GNU/Linux Command-Line Tools Summary

Gareth Anderson

      
        
    

Chris Karakas - Conversion from LyX to DocBook SGML, Index generation

Revision History
Revision 1.215th April 2006Revised by: GA
Corrected typing errors, generated new, much smaller index (more accurate in my opinion). Updated errors in document for TLDP.
Revision 1.128th February 2006Revised by: CK
Corrected typos, generated new index (9000 index entries!).
Revision 1.06th February 2006Revised by: GA
Major restructuring, now in a docbook book format. Removed large chunks of content and revised other parts (removed chapters and sectioned some areas more). This is likely the final release by the author, I hope that someone finds this guide useful as I do not intend to continue work on this guide.
Revision 0.7.125th February 2005Revised by: CK
Set special characters in math mode, produced PDF and PS with Computer Modern fonts in OT1 encoding and created correct SGML for key combinations.
Revision 0.75th December 2004Revised by: GA
Updated document with new grammatical review. Re-ordered the entire Text section. Removed a fair amount of content.
Revision v0.620th April 2004Revised by: GA
Attempted to fix document according to TLDP criticisms. Added notes and tips more sectioning. Now complying to the open group standards for the UNIX
system trademark. Document should be ready for TLDP site.
Revision v0.56th October 2003Revised by: GA
Fixed a variety of errors as according to the review and made some consistency improvements to the document.
Revision v0.415th July 2003Revised by: GA
Made small improvements to the document as suggested (so far) by the thorough TLDP review, improved consistency of document and made small content additions.
Revision v0.326th June 2003Revised by: GA
Minor errors fixed, updated the appendix with information for finding where a tool is from. Fixed referencing/citation problems and improved further reading and intro sections, added an audio section.
Revision v0.220th April 2003Revised by: GA
This is the initial public release. Added more code-style then before, broke text-section into more subsections. Improved consistency of document and fixed various index entries.
Revision v0.127th March 2003Revised by: GA
This is the initial draft release (the first release to be converted from LyX to DocBook SGML).

This document is an attempt to provide a summary of useful command-line tools available to a GNU/Linux based operating system, the tools listed are designed to benefit the majority of users and have being chosen at the authors discretion. This document is not a comprehensive list of every existent tool available to a GNU/Linux based system, nor does it have in-depth explanations of how things work. It is a summary which can be used to learn about and how to use many of the tools available to a GNU/Linux based operating system.


Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. Who would want to read this guide?
1.2. Who would not want to read this guide?
1.3. Availability of sources
1.4. Conventions used in this guide
1.5. Resources used to create this document
1.6. Feedback
1.7. Contributors
2. Legal
2.1. Disclaimer
2.2. License
3. The Unix Tools Philosophy
4. Shell Tips
4.1. General Shell Tips
4.2. The command-line history
4.3. Other Key combinations
4.4. Virtual Terminals and screen
5. Help
6. Directing Input/Output
6.1. Concept Definitions
6.2. Usage
6.3. Command Substitution
6.4. Performing more than one command
7. Working with the file-system
7.1. Moving around the filesystem
7.2. Working with files and folders
7.3. Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
8. Finding information about the system
8.1. Date/Time/Calendars
8.2. Finding information about partitions
9. Controlling the system
9.1. Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)
9.2. Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
9.3. Controlling Processes
9.4. Controlling services
10. Managing users
10.1. Users/Groups
11. Text Related Tools
11.1. Text Editors
11.2. Text Viewing Tools
11.3. Text Information Tools
11.4. Text manipulation tools
11.5. Text Conversion/Filter Tools
11.6. Finding Text Within Files
12. Mathematical tools
13. Network Commands
13.1. Network Configuration
13.2. Internet Specific Commands
13.3. Remote Administration Related
14. Security
14.1. Some basic Security Tools
14.2. File Permissions
15. Archiving Files
15.1. tar (tape archiver)
15.2. rsync
15.3. Compression
16. Graphics tools (command line based)
17. Working with MS-DOS files
18. Scheduling Commands to run in the background
19. Miscellaneous
20. Mini-Guides
20.1. RPM: Redhat Package Management System
20.2. Checking the Hard Disk for errors
20.3. Duplicating disks
20.4. Wildcards
A. Appendix
A.1. Finding Packages/Tools
A.2. Further Reading
A.3. GNU Free Documentation License
Bibliography
Index

Chapter 1. Introduction

This document is an attempt to summarise the many command-line based tools available to a GNU/Linux based operating system. This guide is not a complete listing (I doubt it's possible to document all available programs), this document lists many tools which are available to GNU/Linux systems and which are, or can be useful to the majority of users.

Each tool description provides a quick overview of it's function and some useful options for that individual tool.

The tools listed that require a GUI, usually the X windowing system, are those listed in the Graphics Tools section. All other tools are completely command-line-based and do not require a GUI to run.

If you are looking for information on GUI based tools you will need to look elsewhere.

Also note that a few of the tools in this guide are bash (the Bourne-Again-SHell) specific, tools specific to other shells are not listed in this document.

For some of the tools that are harder to use, or perform a more complex task, there are several mini-tutorials (or mini-guides; Chapter 20) within this document.

Where a mini-guide was considered unncessary, detailed descriptions that explain in detail how a particular tool works, and some examples of how to use it are provided.

Please note that the word “tool” is used interchangeably with the word “command”, both have the same meaning (at least in this guide). For a more detailed explanation, read about the UNIX Tools Philosophy here: Chapter 3 or visit the links in the appendix, Section A.2.2.1.

TipTo find out which tools are bash specific
 

To find out which tools are bash specific you can type:
enable -a


1.1. Who would want to read this guide?

Anyone who is interested in learning about the tools (also known as commands) available to them when using their GNU/Linux based operating system.

Why would you want to learn how to use the command-line (and available tools)? The Command Line-Interface (CLI), while difficult to learn, is the quickest and most efficient way to use a computer for many different tasks. The CLI is the normal method of use for most UNIX system administrators, programmers and some power users. While a GUI is better suited to some tasks, many operations are best suited to the CLI.

The major motivation behind learning the GNU/Linux CLI is the authors idea that, with software in general, the more time spent learning something equals less time spent performing that particular task (authors opinion only).

This guide is aimed at beginners to intermediate users who want to learn about the command-line tools available to them. Advanced users may wish to use it as a command reference, however this document aims to list commands of interest, as judged by the authors opinion, it is not designed to be completely comprehensive, see the appendix, Section A.2.1 for further information. Or if you are not looking for a command reference guide, but a more gentle introduction to GNU/Linux you may be interested in the Introduction to Linux guide authored by Machtelt Garrels.

This guide could also be considered a summarised version of the Linux Cookbook. If you are looking for a book with more detailed descriptions of each tool have a look at the Linux Cookbook Homepage, also check out the command list from "Linux in a Nutshell 3rd Edition" for an index of 300+ commands and their explanations.


1.2. Who would not want to read this guide?

Anyone who is not interested in the command-line, or anyone looking for a detailed reference to all available GNU/Linux tools should look elsewhere. This is only a summary, while it does list many commands, it's not a complete listing (I don't think it's possible to make a complete listing anyway).

This document would not be of interest to those who already have an expert knowledge of the command-line interface and do require any reference information. Or those readers who require detailed lists of options for each command, the man pages are better suited to this purpose.


1.3. Availability of sources

The modifiable sources of the original book (in english), are available in LyX format (LyX Document Processor) or Machine-translated SGML (SGML markup language).

LyX is a completely free document processor based on LaTeX, downloadable from the LyX homepage..

See for the modifiable sources of this document. These are the official versions. We (the translators and current maintainers) plan to continue work on this document and add new chapters and enhancements. If you want to see the version we are currently working on (the "bleeding edge" version), check the GNU/Linux Command-Line Tools Summary Homepage from time to time (kindly hosted by Chris Karakas).


1.4. Conventions used in this guide

The following conventions are used within this guide:

italic

Anything appearing in italic, like�this is either an executable command or emphasized text. Tools (executable commands) are in italics to prevent confusion. Some tools have names which are real english words, such as the “locate” tool.

key�combinations

Are represented by using a '-' (dash sign) in-between the key(s), which must be used in combination. All combinations are also printed in italics to improve clarity. For example CTRL-Z means hold down the Control key and press the z key.

admonitions

Admonitions are little pictures used to emphasize something of importance to the reader.

The five types used are:

NoteThis is a note
 

Notes often give important information about a tool.

TipThis is a tip
 

This will offer a useful switch or useful way to use a tool.

ImportantThis is something important
 

This is something that is considered very important. Consider it like a note with extra importance, they are usually there to save the reader time.

CautionThis is a caution
 

This will inform you of something that you be careful about (because it could be harmful to your system).

WarningThis is a warning
 

This will inform you of something that you shouldn't do (because it probably will break something within your system).

code�examples

Code examples are shown for most commands.

Below is an example of what code looks like:

Hello World, I'm a code example. :)
command�syntax

(or a similar phrase) simply shows how you would normally use the command. Often real examples are used instead of explaining the command syntax.

The phrase “ Command syntax” is always followed by the way you would type a command in a shell.

The standard syntax for any tool is usually:

command -options file

NoteNote
 

Note that some tools do not accept options.

wildcards

Also note that most commands, even when not explicitly stated, will work with standard wildcards (or globbing patterns) such as *, [A-Z] and various other standard wildcards. Refer to Section 20.4.1 for further information.

access�keys

Access keys enable navigation through the document, without relying on a mouse. The following keys have been given special meaning in this document:

P

Previous page.

N

Next page.

H

Home of the document (Table of Contents).

U

Up (takes you one level up the section hierarchy).

If you also happen to be reading the document from its original location, then the following access keys can also be used:

S

Start (takes you to the author's start page).

T

The current (“This”) page, without the Sitemenu on the left.

M

The current page in a frameset, where the left frame contains a Menu.

To use the access keys, you have to simultaneously press a modifier key, which may vary from browser to browser. For example in NN6+/Mozilla, the modifier key is ALT, so you have to use ALT-N to go to the next page, and ALT-P to come back. In other browsers such as IE6, the access keys just give focus to the associated link, so the sequence becomes ALT-N Enter . Try it, you'll like it!

Inline graphic


1.5. Resources used to create this document

To create the GNU/Linux Command-Line Tools Summary, I used LyX, the document processor. To convert the LyX files to DocBook SGML I used the lyxtox Scripts created by Chris Karakas.

You may also want to check out the db2lyx package, created by Dr. B Guillion, which can be used to convert LyX files to XML DocBook and XML DocBook back to LyX.

I also had assistance from various The Linux Documentation Project volunteers (see the contributors section Section 1.7 for specific details).


1.6. Feedback

Feedback is necessary for the advancement of this guide. Positive, constructive criticism is encouraged. If you have ideas, suggestions, advice, or problems with this guide, please send an email to the author Gareth Anderson.

ImportantContributions
 

If you wish to make contributions it is recommended (if possible) to read the LyX file(s) for this document. They contain various notes which you can't see in the other versions.

These notes highlight the areas that need contributions, certain tools which I cannot understand, tools which have not been added, or tools which were removed. These notes also explain some of the structure of this document.


1.7. Contributors

As you may be able to see, parts of this guide are based off various advice columns on GNU/Linux, anything that has being directly quoted from an article can be found in the references, Bibliography, section of this document.

The following is a list of people who have made a significant contribution to this document, in a rough chronological order.

Chris Karakas:

Chris allowed the use of his lyxtox scripts to convert the LyX file of the document to working DocBook SGML output (to learn how to use the lyxtox scripts yourself, see Document processing with LyX and SGML).

  • Chris provided useful suggestions and advice, and added an index listing for many of the commands.

  • Chris is also responsible for the great looking HTML file for this document (the CSS file and HTML customisations are completely his work).

  • Chris has also helped fix up problems in the document (many times), especially with docbook/sgml, and LyX related issues.

  • Chris has also improved the structure of the document by adding labels and fixing minor errors.

William�West:

William provided a thorough review of the document as required by the Linux Documentation Project. He is responsible for a variety of improvements to the quality of this document.

