STUDY OF UNIX OS

A computer uses a set of programs, generally called the operating system, to manage its
hardware resources (memory, disks, displays, input devices, etc.) on behalf of the user. UNIX is an
example of such a system. It was originally developed as a research project at AT&T Bell Labs in
1969. It is a stable, multi-user, multi-tasking system for servers, desktops and laptops. UNIX systems
also have a graphical user interface (GUI) similar to Microsoft Windows which provides an easy to
use environment.
 UNIX was designed to be easily ported (moved from one hardware platform to another). It
has been ported to everything from desktop computers to room-sized supercomputers.
 UNIX allows many people to share the resources of a single computer simultaneously.
 UNIX allows users to run multiple programs at once. Unlike most desktop operating systems,
UNIX imposes strict constraints which keep ill-behaved programs from affecting other
programs and the operating system itself.
There are many different versions of UNIX, although they share common similarities. The most
popular varieties of UNIX are Sun Solaris, GNU/Linux, and MacOS X. The UNIX operating system
is made up of three parts.
 The kernel
 The shell
 The programs.
The kernel
The core of the UNIX system. It is loaded at system start up (boot). It is a memory-resident
control program. It manages the entire resources of the system, presenting them to you and every
other user as a coherent system. It Provides service to user applications such as device management,
process scheduling, etc.
Example functions performed by the kernel are:
• Managing the machine's memory and allocating it to each process.
• Scheduling the work done by the CPU so that the work of each user is carried out as
efficiently as is possible.
• Accomplishing the transfer of data from one part of the machine to other
• interpreting and executing instructions from the shell
• Enforcing file access permissions.
The shell
We can interact with UNIX through a special program called the shell. The shell prompts you
for commands and hands these off to the operating system to be executed after you have typed them
in. Commands are composed of two parts:
 the name of the command itself
 Arguments.
 The UNIX shell comes in two major flavors: the Bourne shell, sh , and the C shell, csh. Other
popular shells are derived from these (e.g., ksh, bash, tcsh). Each shell uses a particular character (or
string of characters) to prompt the user for commands.
The shell acts as an interface between the user and the kernel. When a user logs in, the login
program checks the username and password, and then starts another program called the shell. The
shell is a command line interpreter (CLI). It interprets the commands the user types in and arranges
for them to be carried out. The commands are themselves programs: when they terminate, the shell
gives the user another prompt.
Files and processes
Everything in UNIX is either a file or a process. A process is an executing program identified
by a unique PID (process identifier). A file is a collection of data. They are created by users using
text editors, running compilers etc.
Examples of files:
 a document ,the text of a program written in some high-level programming language
 instructions comprehensible directly to the machine and incomprehensible to a casual user,a
directory, containing information about its contents, which may be a mixture of other
directories (subdirectories) and ordinary files.
The Directory structure
All the files are grouped together in the directory structure. The file-system is arranged in a
hierarchical structure, like an inverted tree. The top of the hierarchy is traditionally called root
(written as a slash / )

In the diagram above, we see that the home directory of the

undergraduate student "ee51vn" contains two sub-directories
(docs and pics) and a file called report.doc. The full path to the
file report.d
Basic UNIX Commands

The list below presents some examples of basic UNIX commands.

Files

 ls --- lists your files

ls -l --- lists your files in 'long format', which contains lots of useful information, e.g. the
exact size of the file, who owns the file and who has the right to look at it, and when it was
last modified.
ls -a --- lists all files, including the ones whose filenames begin in a dot, which you do not
always want to see.
There are many more options, for example to list files by size, by date, recursively etc.

Example

% ls

lists all of the files in your current directory, except those beginning with a '.' (period).

% ls -a

lists all the files in your current directory, including those beginning with a period (such as .login)

% ls /usr/users

lists all the files in the /usr/users directory.

 more filename --- shows the first part of a file, just as much as will fit on one screen. Just hit
the space bar to see more or q to quit. You can use /pattern to search for a pattern.

Example

% more gamma.seq

displays the gamma.seq file on your terminal, one screen at a time.

File Creation/Deletion

 cat filename --- user can create a file.

 mv filename1 filename2 --- moves a file (i.e. gives it a different name, or moves it into a
different directory (see below)
 cp filename1 filename2 --- copies a file
 rm filename --- removes a file. It is wise to use the option rm -i, which will ask you for
confirmation before actually deleting anything.

