating file attributes

 chmod change file permissions

 chown change file owner
 chgrp change file group
 umask user file creation mode mask
 only owner or super-user can change file
attributes
 upon creation, default permissions given
to file modified by process umask value
File Owners

Each file is owned by a user.

You can find out the username of
the file's owner with the -l or -o
option to ls:
[jjohnson@ws44 winter]$ ls -l
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 7 jjohnson users 80 Jan 3 2005 cs265/
-rw------- 1 jjohnson users 8258 Jan 3 2005 cs265.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 jjohnson users 8261 Jan 3 2005 cs265.html~
Getting more information about files…

owner group size last-modified time file name

no. of hard links

access permissions
− normal file
file type d directory
l (ell) symbolic link

47
File access permissions

access permissions for others (o)

r read
w write
access permissions for group (g)
x execute (executable file)
enter (directory)
access permissions for owner (u)
− no permission

48
File Permissions
Each file has a set of permissions
that control who can mess with
the file.
There are three types of
permissions:
◼ read abbreviated r
◼ write abbreviated w
◼ execute abbreviated x
There are 3 sets of permission:
1. user
2. group
3. other (the world, everybody else)
ls -l and permissions

-rwxrwxrwx
User Group Others
Type of file:
- – plain file
d – directory
b-block device file
c- character device file
l – symbolic link
p- pipe
s- socket
rwx
Files:
◼ r - allowed to read.
◼ w - allowed to write
◼ x - allowed to execute
Directories:
◼ r - allowed to see the names of the file.
◼ w - allowed to add and remove files.
◼ x - allowed to enter the directory
Access Types
Changing Permissions
The chmod command changes the
permissions associated with a file
or directory.
There are a number of forms of
chmod, this is the simplest:
chmod mode file
chmod – numeric modes
Consider permission for each set of
users (user, group, other) as a 3-bit #
◼ r–4
◼ w–2
◼ x–1
A permission (mode) for all 3 classes is
a 3-digit octal #
◼ 755 – rwxr-xr-x
◼ 644 – rw-r—r--
◼ 700 – rwx------
Changing file access privileges
(cont…)
chmod - examples
$ chmod 700 CS571
$ ls –o Personal
drwx------ 10 kschmidt 4096 Dec 19 2004 CS571/
$ chmod 755 public_html
$ chmod 644 public_html/index.html
$ ls –ao public_html
drwxr-xr-x 16 kschmidt 4096 Jan 8 10:15 .
drwx--x--x 92 kschmidt 8192 Jan 8 13:36 ..
-rw-r--r-- 5 kschmidt 151 Nov 16 19:18 index.html
$ chmod 644 .plan
$ ls –o .plan
-rw-r--r-- 5 kschmidt 151 Nov 16 19:18 .plan
chmod – symbolic modes
Can be used to set, add, or
remove permissions
Mode has the following form:
[ugoa][+-=][rwx]
◼ u – user g – group o – other a – all
◼ + add permission - remove permission =
set permission
chmod examples

$ ls -al foo
-rwxrwx--x 1 hollingd grads foo

$ chmod g-wx foo

$ ls -al foo
-rwxr----x 1 hollingd grads foo

$ chmod u-r .
$ ls
ls: .: Permission denied
Chown and chgrp: Changing File
Ownership

 There are two commands meant to manipulate the ownership of

a file or directory – chown and chgrp.
 They can be used only by the owner of the file. Here’s the
syntax for both:
chown options new_user file(s)
chgrp options new_group file(s)
Chown and chgrp: Changing File
Ownership
• chown (change ownership) takes the new user’s user-id
as argument followed by one or more files to change the
file ownership.
 The chgrp (change group) command changes the group
owner of a file.
 Both chown and chgrp also work with the –R option to
perform their operations in a recursive manner.
 The super user can change every file attribute.

# ls -lart tmpfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 himanshu family 0 2012-05-22
20:03 tmpfile
# chown root tmpfile
# ls -l tmpfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root family 0 2012-05-22
20:03 tmpfile
Change the group

# ls -l tmpfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 himanshu family 0 2012-05-22 20:03 tmpfile
# chown :friends tmpfile
# ls -l tmpfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 himanshu friends 0 2012-05-22 20:03 tmpfile

Change both owner and the group

# ls -l tmpfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root family 0 2012-05-22 20:03 tmpfile
# chown himanshu:friends tmpfile
# ls -l tmpfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 himanshu friends 0 2012-05-22 20:03
tmpfile
Using chown command on symbolic link file

ls -l tmpfile_symlnk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 himanshu family 7 2012-05-22 20:03 tmpfile_symlnk -> tmpfile

# chown root:friends tmpfile_symlnk

# ls -l tmpfile_symlnk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 himanshu family 7 2012-05-22 20:03 tmpfile_symlnk -> tmpfile
# ls -l tmpfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root friends 0 2012-05-22 20:03 tmpfile

⚫When the chown command was issued on symbolic link to

change the owner as well as the group then its the
referent of the symbolic link ie ‘tmpfile’ whose owner and
group got changed.

⚫This is the default behavior of the chown command.

⚫ Also, there exists a flag ‘–dereference’ for the same.

 Using chown command to forcefully change the owner/group of
symbolic file.