His contributions include:

  • Improvements to the readability of this document.

  • Improvements to the structure and consistency of this document.

  • Various grammar improvements throughout the document.

  • Repair of some minor technical errors.

Tabatha Persad/Marshall:

Tabatha, as the Linux Documentation Project Review Coordinator (at the time) also gave a brief review of this document. Her general advice was used to improve the structure, language and grammar of the document.

Rahul Sundaram:

Rahul provided a brief review of this document for the Linux Documentation Project. Advice from his brief review was integrated into this document to improve readability and structure, several references were added as recommended by Rahul.

David Lawyer:

David's criticism of the document (via the TLDP discuss list) were listened to, and attempts to improve the document were made. A number of his criticisms were addressed and improved.

George�Harmon:

George provided a second language review. His detailed review of the material allowed me to improve the general grammar of the document and some minor errors.

Machtelt Garrels (tille):

Machtelt provided tips in regard to referencing the correct LDP documents from this guide. As well as general advice on improvements to the guide.

Michael�Kerrisk:

Michael pointed out a number of technical errors in the document after his brief review on behalf of the TLDP during posts to the discussion list.


Chapter 2. Legal

The legal chapter provides information about the disclaimer that applies to the entire document and the licensing information.


2.1. Disclaimer

No liability for the contents of this document can be accepted. Use the concepts, examples and other content at your own risk. There may be errors and inaccuracies, that may of course be damaging to your system. Although this is highly unlikely, you should proceed with caution. The author does not accept any responsibility for any damage incurred.

All copyrights are held by their respective owners, unless specifically noted otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.

Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as endorsements.

UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.


2.2. License

Copyright � 2003 - 2006 Gareth Anderson. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license can be found in the section called the GNU Free Documentation License or at the GNU Documentation License Site.


Chapter 3. The Unix Tools Philosophy

A tool is a simple program, usually designed for a specific purpose, it is sometimes referred to (at least throughout this document) as a command.

The “ Unix tools philosophy” emerged during the creation of the UNIX operating system, after the breakthrough invention of the pipe '|' (refer to Chapter 6 for information on using the pipe).

The pipe allowed the output of one program to be sent to the input of another. The tools philosophy was to have small programs to accomplish a particular task instead of trying to develop large monolithic programs to do a large number of tasks. To accomplish more complex tasks, tools would simply be connected together, using pipes.

All the core UNIX system tools were designed so that they could operate together. The original text-based editors (and even TeX and LaTeX) use ASCII (the American text encoding standard; an open standard) and you can use tools such as; sed, awk, vi, grep, cat, more, tr and various other text-based tools in conjunction with these editors.

Using this philosophy programmers avoided writing a program (within their larger program) that had already been written by someone else (this could be considered a form of code recycling). For example, command-line spell checkers are used by a number of different applications instead of having each application create its own own spell checker.

This philosophy lives on today in GNU/Linux and various other UNIX system-based operating systems (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc.).

For further information (articles) on the UNIX tools philosophy please see the further reading section, here: Section A.2.2.1


Chapter 4. Shell Tips

The shell tips chapter provides handy tricks that you may wish to use when you are using a GNU/Linux shell (the command-line interface). This information includes handy shortcut key combinations, the shell's command history and information on virtual terminals.

TipIf you can't boot into your system
 

If your having problems booting into your system you may like to use a shell so you can boot into your system and attempt to fix things up again.

To do this you need to pass the “init=/bin/sh” to your system before you boot up.

If you don't know how to do this please see Chapter 14, the technique is the same except this time you pass "init=bin/sh" rather than "single".


4.1. General Shell Tips

Automatic�Command�Completion

Use the TAB key and bash will attempt to complete the command for you automatically. You can use it to complete command (tool) names. You can also use it when working with the file-system, when changing directories, copying files et cetera.

There are also other lesser known ways to use automatic command completion (for example completing user names):[1]

ESC-Y �(Y:�special�character)

testing autoindexing Will attempt to complete the command name for you. If it fails it will either list the possible completions (if they exist). If there are none it will simply beep (and/or) flash the screen.

CTRL-X-Y �(Y:�special�character)

Lists the possible completions (it won't attempt to complete it for you) or beep if there are no possible completions.

Special-characters:

Use the following special characters combined with either ESC-Y or CTRL-X-Y , where Y is some special characters. For example ESC-$ or CTRL-X-$ to complete an environment variable name.

  • ~ (tilde) complete a user name

  • @ (at sign) complete a machine name

  • $ (dollars sign) complete an environment variable name

  • ! (exclamation mark) a magic character for completing a command name or a file name. The ! special character has the same function as the TAB key. It works in some other situations; for example when completing man page names.

alias

The alias command will list your current aliases. You can use unalias to remove the alias (to disable it just for one command add a “\” (back-slash) before the command)...

An alias allows one command to be substituted for another. This is used to make a command do something else or to automatically add certain options. This can be either be done during one session using the alias command (see below) or the information can be added to the .bashrc file (found in the users home directory).

Below is an example of what an alias section (within your .bashrc file) might look like:

# my personal aliases
alias cp='cp -vi' #to prompt when copying if you want to overwrite and will tell you where information is going 
alias rm='rm -i' #Prompts you if you really want to remove it.
alias mv='mv -i' #Prompts you if you are going to overwrite something

On any Mandriva GNU/Linux system the global aliases (for all users) are all in /etc/profile.d/alias.sh. The above listed commands already have aliases, as well as several other commonly used commands.

set�-x

set is one of bash's inbuilt commands, try looking in the bash manual for its many usage options.

Using set with the -x option will make bash print out each command it is going to run before it runs it.

This can be useful to find out what is happening with certain commands such as things being quoted that contain wildcards or special symbols that could cause problems, or complex aliases. Use set +x to turn this back off.

Examples

After using set -x you can run the command:

ls

The output printed before the command runs (for example):

+ ls -F --color=auto 

Which means that the command is really an alias to run ls with the -F and --color=auto options. Use a “\” (backslash) before the command to run it without the alias.

\�(backslash)

The backslash escape character can be used before a shell command to override any aliases.

For example if rm was made into an alias for rm -i then typing “rm” would actually run rm -i.

However, typing \rm lets the shell ignore the alias and just run rm (its runs exactly what you type), this way it won't confirm if you want to delete things.

CautionUsing rm
 

Please note that the alias for the remove command is there for a reason. Using it incorrectly could remove files which you don't want removed.

Only use \rm if you know exactly what you are doing (recovering files is not easy, rm does not send things to a recycle bin).

The “\” character can be used before special characters (such as a space or a wildcard), to stop bash from trying to expand them. You can make a directory name with a space in it using a backslash before the space. For example you could type cd My\ Directory\ With\ Spaces which normally wouldn't work.

The “\” character can also be used to stop bash from expanding certain symbols (as an alternative you could use single quotation marks, although you may need to use both).

TipThe TAB Key
 

Please note that using the TAB key (automatic-command-completion) will automatically use escapes for spaces (so you don't have to type them manually).

script

The “script” command creates a typescript, or "capture log" of a shell session - it writes a copy of your session to a file, including commands you type and their output.

~�(tilde�character)

The tilde character is used as an alias to a users home directory.

For example, if your user-name was “fred”, instead of typing cd /home/fred you could simply type cd ~. Or to get to fred's tmp directory (under his home directory) you could type cd ~/tmp.

TipHome directory shortcut
 

~ (tilde) can also be used as a shortcut to other users home directories, simply type: ~user_name and it will take you to the users home directory. Note that you need to spell the username exactly correct, no wildcards.

set�bell-style�none

This particular set command will turn off the system bell from the command-line (use xset -b for X windows). If you want the bell to stay off pernamently (no audible bell) then you can add this command to your “.bashrc” or “.bash_profile” (just add it to the same one you have your alises in...).

reset

The reset command re-initializes your current terminal. This can be useful when the text from your terminal becomes garbled, simply type “reset” and this will fix your terminal.

exit

Closes your current terminal (with x-terminals) or logs-out. Also try CTRL-D .

logout

Logs out of a terminal, also try CTRL-D .

echo

A little command that repeats anything you type.

Example:

echo “hello world”

Simply displays “ hello world”.

Example:

echo rm -R *

This will output what will be passed to the rm command (and therefore what would be deleted), putting echo before a command renders it harmless (it just expands wildcards so you know what it will do).

Also try using the -e option with echo. This will allow you to use the escape character sequences to format the output of a line. Such as '\t' for tab, '\n' for newline etc.

TipUsing echo to prevent accidents
 

Typing: echo command(s) could save you the trouble of accidentally doing something you didn't expect.

Using echo allows you to expand the wildcards to understand what will happen before you actually run the command.


4.2. The command-line history

Using�the�command�history

Use the up and down key's to scroll through previously typed commands. Press [Enter] to execute them or use the left and right arrow keys to edit the command first. Also see history (below).

The�history�command

The history command can be used to list Bash's log of the commands you have typed:

This log is called the “history”. To access it type:

history n

This will only list the last n commands. Type “history” (without options) to see the the entire history list.

You can also type !n to execute command number n. Use !! to execute the last command you typed.

!-n will execute the command n times before (in other words !-1 is equivalent to !!).

!string will execute the last command starting with that “string” and !?string? will execute the last command containing the word “string”. For example:

!cd

Will re-run the command that you last typed starting with “cd”.

“ commandName !*” will execute the “commandName” with any arguments you used on your last command. This maybe useful if you make a spelling mistake, for example. If you typed:

emasc /home/fred/mywork.java /tmp/testme.java

In an attempt to execute emacs on the above two files this will obviously fail. So what you can do is type:

emacs !*

This will execute emacs with the arguments that you last typed on the command-line. In other words this is equivalent to typing:

emacs /home/fred/mywork.java /tmp/testme.java
Searching�through�the�Command�History�( CTRL-R )

Use the CTRL-R key to perform a “reverse-i-search”. For example, if you wanted to use the command you used the last time you used snort, you would type:

CTRL-R then type “snort”.

What you will see in the console window is:

(reverse-i-search)`':

After you have typed what you are looking for, use the CTRL-R key combination to scroll backward through the history.

Use CTRL-R repeatedly to find every reference to the string you've entered. Once you've found the command you're looking for, use [Enter] to execute it.

Alternatively, using the right or left arrow keys will place the command on an actual command-line so you can edit it.


4.3. Other Key combinations

GNU/Linux shells have many shortcut keys which you can use to speed up your work, below is a rough list of some (also see CTRL-R in the history section of the commands, over here, Section 4.2).

CTRL-D

the “end-of-file” (EOF) key combination can be used to quickly log out of any terminal. CTRL-D is also used in programs such as “at” to signal that you have finished typing your commands (the EOF command).

CTRL-Z

key combination is used to stop a process. It can be used to put something in the background temporarily.

For example, if you were editing a file with vim or emacs just press CTRL-Z to regain control of the terminal do what you want and then type fg to bring it back.

For further information please see Section 9.3.

TipIf fg doesn't work
 

If fg doesn't work you may need to type jobs and then fg job_name or fg job_number

CTRL-A �and� CTRL-E

These key combinations are used for going to the start and end of the line on the command line. Use CTRL-A to jump to the start of the line, and CTRL-E to jump to the end of the line.

CTRL-K

This key combination can be used to cut or delete what is currently in front of the cursor.

CTRL-Y

This key combination can be used to paste the last thing you deleted (using CTRL-K or CTRL-W ).

CTRL-W

This key combination can be used to cut or delete the entire line that has being typed.


4.4. Virtual Terminals and screen

Using the key combination ALT-F* keys you may change to different virtual terminals. You will have several (usually 6) virtual terminals setup with shells. Number 7 is usually setup with X you need to use CTRL-ALT-F* to change to a terminal from within X (X as in the X windowing system).

screen

is a great program that allows you to switch between multiple virtual terminals on the one physical terminal that you are using. Its a command-line based window manager, clearly this isn't that useful if you do have virtual terminals, but its amazingly useful when you log into machines remotely, using ssh and similar, see Section 13.3. It works on key-combinations, you type

screen

On the command-line to begin. Now you start with one virtual terminal by default, but using the key combination CTRL-A and then hitting "C" you can create another virtual terminal to use.