Example

% cat temp.txt gamma.seq > new.seq

combines the temp.txt and gamma.seq files and puts the result in the new.seq file.

% cp gamma.seq temp.txt

creates a new file -- or writes over an existing one -- called temp.txt that contains exactly the same
data as the gamma.seq file.

% mv gamma.seq temp.txt

changes the name of the gamma.seq file to temp.txt, writing over the contents of temp.txt, if any.

% rm gamma*

deletes all files that begin with the characters "gamma".

File Manipulation

 diff filename1 filename2 --- compares files, and shows where they differ
 wc filename --- tells you how many lines, words, and characters there are in a file

Directories

Directories, like folders on a Unix, are used to group files together in a hierarchical structure.

 mkdir dirname --- make a new directory

 cd dirname --- change directory. You basically 'go' to another directory, and you will see the
files in that directory when you do 'ls'. You always start out in your 'home directory', and you
can get back there by typing 'cd' without arguments. 'cd ..' will get you one level up from
your current position. You don't have to walk along step by step - you can make big leaps or
avoid walking around by specifying pathnames
 pwd --- tells you where you currently are.
Example

% mkdir project

creates a subdirectory called project off your current directory.

% pwd

displays the full path of your current directory.

Printing

 lpr filename --- print. Use the -P option to specify the printer name if you want to use a
printer other than your default printer. For example, if you want to print double-sided, use 'lpr
-Pvalkyr-d', or if you're at CSLI, you may want to use 'lpr -Pcord115-d'. See 'help printers' for
more information about printers and their locations.
 lpq --- check out the printer queue, e.g. to get the number needed for removal, or to see how
many other files will be printed before yours will come out
 lprm jobnumber --- remove something from the printer queue. You can find the job number
by using lpq. Theoretically you also have to specify a printer name, but this isn't necessary as
long as you use your default printer in the department.

Example

% lpr project

Print the content of file name project in the printer.

Help (UNIX On-Line Documentation)

 man commandname --- shows you the manual page for the command

You can find out more about these commands by looking up their manual pages

Example

% man ls

displays the on-line manual pages for the ls command.

Ending a Session

 logout --- Close your Unix session

Example

% logout

ends your UNIX session.

Operating System Information

 finger --- To known your Operating system details

Example

% finger smith

displays the shell you are using (where "smith" is your username), as well as other information.

Searching File for Text Patterns

 ff --- find files anywhere on the system. This can be extremely useful if you've forgotten in
which directory you put a file, but do remember the name. In fact, if you use ff -p you don't
even need the full name, just the beginning. This can also be useful for finding other things
on the system, e.g. documentation.
 grep string filename(s) --- looks for the string in the files. This can be useful a lot of
purposes, e.g. finding the right file among many, figuring out which is the right version of
something, and even doing serious corpus work. grep comes in several varieties (grep,
egrep, and fgrep) and has a lot of very flexible options. Check out the man pages if this
sounds good to you.

Example

% grep smithies gamma.seq

looks through gamma.seq for the "smithies" character pattern and displays the lines that match the
pattern.

Miscellaneous tools

 webster word --- looks up the word in an electronic version of Webster's dictionary and
returns the definition(s)
 date --- shows the current date and time.
 cal --- shows a calendar of the current month. Use e.g., 'cal 10 1995' to get that for October
95, or 'cal 1995' to get the whole year.
Example

% cal 2009

It displays entire 12 months of 2009 calendar

About other people

 w --- tells you who's logged in, and what they're doing. Especially useful: the 'idle' part. This
allows you to see whether they're actually sitting there typing away at their keyboards right at
the moment.
 who --- tells you who's logged on, and where they're coming from. Useful if you're looking
for someone who's actually physically in the same building as you, or in some other
particular location.
 finger username --- gives you lots of information about that user, e.g. when they last read
their mail and whether they're logged in. Often people put other practical information, such
as phone numbers and addresses, in a file called .plan. This information is also displayed by
'finger'.
 last -1 username --- tells you when the user last logged on and off and from where. Without
any options, last will give you a list of everyone's logins.

Example

% finger smith

displays the shell you are using (where "smith" is your username), as well as other information.