Using flag ‘-h’, you can forcefully change the owner or group of a symbolic link as
shown below.
# ls -l tmpfile_symlnk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 himanshu family 7 2012-05-22 20:03 tmpfile_symlnk -> tmpfile
# chown -h root:friends tmpfile_symlnk
# ls -l tmpfile_symlnk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root friends 7 2012-05-22 20:03 tmpfile_symlnk -> tmpfile
umask: Default File Permissions
 The default permissions are inherited by files and directories
created by all users:
◦ rw-rw-rw- (octal 666) for regular files
◦ rwxrwxrwx (octal 777) for directories
 However, these are not the permissions you see. This default is
transformed by subtracting the user mask from it to remove one
or more permissions.
 This mask is evaluated by using umask:

$ umask

student@unix-13:~$
umask
0022
student@unix-13:~$
umask: Default File Permissions

$ umask
77
 This is an octal number, and subtracting this value from the file
default yields 666 – 077 = 600.
 This represents the default permissions (rw-------) when you
create a file.
 The default directory permissions are set (rwx------) when a
directory is created.
Filter and Redirection:
Pipes – connecting processes
A pipe is a holder for a stream of
data.
A pipe can be used to hold the
output of one program and feed it
to the input of another.
prog1 prog2
STDOUT STDIN
Asking for a pipe
Separate 2 commands with the “|”
character.
The shell does all the work!
ls -1 | sort
ls -1 | sort > sortedlist
ls -1 | sort | head > top.ten
filters
Programs that read some input (but
don’t change it), perform a simple
transformation on it, and write some
output (to stdout)
Some common filters…
◼ wc – word count (line count, character count)
◼ tr – translate
◼ grep, egrep – search files using regular
expressions
◼ sort – sorts files by line (lexically or numerically)
◼ cut – select portions of a line
◼ uniq – Removes identical adjacent lines
◼ head, tail – displays first (last) n lines of a file
pipes and combining filters
Connect the output of one command to
the input of another command to obtain
a composition of filters

who | wc -l
ls | sort -f
ls -s | sort -n
ls -l | sort -nr -k4
ls -l | grep ‘^d’
 • pr

⚫ pr <file> :Paginating the file

Ex pr –h “test” –d –n fname

admin36@soft36:~$ pr -n -h "trial" test

2014-01-29 17:07 trial Page 1

1 This is test file

2 hello vit
• sort

⚫ sort <file>:To sort file in order by field wise

⚫ Ex sort –t”|” –k 2 fname

⚫ sort –r fname
• cut

⚫ cut <file> :Splitting file vertically

⚫ Ex cut –c 2-10,12-14 fname

⚫ a. cut –d “|” –f 2,4 fname

• paste

⚫ paste <file1> <file2> :To combine two file vertically rather than horizontally

⚫ Ex paste –d “|” fname1 fname2

• head

⚫ head <file>:Display first 10 lines of file

⚫ Ex head –n -3 fname
• tail

⚫ tail <file> :To display last 10 lines of file

⚫ Ex tail -3 fname ;

⚫ tail –c 100 fname

• tee

⚫ tee: read from standard input and write to standard output and files

⚫ Ex. ls *.txt | wc -l | tee count.txt

• uniq

⚫ uniq <file> :Locate repeated & nonrepeated lines

⚫ Ex uniq fname; uniq –d fname

• tr
 The “translate characters” command operates on
standard input-it doesn’t accept a filename as a
parameter.
 Instead, it’s two parameters are arbitrary strings.
 It replaces all occurences of string1 in the input
string2.
 In addition to relatively simple commands such as tr
frog toad, tr can accept more complicated commands.
tr string1 string2

admin40@admin40-OptiPlex-360:~$ cat
>test
this is test file
admin40@admin40-OptiPlex-360:~$ tr '[a-z]'
'[A-Z]' <test
THIS IS TEST FILE 80
Redirection
1. Standard input redirection: It is used to redirect standard input.
Ex. cat < fname
2. Standard output redirection : It is used to redirect standard
output.
Ex cat >fname
3. Standard error redirection: It is used to redirect standard error.
Ex cat fname 2>Errorfile
 Grep: Global Regular Expression Print
• Searching and pattern matching tools
• Searches files for one or more pattern arguments. It does plain
string, basic regular expression, and extended regular expression
searching
• Following are some of the options for grep
-i ignore case for matching
-v doesn’t display lines matching expression
-n display line numbers along of occurrences
-c counting number of occurrences
-l display list of file names
-e exp for matching
-f file take patterns from file
-E treat pattern as an extended reg. exp
-F matches multiple fixed strings (fgrep)
 Grep: Global Regular Expression Print

• grep -ow "yourstring“

• grep -w "search_word" text_file
• grep -P '^(tomcat!?)' tst1.txt

08/06/11
Programming Tools and Utilities
Available under Linux
• Text Editors • Debuggers
– Xemacs – C / C++ debugger - gdb
– Emacs • Interpreters
– Pico – Perl - perl
– vi – Tcl/Tk - tcl & wish
• Compilers • Miscellaneous
– C compiler - gcc – Web Browsers - Mozilla,
– C++ compiler - g++ Netscape, Firefox, and
– Java compiler & Java Lynx (lynx is text based)
Virtual Machine - javac & – Instant Messengers - Gaim
java – Email - Netscape is there,
but we will learn Pine
 Try following commnads
• compgen
• fg
• Bg
• Zcat
• du
• df
• touch
• which

08/06/11