Use CTRL-N to go to the next virtual terminal and CTRL-P to go to the previous virtual terminal. Also try hitting CTRL-A to go backwards and forwards between two particular terminals.

screen also has various other abilities that you can test out. The documentation and guides are well written so please feel free to read the manual page or try searching the internet.


Chapter 5. Help

The help chapter provides information on how you may access the documentation of the GNU/Linux system. There is normally a document describing every single tool you have installed, even if its only brief...

man

This command displays summary information on a program from an online manual. For example typing man man will bring up the manual page for man (the manual page viewer). Note: q is the quit key.

Command syntax:

man program_name

TipAlso try
 

Specifying the section of the manual page, sometimes the man page is different for the same tool in different sections, note sections are numbered 1 to 9. Use apropos to find which section number to look in.

The syntax to look at a different section is:
man section_number tool_name
For example:
man 2 time
This will show you the man page called time in section 2, the equivalent page in section 1 is completely different

man�-K�keyword

Search the manual pages for a string, as in it will search all manual pages for a particular string within each individual man page, it will then prompt whether you would like to view each page it will find. Use double quotes “ and ” if there are spaces in the string you are typing.

CautionSpeed issue
 

Please be warned that this method is going to be really, really slow. You are searching *all* man pages for a string

man�-f�command

This will list details associated with the command. The root user must run makewhatis (see below) before this command will work.

NoteEquivalent to whatis
 

This command is the same as running whatis

info

Provides a more detailed hyper-text manual on a particular command, this only works for some commands.

Command syntax:

info program_name
whatis

Displays a one-line description of what a program does. The string needs to be an exact match, otherwise whatis won't output anything. Relies on the whatis database (see below).

Command syntax:

whatis program_name
makewhatis

Make the whatis database for apropos, whatis and man -f.

NoteRoot Privileges
 

This takes some time and you require root privileges to do this.

apropos

Searches the whatis database for strings, similar to whatis except it finds and prints anything matching the string (or any part of the string). Also relies on the whatis database (see above).

Command syntax:

apropos string

NoteEquivalent to...
 

apropos is the same as doing man -k (lowercase k).

NotePlease note
 

You need to run makewhatis (as root) so whatis, man -f and apropos will work.

TipAlso try
 

Using a program with the -?, --h, --help, and the -h options, they will display very short summary information on the command usage options.


Chapter 6. Directing Input/Output

The directing input/output chapter explains how you can use a program and send its output to a file or to another command that you wish to use. This technique is very powerful and there are a number of ways of doing this.


6.1. Concept Definitions

All three of the following definitions are called “ File Streams.” They hold information that is either received from somewhere or sent to somewhere. In a UNIX system, the keyboard input (standard input), information printed to the screen (standard output) and error output (also printed to the screen) are treated as separate File Streams.

Standard�output

Standard output is the output from the program printed to the screen, not including error output (see below).

Standard�input

Standard input is the input from the user. Normally the keyboard is used as the standard input device in a UNIX system.

Standard�error

Standard error is error output from programs. This output is also sent to the screen and will normally be seen mixed in with standard output. The difference between standard output and standard error is that standard error is unbuffered (it appears immediately on the screen) and standard error is only printed when something goes wrong (it will give you details of what went wrong).


6.2. Usage

>

The greater than symbol is used to send information somewhere (for example a text file)

Example:

cat file1 file2 > file1_and_2.txt

This will concatenate the files together into one big file named “file1_and_2.txt”. Note that this will overwrite any existing file.

<

The less than symbol will insert information from somewhere (a text file) as if you typed it yourself. Often used with commands that are designed to get information from standard input only.

For example (using tr):

tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]' < fileName.txt > fileNameNew.txt

The example above would insert the contents of “fileName.txt” into the input of tr and output the results to “fileNameNew.txt”.

>>

The >> symbol appends (adds) information to the end of a file or creates one if the file doesn't exist.

<<

The << symbol is sometimes used with commands that use standard input to take information. You simply type << word (where word can be any string) at the end of the command. However its main use is in shell scripting.

The command takes your input until you type “word”, which causes the command to terminate and process the input.

Using << is similar to using CTRL-D (EOF key), except it uses a string to perform the end-of-file function. This design allows it to be used in shell scripts.

For example type "cat" (with no options...) and it will work on standard input.

To stop entering standard input you would normally hit CTRL-D .

As an alternative you can type "cat << FINISHED", then type what you want.

When you are finished, instead of hitting CTRL-D you could type "FINISHED" and it will end (the word FINISHED will not be recorded).

2>

Redirects error output. For example, to redirect the error output to /dev/null, so you do not see it, simply append this to the end of another command...

For example:

make some_file 2> /dev/null

This will run make on a file and send all error output to /dev/null

|

The “pipe” command allows the output of one command to be sent to the input of another.

For example:

cat file1.txt file2.txt | less

Concatenates the files together, then runs less on them. If you are only going to look at a single file, you would simply use less on the file...

tee

Sends output of a program to a file and to standard output. Think of it as a T intersection...it goes two ways.

For example:

ls /home/user | tee my_directories.txt

Lists the files (displays the output on the screen) and sends the output to a file: “my_directories.txt”.

&>

Redirects standard output and error output to a specific location.

For example:

make &> /dev/null

Sends both error output and standard output to /dev/null so you won't see anything...


6.3. Command Substitution

Command substitution is basically another way to do a pipe, you can use pipes and command substitution interchangeably, it's up to you which one you find easier...

Command substitution can be done in two distinct ways.

Method�One�(back-quotes)

Simply type:

command_1 `command_2 -options`

This will execute “command_2” and it's output will become the input to “command_1”.

TipBackquote key
 

The back-quote key is usually located at the same place as the tilde, above the [Tab] key.

Method�Two�(dollars�sign)

Simply type:

command_1 $(command_2)

This will execute “command_2” and it's output will become the input to “command_1”.

Using�the�pipe�instead

You can of course use pipes to do the same thing, if you don't know what a pipe is, please see Section 6.2. For example instead of doing:

less $cat file1.txt file2.txt

You could do:

cat file1.txt file2.txt | less

And end up with exactly the same result, it's up to you which way you find easier.


6.4. Performing more than one command

Executing�the�second�command�only�if�the�first�is�successful

To do this you would type:

command1 && command2

command2 will be executed if command1 successfully completes (if command1 fails command2 won't be run). This is called a logical AND.

Executing�the�second�command�only�if�the�first�fails

To do this you would type:

command1 || command2

command2 will be executed if command1 does not successfully complete (if command1 is successful command2 won't be run). This is called a logical OR.

Executing�commands�sequentially

To execute commands sequentially regardless of the success/failure of the previous you simply type:

command1; command2

command2 will execute once command1 has completed.

TipMore than two commands
 

You can continue to use ';' (semicolon) characters to do more and more commands on the one line.


Chapter 7. Working with the file-system

The working with the file-system chapter explains a number of commands that you use to move around the file system hierarchy and manipulate the files. Also explained are finding files and how to mass-rename files.


7.1. Moving around the filesystem

cd

Change directory. Use “ cd ..” to go up one directory.

One dot '.' represents the current directory while two dots '..' represent the parent directory.

“ cd -” will return you to the previous directory (a bit like an “undo”).

You can also use cd absolute�path or cd relative�path (see below):

Absolute�paths

An “ absolute path” is easily recognised from the leading forward slash, /. The / means that you start at the top level directory and continue down.

For example to get to /boot/grub you would type:

cd /boot/grub

This is an absolute path because you start at the top of the hierarchy and go downwards from there (it doesn't matter where in the filesystem you were when you typed the command).

Relative�paths

A “ relative path” doesn't have a preceding slash. Use a relative path when you start from a directory below the top level directory structure. This is dependent on where you are in the filesystem.

For example if you are in root's home directory and want to get to /root/music, you type:

cd music

Please note that there is no / using the above cd command. Using a / would cause this to be an absolute path, working from the top of the hierarchy downward.

ls

List files and directories. Typing “ls” will list files and directories, but will not list hidden files or directories that start with a leading full stop “.”.

Example options:

  • ls -l --- long style, this lists permissions, file size, modification date, ownership.

  • ls -a --- this means "show all", this shows hidden files, by default any file or directory starting with a '.' will not be shown.

  • ls -d --- list directory entires rather than contents (see example below)

  • ls -F --- append symbols to particular files, such as * (asterisk) for executable files.

  • ls -S --- sort the output of the command in decending order sorted by size.

  • ls -R --- (recursive) to list everything in the directories below as well as the current directory.

Command syntax, either:

ls -options

This simply lists everything in the current directory, the options are not required (options such as -l, -a et cetera).

ls -options string

This lists files using a certain string. The string can contain standard wildcards to list multiple files, to learn more about standard wildcards please read Section 20.4.1

You can use ls -d to show directories that match an exact string, or use standard wildcards. Type “ ls -d */” to list all subdirectories of the current directory. Depending on the setup of your aliases (see Chapter 4) you may simply be able to type lsd as the equivalent to ls -d */.

Examples for ls -d:

ls -d */

Lists all subdirectories of current directory.

ls -d string*

Lists directories that start with "string".

ls -d /usr/*/*/doc

Lists all directories that are two levels below the /usr/ directory and have a directory called “doc”, this trick can come in quite handy sometimes.

TipYou can also use
 

Depending on how your aliases (see Chapter 4) are setup you can also use l, la (list all) and ll (list long) to perform the above commands

pwd

Print working directory. Print the absolute (complete) path to the directory the user is currently in.

Command syntax:

pwd

This will tell you the full path to the directory you are in, for example it may output “/usr/local/bin” if you are currently in that directory.

tree

Outputs an ASCII text tree/graph starting at a given directory (by default the current directory). This command recursively lists all files and all directories.

In other words, it will list files within the directories below the current one, as well as all files in the current directory.

tree has a large number of options, refer to the manual page for details.

Command syntax:

tree

or

tree -option(s) /optional/directory/to/list

7.1.1. Finding files

find

find is a tool which looks for files on a filesystem. find has a large number of options which can be used to customise the search (refer to the manual/info pages).

Note that find works with standard wildcards,Section 20.4.1, and can work with regular expressions, Section 20.4.2.

Basic example:

find / -name file

This would look for a file named “file” and start at the root directory (it will search all directories including those that are mounted filesystems).

The `-name' option is case sensitive you can use the `-iname' option to find something regardless of case.

Use the '-regex' and '-iregex' to find something according to a regular expression (either case sensitive or case insensitive respectively).

The '-exec' option is one of the more advanced find operations. It executes a command on the files it finds (such as moving or removing it or anything else...).

To use the -exec option: use find to find something, then add the -exec option to the end, then:

command_to_be_executed (1)  then '{}' (curly brackets) (2) then the arguments (for example a new directory)  and finally a ';' (3). 

See below for an example of use this command.

(1)
This is the tool you want to execute on the files find locates. For example if you wanted to remove everything it finds then you would use -exec rm -f
(2)
The curly brackets are used in find to represent the current file which has been found. ie. If it found the file shopping.doc then {} would be substituted with shopping.doc. It would then continue to substitute {} for each file it finds. The brackets are normally protected by backslashes (\) or single-quotation marks ('), to stop bash expanding them (trying to interpret them as a special command eg. a wildcard).
(3)
This is the symbol used by find to signal the end of the commands. It's usually protected by a backslash (\) or quotes to stop bash from trying to expand it.
find / -name '*.doc' -exec cp '{}' /tmp/ ';'

The above command would find any files with the extension '.doc' and copy them to your /tmp directory, obviously this command is quite useless, it's just an example of what find can do. Note that the quotation marks are there to stop bash from trying to interpret the other characters as something.

Excluding particular folders with find can be quite confusing, but it may be necessary if you want to search your main disk (without searching every mounted filesystem). Use the -path option to exclude the particular folder (note, you cannot have a '/' (forward slash) on the end) and the -prune option to exclude the subdirectories. An example is below:

find / -path '/mnt/win_c' -prune -o -name "string" -print

This example will search your entire directory tree (everything that is mounted under it) excluding /mnt/win_c and all of the subdirectories under /mnt/win_c. When using the -path option you can use wildcards.