About your (electronic) self

 whoami --- returns your username. Sounds useless, but isn't. You may need to find out who it
is who forgot to log out somewhere, and make sure *you* have logged out.
 finger & .plan files
of course you can finger yourself, too. That can be useful e.g. as a quick check whether you
got new mail. Try to create a useful .plan file soon. Look at other people's .plan files for
ideas. The file needs to be readable for everyone in order to be visible through 'finger'.
 passwd --- lets you change your password, which you should do regularly.
 ps -u yourusername --- lists your processes. Contains lots of information about them,
including the process ID, which you need if you have to kill a process. Be careful not to kill
your files.
 kill PID --- kills (ends) the processes with the ID you gave. This works only for your own
processes, of course. Get the ID by using ps. If the process doesn't 'die' properly, use the
option -9.
  du filename --- shows the disk usage of the files and directories in filename (without
argument the current directory is used). du -s gives only a total.

Example

% kill 9145

It will kill 9145 process ID file.

% du agni

It display the sizes of files and directories.

Connecting to the outside world

 nn --- allows you to read news. It will first let you read the news local to turing, and then the
remote news. If you want to read only the local or remote news, you can use nnl or nnr,
respectively.
 rlogin hostname --- lets you connect to a remote host
 telnet hostname --- also lets you connect to a remote host. Use rlogin whenever possible.
 ftp hostname --- lets you download files from a remote host which is set up as an ftp-server.
This is a common method for exchanging academic papers and drafts
 VI EDITOR COMMANDS

vi filename (press Enter/Return key)

Opens the named file if it exists, or creates new file and opens it.

Cursor Motion Commands

Esc h- move back 1 character

Esc l- move forward 1 character
Esc j- move down 1 line
Esc k- move up 1 line
G(uppercase) - Moves cursor to the last line in the file.
1G (number one and uppercase G) - Moves cursor to the first line in the file.

Commands to put you in text insert mode

Note: After inserting text, press Esc (escape) key to return to command mode.

Esc a (lowercase) - Use to insert (append) text to the right of cursor.

Esc A (uppercase) - Use to insert (append) text at the end of the current line.
Esc i (letter i (eye) lowercase) - Use to insert text to the left of cursor.
Esc I (letter I (eye) uppercase) - Use to insert text at the beginning of the current line.
Esc o (letter o lowercase) - Use to open a new line for inserting text below cursor line.
Esc O (letter O uppercase) - Use to open a new line for inserting text above cursor line

Commands to delete text

x (lowercase) - Removes the character under the cursor.

dw (lowercase) - Deletes word under and to right of cursor.
dd (lowercase) - Deletes the cursor line.
D (uppercase) - Deletes from cursor to end of line.
Commands to change text

Note: After making change, press Esc (escape) key to return to command mode.

Esc cw (lowercase)
Changes word under and to right of cursor to new text you enter.
Esc cc (lowercase)
Changes current line to new text you enter.
Esc s (lowercase)
Substitutes character under cursor with new text you enter.
Esc S (uppercase)
Substitutes current line with new text you enter.
Esc C (uppercase)
Changes text from cursor to end of line to text you enter.
Esc r (lowercase)
Replaces character under cursor with new character.
Esc ~ (tilde)
Changes case of character under cursor

Commands to delete text

Esc x (lowercase)
Removes the character under the cursor.
Esc dw (lowercase)
Deletes word under and to right of cursor.
Esc dd (lowercase)
Deletes the cursor line.
Esc D (uppercase)
Deletes from cursor to end of line
Command to join two lines

Esc J (uppercase)
Joins next line to the end of the cursor line.

Commands to copy lines and put them in another location

Esc yw (lowercase) - Yanks (copies) word under and to right of cursor.

Esc Y (uppercase)
Yanks (copies) line the cursor is on.
Esc p (lowercase)
Puts last word or line yanked or deleted after cursor.
Esc P (uppercase)
Puts last word or line yanked or deleted before cursor.