Note that you could add more -path '/directory' statements on if you wanted.

find has many, many different options, refer to the manual (and info) page for more details.

slocate

slocate outputs a list of all files on the system that match the pattern, giving their full path name (it doesn't have to be an exact match, anything which contains the word is shown).

NoteReplaces locate
 

Secure locate is a replacement for locate, both have identical syntax. On most distributions locate is an alias to slocate.

Commmand syntax:

slocate string

NoteThis won't work unless
 

You need to run either updatedb (as root) or slocate -u (as root) for slocate to work.

whereis

whereis locates the binary, source, and manual page for a particular program, it uses exact matches only, if you only know part of the name use slocate.

Command syntax:

whereis program_name
which

Virtually the same as whereis, except it only finds the executable (the physical program). It only looks in the PATH (environment variable) of a users shell.

Use the -a option to list all occurances of the particular program_name in your path (so if theres more than one you can see it).

Command syntax:

which program_name

7.2. Working with files and folders

mkdir

Make a directory. Use mkdir -p to create subdirectories automatically.

NoteDirectories are Folders
 

Directories are sometimes called folders in other operating systems (such as Microsoft Windows)

Examples:

mkdir -p /home/matt/work/maths

This would create the directories “work” and “maths” under matt's home directory (if matt's home directory didn't exist it would create that too).

mkdir foo

This would create a directory in the current path named “foo”.

rm

Remove/delete a file(s) or directories(s). You can use standard wildcards with this command Section 20.4.1.

Command syntax:

rm -options file_or_folder

You can of course use standard wildcards to delete multiple files or multiple directories and files.

Use the -R or -r option to remove recursively, this removes everything within subdirectories. Also try the -f option to force removal (useful when you don't want to be prompted).

TipDisabling Aliases (per execution)
 

On some systems such as Mandrake an alias will send rm to rm -i (prompting you for every file you wish to delete). To override this use: \rm -R directory (using the \ disables the alias for this run only)

rmdir

Remove an empty directory. If you want to remove a directory with files in it type “ rm -R directory”, read above for information on rm -R

Command syntax:

rmdir directory

This will only remove directory if it's empty otherwise it will exit with an error message.

mv

Move a file or a directory to a new location or rename a file/directory.

Rename example:

mv filename1 filename2

Renames filename1 to filename2.

To move a file or directory, simply type:

mv original_file_or_folder new_location

Note that this command can use standard wildcards Section 20.4.1 to move files (not for renaming).

TipMove and rename
 

Note that you can also move and rename a file in a single command. The difference is with the destination (right hand side) you change the filename to the new name of the file.

For example typing:

mv /etc/configuration.txt /home/joe/backupconfig

This would move the file "configuration.txt" to /home/joe/ and rename it "backupconfig"

cp

Copy a file. Has a number of useful options, such as -R (or -r) which recursively copies directories and subdirectories.

Command syntax:

cp -options file_or_files new_location

Examples:

cp file1 file2

Simply copy file1 to file2 (in the same directory).

cp /tmp/file1 ~/file2 /mnt/win_c

Where the last option is the directory to be copied to. The above example copies two files from different areas of the file system to /mnt/win_c

cp -R directory_and_or_files new_location

This command will copy directories (and all subdirectories) and/or files to new_location

Note that this command can use standard wildcards Section 20.4.1 to copy multiple files.

You may also like to try the “-u” when moving large directories around, this copies only if the source file is newer than the destination to where you are copying to, or if the destination file does not exist at all.

ln

Create a link to a file. There are two types of links:

Hard�links

Hard links are considered pointers to a file (the number is listed by typing ls -l). Each hard-link is a reference to a file.

The file itself only goes away when all hard-links are deleted. If you delete the original file and there are hard links to it the original file will remain.

Example:

ln target_name link_name 

Will create a “hard link” to target_name called link_name, you need to delete both of these to remove the file.

Symbolic�links

Symbolic links are created by typing “ln -s”. When you remove the original file the symbolic link becomes broken, a symbolic link is similar to a windows “short-cut”.

The advantage of symbolic links is that the target can be to something on another file-system, while hard-links can only exist on the same file-system.

For example:

ln -s target_name link_name

This creates a symbolic link to “target_name” called “link_name”, if you delete the original file the symbolic link won't work (it becomes a broken link).

shred

Securely remove a file by overwriting it first. Prevents the data from being recovered by software (and even by most hardware), please be very careful when using shred as you may never be able to retrieve the data you have run the application on.

For example:

shred -n 2 -z -v /dev/hda1

“What this tells shred, is to overwrite the partition 2 times with random data (- n 2) then finish it up by writing over it with zeroes (-z) and show you its progress (-v). Of course, change /dev/hda1 to the correct partition . Each pass can take some time, which is why I set it to only do 2 random passes instead of the default 25. You can adjust this number, of course, to your particular level of paranoia and the amount of time you have.

Since shred writes on such a low-level, it doesn't actually matter what kind of filesystem is on the partition--everything will be unrecoverable. Once shred is finished, you can shutdown the machine and sell or throw away the drive with peace of mind.

...However, even shre dding devices is not always completely reliable. For example, most disks map out bad sectors invisibly to the application; if the bad sectors contain sensitive data, `shred' won't be able to destroy it. [ shred info page ].”[2]

NoteShredding files doesn't work with all filesystems
 

Please note that as mentioned in the shred manual page (please see the manual and preferably info pages for more information). shred does not work correctly on log-structured or journaled filesystems, such as JFS, ReiserFS, XFS, Ext3 and many other modern filesystems

TipAlternatives to using shred
 

shred has its disadvantages when run on a filesystem. First of all since it has to be installed you cannot run shred on your operating systems filesystem, you also cannot use shred on a windows machine easily since you cannot install shred on this machine.

You may like to try alternatives such as the DBAN project that create self-booting floppy disks that can completely erase a machines hard disk.

You may also like to see how chattr can assist you in shredding files once they are removed (it has similar problems to shred, only ext2 and ext3 style filesystems...), please see Section 14.2.

du

Displays information about file size. Use du filename to display the size of a particular file. If you use it on directories it will display the information on the size of the files in the directory and each subdirectory.

Options for du (use du -option(s)):

  • -c -- this will make du print a grand total after all arguments have being processed.

  • -s -- summarises for each argument (prints the total).

  • -h -- prints things in “ human readable” mode; for example printing 1M (megabyte) rather than 1,024,000 (bytes).

Using the -hs options on a directory will display the total size of the directory and all subdirectories.

Command syntax:

du -options file_directory_or_files

Example:

du -hs *

This command will list the size of all files in the current directory and it will list the size of subdirectories, it will list things in human-readable sizes using 1024 Kb is a Megabyte, M for megabyte, K for kilobyte etc.

file

Attempts to find out what type of file it is, for example it may say it's: binary, an image file (well it will say jpeg, bmp et cetera), ASCII text, C header file and many other kinds of files, it's a very useful utility.

Command syntax:

file file_name
stat

Tells you detailed information about a file, including inode number creation/access date. Also has many advanced options and uses.

For simple use type:

stat file
dd

Copies data on a very low level and can be used to create copies of disks Section 20.3 and many other things (for example CD image files).

dd can also perform conversions on files and vary the block size used when writing the file.

Command syntax, note the block size and count are optional and you can use files instead of devices...

NotePlease note
 

dd is an advanced and difficult to use command. Its also very powerful, so be careful what you do with it

Command syntax:

dd if=/dev/xxx of=/dev/xxx bs=xxxx count=x 

WarningWarning
 

The command dd is used to work on a very low level. It can be used to overwrite important information such as your master-boot record or various important sections of your hard-disk. Please be careful when using it (especially when working with devices instead of files).

touch

This command is used to create empty files, simply do touch file_name. It is also used to update the timestamps on files.

touch can be used to change the time and/or date of a file:

touch -t 05070915 my_report.txt[3]

This command would change the timestamp on my_report.txt so that it would look like you created it at 9:15. The first four digits stand for May 7th (0507), in MM-DD (American style), and the last four (0915) the time, 9:15 in the morning.

Instead of using plain numbers to change the time, you can use options similar to that of the date tool. For example:

touch -d '5 May 2000' some_file.txt

You can also use --date= instead of -d. Also have a look at the date command under Section 8.1 for examples on using -d and --date= (the syntax for the date part is exactly the same when using -d or --date).

split

Splits files into several smaller files.

Use the -b�xx option to split into xx bytes, also try -k for kilobytes, and -m for megabytes. You can use it to split text files and any other files... you can use cat to re-combine the files.

This may be useful if you have to transfer something to floppy disks or you wish to divide text files into certain sizes.

Command syntax:

split -options file

This will split the input file into 1000 lines of input each (thats the default...), and output (using the above example), with the input name file, “fileaa” (1st part of file), “fileab” (2nd part of file), “fileac” (3rd part of file) etc. until the there is no more of the file left to split.


7.3. Mass Rename/copy/link Tools

There are a few different ways to perform mass renaming of files in GNU/Linux (yes, mass renaming is possible!). There is also a perl script that renames the extentions on files, see Chapter 19.

Below are three ways to perform mass renaming of files, using the commands mmv, rename (a perl script) or some bash shell scripting.

mmv

mmv is a mass move/copy/renaming tool that uses standard wildcards to perform its functions.

mmv's manual page is quite difficult to understand, I have only a limited understanding of this tool. However mmv supports some standard wildcards.

According to the manual the “;” wildcard is useful for matching files at any depth in the directory tree (ie it will go below the current directory, recursively).

An example of how to use mmv is shown below:

mmv \*.JPG \#1.jpg 

The first pattern matches anything with a “.JPG” and renames each file (the “#1” matches the first wildcard) to “.jpg”.

Each time you use a \(wildcard) you can use a #x to get that wildcard. Where x is a positive number starting at 1.

Tipmmv Homepage
 

You can find mmv on the web here.

Also be aware that certain options used with mmv are also applicable to other tools in the suite, these include mcp (mass copy), mad (mass append contents of source file to target name), mln (mass link to a source file).

TipTip:
 

A Java alternative to mmv which runs on both GNU/Linux and Windows is available, Esomaniac

rename

rename is a perl script which can be used to mass rename files according to a regular expression.

An example for renaming all “.JPG” files to “.jpg” is:

rename 's/\.JPG$/.jpg/' *.JPG 

NoteFinding rename
 

You can get rename from various places. I would recommend trying CPAN Search Site, I found the script here Rename Script Version 1.4

Bash�scripting

Bash scripting is one way to rename files. You can develop a set of instructions (a script) to rename files. Scripts are useful if you don't have mmv or rename...

One way to this is shown below:

for i in *.JPG; 
do mv $i `basename $i JPG`jpg; 
done 

Note that the above script came from a usenet post. Unfortunately I do not know the author's name.

The first line says find everything with the “.JPG” extension (capitals only, because the UNIX system is case sensitive).

The second line uses basename (type man basename for more details) with the '$i' argument. The '$i' is a string containing the name of the file that matches. The next portion of the line removes the JPG extension from the end and adds the jpg extention to each file. The command mv is run on the output.

An alternative is:

for i in *.JPG; 
do mv $i ${i%%.JPG}.jpg; 
done

The above script renames files using a built-in bash function. For more information on bash scripting you may like to see the advanced bash scripting guide, authored by Mendel Cooper.


Chapter 8. Finding information about the system

time

If you are looking for how to change the time please refer to date here: Section 8.1.

time is a utility to measure the amount of time it takes a program to execute. It also measures CPU usage and displays statistics.

Use time -v (verbose mode) to display even more detailed statistics about the particular program.

Example usage:

time program_name options
/proc

The files under the /proc (process information pseudo file-system) show various information about the system. Consider it a window to the information that the kernel uses.

For example:

cat /proc/cpuinfo

Displays information about the CPU.

less /proc/modules 

Use the above command to view information about what kernel-modules are loaded on your system.

dmesg

dmesg can be used to print (or control) the “ kernel ring buffer”. dmesg is generally used to print the contents of your bootup messages displayed by the kernel. This is often useful when debugging problems.

Simply type:

dmesg
df

Displays information about the space on mounted file-systems. Use the -h option to have df list the space in a 'human readable' format. ie. if there are 1024 kilobytes left (approximately) then df will say there is 1MB left.

Command syntax:

df -options /dev/hdx

The latter part is optional, you can simply use df with or without options to list space on all file-systems.

who

Displays information on which users are logged into the system including the time they logged in.

Command syntax:

who
w

Displays information on who is logged into the system and what they are doing (ie. the processes they are running). It's similar to who but displays slightly different information.

Command syntax:

w
users

Very similar to who except it only prints out the user names who are currently logged in. (Doesn't need or take any options).

Command syntax:

users 
last

Displays records of when various users have logged in or out. This includes information on when the computer was rebooted.

To execute this simply type:

last
lastlog

Displays a list of users and what day/time they logged into the system.

Simply type:

lastlog
whoami

Tells the user who they are currently logged in as, this is normally the usename they logged in with but can be changed with commands like su). whoami does not need or take any options.

Simply type:

whoami
free

Displays memory statistics (total, free, used, cached, swap). Use the -t option to display totals of everything and use the -m to display memory in megabytes.

Example:

free -tm

This will display the memory usage including totals in megabytes.

uptime

Print how long the computer has been “up”, how long the computer has been running. It also displays the number of users and the processor load (how hard the CPU has been working...).

TipThe w command
 

The w command displays the output of the uptime command when you run this command. You could use the w command instead of uptime.

uname

uname is used to print information on the system such as OS type, kernel version et cetera.

Some uname options:

  • -a --- print all the available information.

  • -m --- print only information related to the machine itself.

  • -n --- print only the machine hostname.

  • -r --- print the release number of the current kernel.

  • -s --- print the operating system name

  • -p --- print the processor type.

Command syntax:

uname -options
xargs

Note that xargs is an advanced, confusing, yet powerful command. xargs is a command used to run other commands as many times as necessary, this way it prevents any kind of overload... When you run a command then add a “| xargs command2”. The results of command1 will be passed to command2, possibly on a line-by-line basis or something similar.

Understanding xargs tends to be very difficult and my explanation is not the best. Refer to the examples below or try [6] of the Bibliography for another xargs tutorial.

NoteAlternatives to using xargs
 

Please note that the below explanation of xargs is not the strongest (at the time of writing I could not find anything better :()).

Alternatives may include writing a simple bash script to do the job which is not the most difficult task in the world.

Examples:

ls | xargs grep work

The first command is obvious, it will list the files in the current directory. For each line of output of ls, xargs will run grep on that particular line and look for the string “work”. The output have the each time grep is executed on a new line, the output would look like:

file_name: results_of_grep 

If grep didn't find the word then there would be no output if it had an error then it will output the error. Obviously this isn't very useful (you could just do:

grep 'word' *

This is just a simple example...

xargs also takes various options:

  • -nx --- will group the first x commands together

  • -lx --- xargs will execute the command for every x number of lines of input

  • -p --- prompt whether or not to execute this particular string

  • -t --- (tell) be verbose, echo each command before performing it

  • -i --- will use substitution similar to find's -exec option, it will execute certain commands on something.

Example:

ls dir1 | xargs -i mv dir1/'{}' dir2/'{}'

The {} would be substituted for the current input (in this example the current file/directory) listed within the directory. The above command would move every file listed in dir1 to dir2. Obviously this command won't be too useful, it would be easier to go to dir1 and type mv * ../dir2

Here is a more useful example:

\ls *.wav | xargs -i lame -h '{}' '{}'.mp3

This would find all wave files within the current directory and convert them to mp3 files (encoded with lame) and append a “.mp3” to the end of the filename, unfortunately it doesn't remove the .wav and so its not too useful...but it works.


8.1. Date/Time/Calendars

There is one command to change both the date and time on a UNIX like system, date, there is also a simple calendar utility, cal. If you are looking to change the timestamps on files please see Chapter 8

date

Tells you the date (and the time) and is also used to set the date/time.

To set the date, type date MM:DD:YYYY (American style date) where MM is month, DD is the number of days within the month and YYYY is the year.

For example to set the date to the 1st January 2000 you would type:

date 01:01:2000

To set the time (where the -s option is to set a new time), type:

date -s hh:mm:ss

Another useful option you can use is --date=“string” (or -d “string”) option to display a date from x days ago or in x days (or x weeks, months, years et cetera). See the examples below.

Examples:

date --date="3 months 1 day ago"

Will print the date 3 months and 1 day ago from the current date. Note that --date=”x month x day ago” and -d “x month x day ago” are equivalent.

date -d "3 days"

The above command will print the date 3 days in the future from now.

cal

Typing cal will give you the calendar of the present month on your screen, in the nice standard calendar format. There are various options to customise the calendar, refer to the info/man page.

Example:

cal -y year

Will display a calendar for a specific year, simply use cal -y to print the calendar for the current year.

cal 2 2004

This will display the calendar for February 2004


8.2. Finding information about partitions

There are a number of ways to find out information on your hard disk drives, for information on mounted partitions also try df in Chapter 8

Using�the�proc�filesystem

You can look through the information in the relevant area of the proc filesystem, under the directory of either /proc/ide/ or /proc/ide?/hd? where the first question mark is a number and the second is a letter (starting with 'a').

For example:

cd /proc/ide0/hda

Under this directory there will be various information on the hard drive or cdrom connected.

Using�fdisk

Using fdisk with the -l option will output information on any hard drives connected to the system and information on their partitions (for example, the type of partition).

Information relating to using fdisk to partition hard disks can be found in your distributions documentation, the fdisk manual page or online.

NoteRoot Access Required
 

This command needs root access to work


Chapter 9. Controlling the system

The controlling the system chapter details commands that you may wish to use to interact with devices on your system and then details how to control processes and services/daemons.

eject

eject simply tells a device to open (eject) the drive. Useful for cdrom/DVD drives.

For example the command below would eject the cdrom-drive (if your cdrom is linked to /dev/cdrom):

eject /dev/cdrom

NoteThis won't work unless
 

This will only work if the user has permission to mount the partition. Please see the tip in Section 9.1 for more information.


9.1. Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)

TipAllowing Users to mount partitions
 

By default a UNIX system will allow normal users to unmount partitions. However unless given permission by the superuser, users will not be allowed to mount partitions.

The commands listed below will not work for normal users unless users have permission to mount that device.

If your particular distribution is setup not to allow users to mount partitions its not very hard to change this, simply edit the /etc/fstab file (as root) and:

Replace the word "defaults" with "user" or
Add "user" to the end of the options list for the particular partition(s).

mount

Mount a device. Attach the device to the file-system hierarchy (the tree ( / )). This needs to be done so you can access the drive (see below, Section 9.1 for an example).

umount

'Unmount' a device. The command umount (no 'n') unmount's a device. It removes it from the file-system hierarchy (the tree ( / )). This needs to be done before you remove a floppy/CDROM or any other removable device (see below, Section 9.1 for an example).

smbmount�//wincomp/c�/mnt/win

Where “win” would be the place you want it mounted and “wincomp” is the IP address or name of your windows computer.

NotePlease note
 

Using ping/smbmount/ssh or other UNIX system programs with a computer name rather than IP address will only work if you have the computer listed in your /etc/hosts file. Here is an example:

192.168.1.100 new 
This line says that their is a computer called “new” with IP address 192.168.1.100. Now that it exists in the /etc/hosts file I don't have to type the IP address anymore, just the name “new”.

smbmount is a tool from the samba package, it can mount a remote windows file-system onto your current computer.

Un-mounting uses the same syntax as 'umount', as listed above, or you may like to use:

smbumount /mountpoint

Here are some more examples of how to mount a file-system:

mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy (1)
mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdb /mnt/cdrom (2)
mount -t iso /tmp/image_file /mnt/iso_file/ -o loop (3)
(1)
The windows filesystem is known as vfat (standard on Windows 9x) or NFTS (standard on Windows 2000 and XP).
(2)
for CDROM's
(3)
This will mount an image file (usually a CD image file) so you can view/change the files (it will appear to be like any other device).

NoteThe -t option
 

On any system running a newer version of the Linux kernel the -t option is not always necessary and can be left out.

Examples of how to unmount a file-system (necessary before you eject/remove disk):

umount /mount_point

An example unmount point could be “/mnt/floppy” or “/mnt/cdrom”


9.2. Shutting Down/Rebooting the System

shutdown�now

Shutdown the computer immediately (don't power down). Note that in UNIX systems this kind of shutdown means to go to “ single-user mode”. Single-user mode is a mode where only the administrator (root) has access to the computer, this mode is designed for maintenance and is often used for repairs.

For example this would take you to single user mode

shutdown now
shutdown�-h�now

Shutdown (-h = halt) the computer immediately. It begins the shutdown procedure, press CTRL-C (break-key) to stop it. After the end of the command you can also leave a message in quotation marks which will be broad-casted to all users, for example:

shutdown -h now "Warning system malfunction, self-destruct imminent"

This would halt the system and send the message to anyone who is currently logged in.

TipShutting down at a particular time
 

You can also put a time that the system should shutdown instead of “now”. Typing “+x minutes” (any number of minutes is appropriate) or you can even set an exact time. For example to shutdown at 11:50 type:
shutdown -h 11:50

NoteShutdown -h vs poweroff
 

On some systems, shutdown -h and halt do not actually turn the system's power off. On systems that do not power off with these commands use the poweroff command

halt

The same as shutdown -h now doesn't take any options, this command simply shuts down immediately.

shutdown�-r�now

Shutdown ( -r = reboot) the computer immediately. It begins the reboot procedure, press CTRL-C (break-key) to stop it. After the end of the command you can also leave a message in quotation marks which will be broad-casted to all users, for example:

shutdown -r now "Warning system rebooting, all files will be destroyed"

This would reboot the system and send the message to anyone who was logged in.

TipRebooting at a particular time
 

You can also put a time that the system should reboot instead of “now”. Typing “+x minutes” (any number of minutes is appropriate) or you can even set an exact time. For example to reboot at 11:50 type:
shutdown -r 11:50

reboot

The same as shutdown -r now, doesn't take any options, simply reboots the computer immediately.

CTRL-ALT-DEL

(key-combination) May be used from a terminal to reboot or shutdown, it depends on your system configuration. Note that this doesn't work from an xterminal. CTRL-ALT-DEL begins the reboot/shutdown immediately, the user does not have to be logged in.

TipYou can change the behaviour of CTRL-ALT-DEL from rebooting
 

To disable CTRL-ALT-DEL from rebooting your computer (or to have it do something different), you can edit the /etc/inittab file (as root).

Here is how it looks on a Mandrake/Mandriva Linux system:
# Trap 
CTRL-ALT-DEL

ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now 

Note that the # means a comment (and is not used). If you simply put a # (hash) before the command it would disable it (it would become a comment).

You could also change the command it runs for example if you changed the -r to a -h the computer would turn off instead of rebooting, or you could have it do anything you want. It's up to your creativity to make it do something interesting.


9.3. Controlling Processes

ps

Will give you a list of the processes running on your system. With no options, ps will list processes that belong to the current user and have a controlling terminal.

Example options include:

  • -aux --- list all running processes (by all users with some information).

  • -a --- list all processes from all users.

  • -u --- list more information including user names, %cpu usage, and %mem usage et cetera.

  • -x --- list processes without controlling terminals.

  • -l --- display different information including UID and nice value.

  • --forest --- this makes it easier to see the process hierarchy, which will give you an indication of how the various processes on your system interrelate (although you should also try pstree).

For example to list all running processes with additional information, simply type:

ps -aux
pstree

Displays the processes in the form of a tree structure (similar to how tree does it for directories).

Use the -p option to show process id's.

Example:

pstree -p

This would list all processes and their id's.

pgrep

This command is useful for finding the process id of a particular process when you know part of its name.