Commands to save changes or leave vi editing session

Esc – Shift :w (colon and lowercase w)

Saves changes, but does not leave vi editing session.
Esc – Shift :wq (colon and lowercase wq)
Saves changes, and leaves vi editing session.
Esc – Shift ZZ (uppercase)
Saves changes, and leaves vi editing session.
Esc – Shift :q! (colon, lowercase q, and exclamation)
Does not save changes made. Just leaves vi editing session.
 DIRECTORY CREATION
Command Syntax

mkdir [OPTION] DIRECTORY

$mkdir <path>/<directory>
$mkdir –m <directory>
$mkdir –p <directory1>/<directory2>/<directory3>

Example:
– mkdir project1
This creates a directory project1 under current directory

Note: Write and execute permissions are needed for the user to create a directory
Create the DIRECTORY(ies), if they do not already exist.
-m, --mode=MODE
set permission mode
-p, --parents
no error if existing, make parent directories as
needed
--verbose
print a message for each created directory
Making a directory – The mkdir command
Directories can be created by using the mkdir (make directory) command.
$ mkdir mydir
A directory mydir is created under the current directory.
A number or directories can be created as follows
$ mkdir mydir mydir/progs mydir/data

$mkdir –p mydir/mydir1/mydir2/mydir3
Creates directories hierarchically below each directory

$mkdir –m 755 project

Creates directory “project” and sets read, write, execute permissions for owner and read & execute
permissions for group and others.
Directory removal

rmdir command removes directory

Syntax
– rmdir <directory name>
Example
Removes project1 directory in the current directory
– rmdir project1
Remove multiple directories
rmdir pos1 pos2
Remove the directory recursively
 rmdir –p dir1/dir2/dir2
Rule: rmdir can be executed to remove a directory if it is empty and not the current directory

Command - cd
cd command is used to change the directory

• cd - take to the home directory

• cd .. - takes to the parent directory
• cd / - takes to the root directory
•
I/O redirection
< file redirect standard input from file
> file redirect standard output to file
2> file redirect standard error to file
2>&1 merge standard error with standard output
$ cat > abc

$ ls –l > outfile

$ cat xyz abc > outfile 2> errfile

$ cat xyz abc > outfile 2>&1

Eg:
$ cat <file1
This displays contents of file1. In this case, cat reads input from standard input, to which the
contents of file1 is redirected to. This redirection is done by shell.

$cat>file2
This command is used to create file2, if it does not exist or to overwrite file2. In either case cat takes
input from keyboard and writes the output to standard output, which is redirected to file2 by shell.

$ cat file3
cat: file3: No such file or directory
In this case cat sends error messages to standard error.
To redirect this error to a file, we can use 2>
$cat file3 2>error
This command will create a file error and will store the standard error in it.

Merging standard output and standard error

$cat file2 >file4 2>&1
Both standard output and standard error are sent to file4.

grep options
-c displays count of the number of occurrences
-n displays line numbers along with the lines

-v displays all lines except lines matching pattern

-i Ignores case for matching

To find the number of files that are soft links in the current directory
$ ls –l | grep –c “^l”

To get long list of all files, excluding directories

$ ls –l | grep –v “^d”
 PIPE AND FILTERS
The purpose of Pipes and Filters is to construct powerful Unix command lines by combining Unix
commands.

Unix commands alone are powerful, but when you combine them together, you can accomplish
complex tasks with ease. The way you combine Unix commands is through using pipes and filters

Using a Pipe

The symbol | is the Unix pipe symbol that is used on the command line. What it means is that the
standard output of the command to the left of the pipe gets sent as standard input of the command to
the right of the pipe.

Here is an example

$ cat apple.txt
My college
Name is
Crescent Engg college
$ cat apple.txt | wc
3 7 40
$

In this example, at the first shell prompt, I show the contents of the file apple.txt to you. In the next
shell prompt, I use the cat command to display the contents of the apple.txt file, but I sent the display
not to the screen, but through a pipe to the wc (word count) command. The wc command then does
its job and counts the lines, words, and characters of what it got as input.

You can combine many commands with pipes on a single command line. Here's an example where I
count the characters, words, and lines of the apple.txt file, then mail the results to
crescent@gmail.com with the subject line "The count."

$ cat apple.txt | wc | mail -s "The count" crescent@gmail.com

Using a Filter

A filter is a Unix command that does some manipulation of the text of a file. Two of the most
powerful and popular Unix filters are the sed and awk commands. Both of these commands are
extremely powerful and complex.

$ cat apple.txt
core
worm seed
jewel
$ cat apple.txt | sed -e "s/e/WWW/"
corWWW
worm sWWWed
jWWWwel
$ cat apple.txt | sed -e "s/e/J/g"
corJ
worm sJJd
jJwJl
$

In this example, at the first shell prompt, I showed you the contents of the apple.txt file. At the
second shell prompt, I used the cat command to display the contents of the apple.txt file, and send
that display through a pipe to the sed command. The sed command I created changed the first
occurrence of the letter "e" on each line to "WWW." The sed took as input the information it got
through the pipe. The sed command displayed its output to the screen.