Use the -l option to list the name of the process as well and the -u option to search via a particular user(s).

Normally pgrep will only return the pid number; this way you can use it with other commands.

Examples:

kill $(pgrep mozilla)

This would kill any process name that starts with mozilla. Note that this is the same as using pkill (see below).

If you are unfamiliar with the $(�) part of this command, please refer to Section 6.4.

To list processes id's and names type:

pgrep -l process_name
top

Displays the 'top' (as in CPU usage) processes, provides more detail than ps.

top also provides an updated display, it has many options that make it fully customisable, refer to the manual or info page for details.

kill

To kill processes on your system, you will need their pid's or id's . Use ps or pstree to find out the process id's (pid's), or use jobs to find out id's.

Tipkillall and pkill - kill a process by name
 

pkill and killall can be a lot easier to use than kill. pkill allows you to type part of the name of a process to kill it, while killall requires the full process name. See below for more information.

Examples:

kill pid

Simply kill a process (allow it time to save it's files and exit)

kill %id

Same as above, except it uses an id instead of a pid, you need to use a % (percent) when using an id to kill.

kill -kill pid

Force a process to be killed (won't allow files to be saved or updated); only use when necessary because all data that the program had will be lost.

There are also many other kill options such as kill -HUP (hangup)... refer to the manual/info pages for more information.

killall

Kill a process by it's name, uses names instead of process id's (pid's). Use -v to have killall report whether the kill was successful or not and -i for interactive mode (will prompt you before attempting to kill).

Tippkill - a little like a killall with regular expressions
 

pkill is another command that allows processes to be killed but does so using regular expressions. See below for more information.

For example:

killall -iv mozilla

Would kill anything named “mozilla” and prompt you before each kill and report whether the kill was successful or not. Unfortunately you need to get the name exactly right for killall to work, you would need to use “mozilla-bin” to kill the mozilla browser. If you want something where you don't need to know the exact name try pkill (below).

pkill

pkill is used to kill processes according to an extended regular expression. Use the -u option to kill using a user name(s) and process name (for example to only kill a process of a certain user). pkill can also send specific signals to processes.

For normal usage simply type:

pkill process_name

Note that the “process_name” doesn't have to be an exact match...

Or to kill the “process_name” of only the users “fred” and “anon” type:

pkill -u fred anon process_name
skill

skill is used to send a command/username/tty a particular signal.

skill has a number of options available to ensure correct interpretation (otherwise it just guesses what it is), simply type skill -option(s)

  • -L --- list the various signals that can be sent

  • -u --- specify a username; this is obviously followed by the user name or a space-seperated list of usernames.

  • -p --- process id (followed by the process id)

  • -c --- command name (this is the same as killall)

  • -t --- (tty number)

  • -v --- verbose mode

  • -i --- interactive mode.

skill can be used to stop, continue, or kill processes using the username, command name or process id (or send them any variety of signals you like).

Useful example:

skill -STOP abusive_user_name

The above command will stop all of that users processes, this will cause his screen to freeze until you type:

skill -CONT abusive_user_name

This would tell that all processes may continue as before. Note that this would only work if you are root. Also note you can list more than one user name with the command so it will apply to multiple users.

CTRL-C

The break key, will kill (break, stop) something that's running on your terminal.

jobs

Prints currently running jobs, as in processes you have executed within the shell.

bg

Backgrounds a process. To start a program in the background (so it doesn't take over the terminal) use an “&” (ampersand) sign at the end of the command. You usually use CTRL-Z to suspend something you are currently using. You can simply use bg to resume in the background the last job suspended...

Command syntax:

bg job_number

or

bg job_name
fg

Bring a process to the foreground, so you can interact with it. The process will use your current terminal. Note simply use fg to foreground the last job number suspended...

You can bring jobs to the foreground by name or by number (use jobs to find the number).

Command syntax:

fg job_number

or

fg job_name
nice

Sets the priority for a process. nice -20 is the maximum priority (only administrative users can assign negative priorities), nice 20 is the minimum priority. You must be root to give a process a higher priority, but you can always lower the priority of your own processes...

Example:

nice -20 make

Would execute make and it would run at maximum priority.

renice

Changes the priority of an existing command. You may use the options -u to change the priorities of all processes for a particular user name and -g to change priorities for all processes of a particular group. The default is to change via the process id number.

Example:

renice +20 2222

This would change the priority of process 2222 to +20 (minimum priority).

snice

snice works very similarly to skill, only it changes the priority of the process(es). Its function is similar to that of renice.

To use options (to ensure correct interpretation) you simply type snice -option(s):

  • -u --- specify a username; this is obviously followed by the user name or a space-seperated list of usernames.

  • -p --- process id (followed by the process id)

  • -c --- command name (this is the same as killall)

  • -t --- tty number

  • -v --- verbose mode

  • -i --- interactive mode.

Example:

snice -10 -u root

This would increase the priority of all root's processes.


9.4. Controlling services

Concept�Definitions

UNIX systems use scripts to control “daemons” which provide “services” (for example your sound output) to run a UNIX system. UNIX systems consist of a variety of services (daemons).

A “daemon” is a system process which runs in the background (zero interaction) performing a particular task.

Daemons normally have a “d” on the end of their name and either listen for certain events or perform a system task, for example sshd listens for secure shell requests to the particular machine and handles them when they occur.

Daemons usually perform critical system tasks such as control swap-space, memory management and various other tasks.

service

service is a shell script available on Mandrake/Mandriva and Redhat systems which allows you to perform various tasks on services.

  • Use the -s option to print the status of all services available

  • Use the -f option followed by a service name to restart that particular service.

  • Use the -R option to restart all services (note that this will kill any current services running, including the X windows system).

For example to restart the daemon sshd you would type:

service -f sshd
Using�the�script�directly

You may also execute the shell script directly from /etc/init.d. Simply go to that directory then type ./script_name.

Executing the script should return the options it can take, by default they will be:

  • restart --- this will make the service stop and then start again.

  • start --- this option will start a service (assuming its not running).

  • stop --- this option will stop a service (assuming its running).

  • status --- this option will tell you about the service


Chapter 10. Managing users

su�username

(Switch User), change to a different user.

Use su�- to switch to root or su username, to switch to a different username.

TipUsing sudo
 

Its often considered better practice to use the sudo command rather than switch to the root user

The sudo command allows you to perform actions as root but logs the actions you take (so you can trace anything that was done to the system by yourself or others). sudo has a very good manual page which provides plenty of information about it.

You use sudo similar to how you execute a normal command with sudo prepended to it, for example:

 sudo rpm -U myrpm.i386.rpm 

This would allow you to install a rpm even if you have the correct sudo access

Note that if you want to return to your original user you don't use su again, type exit or press CTRL-D .

Simply typing su will give you some root privileges, but there are minor complications relating to environment variables. It's generally considered better practice to use su�- because it has no restrictions.

root

The superuser. This user has power over everything and all, and can do anything with the system (including destroy it, and of course fix it :)). This user is used to perform most administration functions on the system.


10.1. Users/Groups

All user information is normally listed in the “/etc/passwd” file and the group information in the “/etc/groups” file.

If you need to edit either file it is recommended that you use vipw to edit the password file and vigr to edit the group file. These particular commands take care of any processing and locking of the files before and after editing them.

There is a lot of information about adding/removing/controlling users and groups, this information is only the minimal information required.

chsh

Used to change your login shell.

To list the shells available type:

chsh --list-shells

Simply type chsh then [Enter], then type the name of the shell you would like to use every time you login.

chfn

Change finger information.

The information this command changes is reflected in the /etc/passwd file, use this utility to update your real name, office and home phone numbers (if they exist).

Use the -f option to change a users full name. Use this tool as either chfn or chfn user_name (usable by root only).

Command syntax:

chfn user_name
passwd

Changes the password of a user. You will need to be root if you want to change other users passwords.

Simply type passwd to change your own password or to change another users password type:

passwd username

Chapter 11. Text Related Tools

The text related tools chapter is the largest in this guide, most of the time on a GNU/Linux machine you will spend time interacting with text. This chapter briefly covers text editors and goes into more depth on viewing text, using tools to manipulate text, finding text within files and changing text formats between windows based systems and GNU/Linux based systems.


11.1. Text Editors

vi

A traditional UNIX system text editor, should be on any UNIX system. It requires learning a few key combinations, but is very powerful, and it is also quite small. vi is well known for its minimal use of resources.

Notevim
 

vim - vi improved. A newer version of the vulnerable vi editor. Many systems use vim rather than vi.

emacs

More than just a text editor. This text editor has a steep learning curve but is also very powerful, it is both advanced and quite large. emacs can do anything, surf the internet, chat, play games and many other tasks.

Others

There are too many different text editors to list here. Have a look on the internet, either search for them using any search engine or you will find many of them at Sourceforge or Freshmeat.


11.2. Text Viewing Tools

head

With no options it shows the first ten lines of a text file.

Use head -n x (where “x” is a number) to display the first x lines.

Try head -F to use a continually updated version of head (if the file changes it will be reloaded and displayed), please note that using this option will run head is a continuous loop so you'll need to use CTRL-C to exit.

For example:

head -n 20 somelog.txt 

Will display the top 20 entries of the file “somelog.txt”.

tail

With no options it shows the last ten lines of a file.

Use tail -n x (where “x” is a number) to display the last x lines.

Try tail -F to use a continually updated version of tail (if the file changes it will be reloaded and displayed), please note that using this option will run tail is a continuous loop so you'll need to use CTRL-C to exit.

For example:

tail -n 20 somelog.txt

Will display the last 20 entries of the file “somelog.txt”.

less

Views text, can scroll backwards and forwards. Has many different options which are all described in the manual page.

When less is already running, use :n and :p (type a colon then the character) to move to the next and previous files (when there are multiple open files).

Command syntax:

less filename.txt

Or using a tool (in this example cat):

cat file.txt | less
more

Displays text, one page full at a time, more limited than less. In this case less is better than more.

more filename.txt

Or using a tool (is this example cat):

cat file.txt | more
cat

Combines (concatenates) multiple documents into one document. Can be used on individual files as well.

Some useful options:

  • -b --- number all non-blank lines

  • -n --- number all lines.

Also try using nl to number lines (it can do more complex numbering), you will find it under under this section, Section 11.4

Example:

cat filepart1 filepart2 filepart3 > wholefile.txt

This will combine (concatenate) filepart1, filepart2 and filepart3 into the single file “wholefile.txt”.

tac

Combines (concatenates) multiple documents into one document and outputs them in reverse order. Can also be used on individual files. Notice that tac is cat written backwards.

Example:

tac filepart1 filepart2 filepart3 > wholefile.txt

This will combine (concatenate) filepart1, filepart2 and filepart3 into the single file but have each of the files written in reverse.

z*�commands

Many commands can be prefixed with a “z” to read/work within a gzip compressed file.

Some examples are zcat, zless, zmore, zgrep, zcmp, zdiff.

There are many utilities for working with text within compressed files without trying to manually de-compress them somewhere first...most begin with a “z”. You will find some of them mentioned over here, Section 15.3.

bz*�commands

There are also a few commands that prefixed with a “bz” to read/work within a file compressed with bzip2.

The tools are bzcat, bzless, bzgrep. You will find some of them mentioned over here, Section 15.3.


11.3. Text Information Tools

wc

Word count, count how many words you have in a text document. Can also be used to count the lines or bytes within the file.

Use the options -w for words, -l for lines and -c for bytes. Or simply run wc with no options to get all three.

Command syntax:

wc -option file.txt
style

To run various readability tests on a particular text file. Will output scores on a number of different readability tests (with no options).

Command syntax:

style -options text_file

NoteFind style in the diction package
 

This command is part of the diction package and does not appear to be used too often these days

cmp

Determines whether or not two files differ, works on any type of file. Very similar to diff only it compares on the binary level instead of just the text.

diff

Compares two text files and output a difference report (sometimes called a "diff") containing the text that differs between two files.

Can be used to create a 'patch' file (which can be used by patch).

Example:

diff file1.txt file2.txt

diff will output a '>' (followed by the line) for each line that isn't in the first file but is in the second file, and it will output a '<' (followed by the line) for each line that is in the first file but not in the second file.

sdiff

Instead of giving a difference report, it outputs the files in two columns, side by side, separated by spaces.

diff3

Same as diff except for three files.

comm

Compares two files, line-by-line and prints lines that are unique to file1 (1st column), unique to file2 (2nd column) and common to both files (3rd column).

Use comm with the -1, -2, or -3 to suppress the printing of those particular lines. Simply run comm to have all three listed (ie. unique to files 1 and 2 and common to both).

Command syntax:

comm file1 file2
look

To output a list of words in the system dictionary that begin with a given string -- this is useful for finding words that begin with a particular phrase or prefix.

Give the string as an argument; it is not case sensitive.

Command syntax:

look string

11.4. Text manipulation tools

TipAlso see
 

Also see tac, and cat over in this section, Section 11.2, as they can perform text manipulation too

sort

Sorting text with no options the sort is alphabetical. Can be run on text files to sort them alphabetically (note it also concatenates files), can also be used with a pipe '|' to sort the output of a command.

Use sort -r to reverse the sort output, use the -g option to sort 'numerically' (ie read the entire number, not just the first digit).

Examples:

cat shoppinglist.txt | sort

The above command would run cat on the shopping list then sort the results and display them in alphabetical order.

sort -r shoppinglist.txt

The above command would run sort on a file and sort the file in reverse alphabetical order.

Advanced sort commands:

sort is a powerful utility, here are some of the more hard to learn (and lesser used) commands. Use the -t option to use a particular symbol as the separator then use the -k option to specify which column you would like to sort by, where column 1 is the first column before the separator. Also use the -g option if numeric sorting is not working correctly (without the -g option sort just looks at the first digit of the number). Here is a complex example:

sort -t : -k 4 -k 1 -g /etc/passwd | more 

This will sort the “/etc/passwd” file, using the colon ':' as the separator. It will sort via the 4th column (GID section, in the file) and then sort within that sort using the first (name) to resolve any ties. The -g is there so it sorts via full numbers, otherwise it will have 4000 before 50 (it will just look at the first digit...).

join

Will put two lines together assuming they share at least one common value on the relevant line. It won't print lines if they don't have a common value.

Command syntax:

join file1 file2
cut

Prints selected parts of lines (of a text file), or, in other words, removes certain sections of a line. You may wish to remove things according to tabs or commas, or anything else you can think of...

Options for cut:

  • -d --- allows you to specify another delimiter, for example ':' is often used with /etc/passwd:

    cut -d ':' (and probably some more options here) /etc/passwd
  • -f --- this option works with the text by columns, separated according to the delimiter. For example if your file had lines like “result,somethingelse,somethingelse” and you only wanted result you would use:

    cut -d ',' -f 1 /etc/passwd 

    This would get you only the usernames in /etc/passwd

  • “,” (commas) --- used to separate numbers, these allow you to cut particular columns. For example:

    cut -d ':' -f 1,7 /etc/passwd

    This would only show the username and the shell that each person is setup for in /etc/passwd.

  • “-” (hyphen) --- used to show from line x to line y, for example 1-4, (would be from lines 1 to line 4).

    cut -c 1-50 file1.txt

    This would cut (display) characters (columns) 1 to 50 of each line (and anything else on that line is ignored)

  • -x --- where x is a number, to cut from line 1 to “x”

  • x- --- where x is a number, to cut from “x” to the end.

    cut -5, 20-, 8 file2.txt

    This would display (“cut”) characters (columns) 1 to 5, 8 and from 20 to the end.

ispell/aspell

To spell check a file interactively, prompts for you to replace word or continue. aspell is said to be better at suggesting replacement words, but its probably best to find out for yourself.

aspell example:

aspell -c FILE.txt

This will run aspell on a particular file called “FILE.txt”, aspell will run interactively and prompt for user input.

ispell example:

ispell FILE.txt

This will run ispell on a particular file called “FILE.txt” ispell will run interactively and prompt for user input.

chcase

Is used to change the uppercase letters in a file name to lowercase (or vice versa).

You could also use tr to do the same thing...

cat fileName.txt | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'  > newFileName.txt

The above would convert uppercase to lowercase using the the file “fileName.txt” as input and outputting the results to “newFileName.txt”.

cat fileName.txt | tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]' > newFileName.txt

The above would convert lowercase to uppercase using the the file “fileName.txt” as input and outputting the results to “newFileName.txt”.

chcase (a perl script) can be found at the chcase homepage.

fmt

(format) a simple text formatter. Use fmt with the -u option to output text with "uniform spacing", where the space between words is reduced to one space character and the space between sentences is reduced to two space characters.

Example:

fmt -u myessay.txt

Will make sure the amount of space between sentences is two spaces and the amount of space between words is one space.

paste

Puts lines from two files together, either lines of each file side by side (normally separated by a tab-stop but you can have any symbols(s) you like...) or it can have words from each file (the first file then the second file) side by side.

To obtain a list of lines side by side, the first lines from the first file on the left side separated by a tab-stop then the first lines from the second file. You would type:

paste file1.txt file2.txt

To have the list displayed in serial, first line from first file, [Tab], second line from first file, then third and fourth until the end of the first file type:

paste --serial file1.txt file2.txt

TipThis command is very simple to understand if you make yourself an example
 

Its much easier if you create an example for yourself. With just a couple of lines, I used "first line first file" and "first line second file" et cetera for a quick example.

expand

Will convert tabs to spaces and output it. Use the option -t num to specify the size of a “tapstop”, the number of characters between each tab.

Command syntax:

expand file_name.txt

unexpand

Will convert spaces to tabs and output it.

Command syntax:

unexpand file_name.txt
uniq

Eliminates duplicate entries from a file and it sometimes greatly simplifies the display.

uniq options:

  • -c --- count the number of occurances of each duplicate

  • -u --- list only unique entries

  • -d --- list only duplicate entries

For example:

uniq -cd phone_list.txt

This would display any duplicate entries only and a count of the number of times that entry has appeared.

tr

(translation). A filter useful to replace all instances of characters in a text file or "squeeze" the whitespace.

Example:

cat some_file | tr '3' '5' > new_file

This will run the cat program on some file, the output of this command will be sent to the tr command, tr will replace all the instances of 3 with 5, like a search and replace. You can also do other things such as:

cat some_file | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]' > new_file

This will run cat on some_file and convert any capital letters to lowercase letters (you could use this to change the case of file names too...).

TipAlternatives
 

You can also do a search and replace with a one line Perl command, read about it at the end of this section.

nl

The number lines tool, it's default action is to write it's input (either the file names given as an argument, or the standard input) to the standard output.

Line numbers are added to every line and the text is indented.

This command can do take some more advanced numbering options, simply read the info page on it.

These advanced options mainly relate to customisation of the numbering, including different forms of separation for sections/pages/footers etc.

Also try cat -n (number all lines) or cat -b (number all non-blank lines). For more info on cat check under this section: Section 11.2

There are two ways you can use nl:

nl some_text_file.txt

The above command would add numbers to each line of some_text_file. You could use nl to number the output of something as shown in the example below;

grep some_string some_file | nl
Perl�search�and�replace�text

To search and replace text in a file is to use the following one-line Perl command[4]:

$ perl -pi -e "s/oldstring/newstring/g;" filespec [RET]

In this example, “oldstring” is the string to search, “newstring is the string to replace it with, and “filespec” is the name of the file or files to work on. You can use this for more than one file.

Example: To replace the string “helpless” with the string “helpful” in all files in the current directory, type:

$ perl -pi -e "s/helpless/helpful/g;" * [RET]

Also try using tr to do the same thing (see further above in this section).

TipIf these tools are too primitive
 

If these text tools are too simple for your purposes then you are probably looking at doing some programming or scripting.

If you would like more information on bash scripting then please see the advanced bash scripting guide, authored by Mendel Cooper.

sed and awk are traditional UNIX system tools for working with text, this guide does not provide an explanation of them. sed works on a line-by-line basis performing substitution and awk can perform a similar task or assist by working on a file and printing out certain information (its a programming language).

You will normally find them installed on your GNU/Linux system and will find many tutorials all over the internet, feel free to look them up if you ever have to perform many similar operations on a text file.


11.5. Text Conversion/Filter Tools

Filters�(UNIX�System/dos�formats)

The following filters allow you to change text from Dos-style to UNIX system style and vice-versa, or convert a file to other formats. Also note that many modern text editors can do this for you...

Why�use�filters?

Because UNIX systems and Microsoft use two different standards to represent the end-of-line in an ASCII text file.

This can sometimes causes problems in editors or viewers which aren't familiar with the other operating systems end-of-line style. The following tools allow you to get around this difference.

Whats�the�difference?

The difference is very simple, on a Windows text file, a newline is signalled by a carriage return followed by a newline, '\r\n' in ASCII.

On a UNIX system a newline is simply a newline, '\n' in ASCII.

dos2unix

This converts Microsoft-style end-of-line characters to UNIX system style end-of-line characters.

Simply type:

dos2unix file.txt
fromdos

This does the same as dos2unix (above).

Simply type:

fromdos file.txt

fromdos can be obtained from the from/to dos website.

unix2dos

This converts UNIX system style end-of-line characters to Microsoft-style end-of-line characters.

Simply type:

unix2dos file.txt
todos

This does the same as unix2dos (above).

Simply type:

todos file.txt

todos can be obtained from the from/to dos website.

antiword

This filter converts Microsoft word documents into plain ASCII text documents.

Simply type:

antiword file.doc

You can get antiword from the antiword homepage.

recode

Converts text files between various formats including HTML and dozens of different forms of text encodings.

Use recode -l for a full listing. It can also be used to convert text to and from Windows and UNIX system formats (so you don't get the weird symbols).

CautionWarning
 

By default recode overwrites the input file, use '<' to use recode as a filter only (and to not overwrite the file).

Examples:

UNIX system text to Windows text:

recode ..pc file_name

Windows text to UNIX system text:

recode ..pc/ file_name

UNIX system text to Windows text without overwriting the original file (and creating a new output file):

recode ..pc < file_name > recoded_file
tr

(Windows to UNIX system style conversion only). While tr is not specifically designed to convert files from Windows-format to UNIX system format by doing:

tr -d '\r' < inputFile.txt > outputFile.txt

The -d switch means to simply delete any occurances of the string. Since we are looking for '\r', carriage returns it will remove any it finds, making the file a UNIX system text file. You can read more about tr over here, Section 11.4.


11.5.1. Conversion tools

enscript

Converts text files to postscript, rtf, HTML (use ghostview to view the postscript file). enscript has a large number of options which can be used to customise the output.

Examples:[5]

enscript --language=html input_file.txt -o output_file.html

This will take some file and output it as a html file.

enscript --help-highlight

Display help on using the highlight feature (list all different types of highlighting available)

enscript --help-highlight

Highlight (pretty print), example:

enscript -E --color --language=html --toc --output=foo.html *.h *.c 

Add all the files with a .h and a .c (C source and header files) into a file called foo.html, use colour and add a table of contents

For further options refer to the well written manual page of enscript.

figlet

Used to create ASCII “art”. Figlet can create several different forms (fonts) of ASCII art, its one of the more unusual programs around.


11.6. Finding Text Within Files

grep

Looks for text within files. For example:

grep this_word this_file.txt 

Example options:

  • -v --- this option is used to display lines which do not contain the string.

  • -n --- this option displays the line numbers

  • -w --- this option makes grep match the whole word

  • -A x or -B x (where x is a number) --- display “x” lines After or Before the section where the particular word is found.

  • -r or rgrep --- search for text within files recursively.

This command uses regular expressions, for more information please see, Section 20.4.2.