I then used the output of the cat command on the apple.txt file and sent it by a pipe to the sed
command to change all the occurrences of an e on each line with J. Note that every occurence of e,
even where there were more than one on a line, changed to J. This is because of the "g" on the end of
the sed option value string. This "g" stands for global replace.

It is important to note that, in this example, the contents of the apple.txt file itself were not changed
in the file. Only the display of its contents changed.

grep

The Unix grep command helps you search for strings in a file. Here is how I can find the lines that
contain the string "jewel" and display those lines to the standard output:

$ cat apple.txt
core
worm seed
jewel
$ grep jewel apple.txt
jewel
$

How is pipe different from a filter?

A pipe (or "|") is used to redirect output to another command.

For example,

ls -la | more

Will pipe output to the more command letting view the directory listing one page at a time.

A redirector (">" or ">>" or "<" or "<<" normally tells where to output or take input from another
file.

ls -la > filename

This will write the output of the ls command to a file called "filename”.
 FILE OPERATIONS

1. Type

To type out a file use the cat (short for concatenate) command
Eg.:- cat myfile
cat can be used to combine (concatenate) files .
For example:- cat f1 f2 >f3 ,concatenates files f1 and f2 into the file f3.
The command more types out a file one screenful at a time
Eg.:- more myfile
The commands head and tail can be used to type the first or last few lines of a file,
eg:tail -3 myfile , types out the last three lines of myfile.

2. Edit

A basic full screen editor is vi (visual editor). To edit a file called myfile, vi myfile

vi operates in two modes: passive mode and insert mode. When you first enter vi it is in passive
mode.

Passive mode

In passive mode the user can move round the file using the arrow keys. To delete the
character pointed to by the cursor press x and to delete the character to the left of the cursor
press X. To switch to insert mode press i.

Insert mode
In insert mode new material can be typed in. The delete key can be used to remove text added
since insert mode was last selected although the text won't disappear from the screen until
further text is typed in or passive mode is selected. To leave insert mode and return to passive
mode press the escape key (Esc).

3. Print

To print a file use the lpr command

Eg.:- lpr myfile ,This goes to the default printer.

4. Copy

To copy a file use cp

Eg.:- cp f1 f2

copies file f1 into f2. If f2 already exists it will be replaced, use the -i option to get UNIX to ask for
confirmation before replacing existing files. If f2 is a directory rather than a file then f1 is copied to
that directory preserving the file name f1.

5. Rename

To rename a file use the mv (short for move) command,

Eg.:- mv f1 f2 , renames f1 to f2

6. Delete

To delete a file use the rm (short for remove) command,

Eg.:- rm f1 ,deletes the file f1.

7. chmod - Change protection on file

Change r - read, w - write and x - execute access to u - user, g - group and o - others.
Egs:-
chmod u+w file1
Give user write-access to file1.
chmod g+r file2
Give group read-access to file2.
chmod o-w file3 file 4
Withdraw write-access to file3 and file 4 from others.
chmod -x file5
Give everyone execute-access to file5.

8. diff - Show differences between files

Compare two (or three) files.

Eg:- diff file1 file2 ,Compare file1 to file2
9. find - Find files in a directory tree

Eg:- find ./ -name "*.cxx"

Print all files named *.cxx within directory tree starting at ./

10. grep - Search file for character string

Search for one or more strings in one or more files.

Egs:-
grep that myfile.txt
Look for the string ``that'' in the file called ``myfile.txt'' and print out each line that matches.

egrep -in "this|that" *.dat

Extended grep search *.dat files for ``this'' or ``that'' case insensitive (-i) and where found print line
number (-n) along with the line contents.

11. locate - Find file anywhere in the system

Eg:-locate myfile

List any file on the system that contains the name ``myfile''.

12. more - List file one screen at a time

Eg:-more big.file

Lists the file ``big.file'' on screenful at a time. To move to the next screen press space and to move to
the next line press the RETURN key. To exit press ``q''.

13. wc - Count characters, words or lines is a file

Eg:-cat myfile | wc -l

List the number of lines in the file ``myfile''.