For example, this command would look in the file “rpmlist.txt” for anything starting with “rpm”:

grep rpm rpmlist.txt

Or you could use it like this, to search through the output of another file:

rpm -qa | grep ogg

The first command lists all RPM's installed on your system, the second finds any containing the string “ogg” and outputs them.

rgrep

A "recursive" version of grep (this is a different program to grep). This will search all the files in the current directory and all it's subdirectories and print the names of the files and the matching line. Follows similar syntax to grep (see above). You could also use grep with the -r option to achieve the same affect.

fgrep

This version of grep calls grep with the -F option. This will look for literal strings only, it won't use or expand any kind of regular expression.

For example you could type:

fgrep 'a$*b?' file.txt

And fgrep would look for the string “a$*b?” in the file “file.txt”.

TipOther Versions
 

There are various versions of grep which are designed to do different things try searching for them on the internet or within your distribution.


Chapter 12. Mathematical tools

Notenum-utils homepage
 

The “num-utils” homepage, Num Utils, contains a variety of command line programs that could be useful when performing maths on your GNU/Linux machine.

units

Convert units of measurement between different scales. For example, centimeters to inches, litres to gallons.

Simply run the program, I recommend running it as follows:

units --verbose

This will run the program and it will tell you exactly what it is doing.

Example: you enter “60 meters” then you want it worked out in “kilometers”. The first line will tell you what this evaluates to.

If you wanted the conversion rate for “meters” to “kilometers” read the second line of the output (which will tell you meters/1000).

NoteTo exit
 

Press CTRL-D (end-of-file key) when you are finished using units.

python

Python is a very powerful, easy to learn, general purpose, interpreted programming language. And it makes a great calculator! If you don't have a calculator installed then simply type python, then hit [Enter].

This will execute the Python interpreter in interactive mode. Type your sums just like you would use a calculator. Note that if you want to work out fractions make sure you use a decimal point and a zero to obtain the correct answer (otherwise it will use integer division).

To start python in interactive mode, simply type:

python

Once python is started you can use it to add up sums or maybe do some python programming.

Use CTRL-D (end-of-file key) to exit the Python interpreter.

numgrep

A little bit like grep only this is designed for numbers only.

Use '/' (forward slashes) to contain each expression.

Use m<n> to find multiples of the number n and use f<n> to find factors of the number n.

Use commas to seperate expressions and .. (two dots) to represent a range.

For example, to input from standard input you could simply type:

numgrep

To input from a file and look for numbers between 1 and 1000 you could type:

numgrep /1..1000/ file_name

NoteThis tool comes from the num-utils package
 

Please note that this tool is part of the num-utils package.


Chapter 13. Network Commands

The network commands chapter explains various tools which can be useful when networking with other computers both within the network and accross the internet, obtaining more information about other computers. This chapter also includes information on tools for network configuration, file transfer and working with remote machines.

netstat

Displays contents of /proc/net files. It works with the Linux Network Subsystem, it will tell you what the status of ports are ie. open, closed, waiting, masquerade connections. It will also display various other things. It has many different options.

tcpdump

This is a sniffer, a program that captures packets off a network interface and interprets them for you. It understands all basic internet protocols, and can be used to save entire packets for later inspection.

ping

The ping command (named after the sound of an active sonar system) sends echo requests to the host you specify on the command line, and lists the responses received their round trip time.

You simply use ping as:

ping ip_or_host_name

Note to stop ping (otherwise it goes forever) use CTRL-C (break).

NotePlease note
 

Using ping/smbmount/ssh or other UNIX system programs with a computer name rather than IP address will only work if you have the computer listed in your /etc/hosts file. Here is an example:

192.168.1.100 new 
This line says that their is a computer called “new” with IP address 192.168.1.100. Now that it exists in the /etc/hosts file I don't have to type the IP address anymore, just the name “new”.

hostname

Tells the user the host name of the computer they are logged into. Note: may be called host.

traceroute

traceroute will show the route of a packet. It attempts to list the series of hosts through which your packets travel on their way to a given destination. Also have a look at xtraceroute (one of several graphical equivalents of this program).

Command syntax:

traceroute machine_name_or_ip
tracepath

tracepath performs a very simlar function to traceroute the main difference is that tracepath doesn't take complicated options.

Command syntax:

tracepath machine_name_or_ip
findsmb

findsmb is used to list info about machines that respond to SMB name queries (for example windows based machines sharing their hard disk's).

Command syntax:

findsmb

This would find all machines possible, you may need to specify a particular subnet to query those machines only...

nmap

“ network exploration tool and security scanner”. nmap is a very advanced network tool used to query machines (local or remote) as to whether they are up and what ports are open on these machines.

A simple usage example:

nmap machine_name

This would query your own machine as to what ports it keeps open. nmap is a very powerful tool, documentation is available on the nmap site as well as the information in the manual page.


13.1. Network Configuration

ifconfig

This command is used to configure network interfaces, or to display their current configuration. In addition to activating and deactivating interfaces with the “up” and “down” settings, this command is necessary for setting an interface's address information if you don't have the ifcfg script.

Use ifconfig as either:

ifconfig

This will simply list all information on all network devices currently up.

ifconfig eth0 down

This will take eth0 (assuming the device exists) down, it won't be able to receive or send anything until you put the device back “up” again.

Clearly there are a lot more options for this tool, you will need to read the manual/info page to learn more about them.

ifup

Use ifup device-name to bring an interface up by following a script (which will contain your default networking settings). Simply type ifup and you will get help on using the script.

For example typing:

ifup eth0

Will bring eth0 up if it is currently down.

ifdown

Use ifdown device-name to bring an interface down using a script (which will contain your default network settings). Simply type ifdown and you will get help on using the script.

For example typing:

ifdown eth0

Will bring eth0 down if it is currently up.

ifcfg

Use ifcfg to configure a particular interface. Simply type ifcfg to get help on using this script.

For example, to change eth0 from 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.2 you could do:

ifcfg eth0 del 192.168.0.1
ifcfg eth0 add 192.168.0.2

The first command takes eth0 down and removes that stored IP address and the second one brings it back up with the new address.

route

The route command is the tool used to display or modify the routing table. To add a gateway as the default you would type:

route add default gw some_computer

13.2. Internet Specific Commands

Note that should DNS not be configured correctly on your machine, you need to edit “/etc/resolv.conf” to make things work...

host

Performs a simple lookup of an internet address (using the Domain Name System, DNS). Simply type:

host ip_address

or

host domain_name
dig

The "domain information groper" tool. More advanced then host... If you give a hostname as an argument to output information about that host, including it's IP address, hostname and various other information.

For example, to look up information about “www.amazon.com” type:

dig www.amazon.com

To find the host name for a given IP address (ie a reverse lookup), use dig with the `-x' option.

dig -x 100.42.30.95

This will look up the address (which may or may not exist) and returns the address of the host, for example if that was the address of “http://slashdot.org” then it would return “http://slashdot.org”.

dig takes a huge number of options (at the point of being too many), refer to the manual page for more information.

whois

(now BW whois) is used to look up the contact information from the “whois” databases, the servers are only likely to hold major sites. Note that contact information is likely to be hidden or restricted as it is often abused by crackers and others looking for a way to cause malicious damage to organisation's.

wget

(GNU Web get) used to download files from the World Wide Web.

To archive a single web-site, use the -m or --mirror (mirror) option.

Use the -nc (no clobber) option to stop wget from overwriting a file if you already have it.

Use the -c or --continue option to continue a file that was unfinished by wget or another program.

Simple usage example:

wget url_for_file

This would simply get a file from a site.

wget can also retrieve multiple files using standard wildcards, the same as the type used in bash, like *, [ ], ?. Simply use wget as per normal but use single quotation marks (' ') on the URL to prevent bash from expanding the wildcards. There are complications if you are retrieving from a http site (see below...).

Advanced usage example, (used from wget manual page):

wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html

This will parse the file bookmarks.html and check that all the links exist.

Advanced usage: this is how you can download multiple files using http (using a wildcard...).

Notes: http doesn't support downloading using standard wildcards, ftp does so you may use wildcards with ftp and it will work fine. A work-around for this http limitation is shown below:

wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.website.com[6]

This will download (recursively), to a depth of one, in other words in the current directory and not below that. This command will ignore references to the parent directory, and downloads anything that ends in “.gif”. If you wanted to download say, anything that ends with “.pdf” as well than add a -A.pdf before the website address. Simply change the website address and the type of file being downloaded to download something else. Note that doing -A.gif is the same as doing -A “*.gif” (double quotes only, single quotes will not work).

wget has many more options refer to the examples section of the manual page, this tool is very well documented.

NoteAlternative website downloaders
 

You may like to try alternatives like httrack. A full GUI website downloader written in python and available for GNU/Linux

curl

curl is another remote downloader. This remote downloader is designed to work without user interaction and supports a variety of protocols, can upload/download and has a large number of tricks/work-arounds for various things. It can access dictionary servers (dict), ldap servers, ftp, http, gopher, see the manual page for full details.

To access the full manual (which is huge) for this command type:

curl -M

For general usage you can use it like wget. You can also login using a user name by using the -u option and typing your username and password like this:

curl -u username:password http://www.placetodownload/file

To upload using ftp you the -T option:

curl -T file_name ftp://ftp.uploadsite.com

To continue a file use the -C option:

curl -C - -o file http://www.site.com

13.3. Remote Administration Related

ssh

Secure shell, remotely login on a machine running the sshd daemon. Once you are logged in you have a secure shell and are able to execute various commands on that computer such as copy files, reboot the computer, just like it was your own GNU/Linux PC.

Or you can use ssh with a full hostname to connect to a remote machine (as in across the internet).

Examples:

ssh hostname

Connect to a remote system with your current username, you will obviously need the password of the user on the other machine.

ssh username@hostname 

Connect to a remote system with your a different username, you will obviously need the password of the user on the other machine.

scp

Secure copy, part of the ssh package. Allows you to copy files from one computer to another computer, use -r to copy recursively (copy entire directories and subdirectories).

scp's syntax is always

scp machineToBeCopiedFrom machineToBeCopiedTo

Where either machine can be a local directory (on the current filesystem /) or a remote machine. Remote machines are usually machinesFullName:/directory (if you omit the directory part it will just assume the home directory of the username you are logging in with).

The example below copies all files from the current directory (not including any directories), the command will login to “new” using the username of the person currently logged in on the local computer, the files will be copied to the root directory of the remote computer called “new” (which is probably on the LAN):

scp * new:/

You could also copy files from another computer to another computer. Let's say you are on a computer called “p100”. And you want to copy files (and directories) from “hp166” (in the /tmp directory and anything below that) to “new” and put the files in new's temporary directory. You could do:

scp -r hp166:/tmp new:/tmp

Assuming you were logged in as “fred” you would need passwords for user “fred” on the computers hp166 and new. Add an user_name@ before the computer name to login under a different user name.

For example to perform the above command with user “root” on hp166 and “anon” on new you would type:

scp -r root@hp166:/tmp anon@new:/tmp

To copy from a remote machine to a local computer you simply do things in reverse:

scp remoteMachine:/mystuff/* .

This will copy files on the remote machine in the directory “mystuff” to your local computer.

NoteRemote Machines
 

Please note that when working with a remote machine you need to have a : (colon) after the machine name even if you want the files in their home directory. Otherwise the command will fail.

sftp

Secure ftp, another part of the ssh package. This command is similar to ftp but uses an encrypted tunnel to connect to an ftp server and is therefore more secure than just plain ftp.

The command usage is very similar to ftp (the command-line tool), sftp (once running) uses commands such as help (for help), put (send files to the server), get (download files from the server) and various others, refer to the manual page and internal documentation for further details.

TipGraphical programs
 

Sometimes its easier to manage files with a GUI, many of these programs do have good GUI equivalents, try searching the internet or sites like Sourceforge or Freshmeat.


Chapter 14. Security

The security chapter is designed to give the user a very basic level of understanding of security within the GNU/Linux operating system. This chapter also has information on the UNIX system style file permissions used on most GNU/Linux machines.

More comprehensive guides can be found at the Linux Documentation Project, such as the Linux Security howto authored by Kevin Fenzi and Dave Wreski.

There are also sites such as Linux Security. If your looking for a program to assist in locking down your operating system you may want to check Bastille Linux that runs on RPM based distributions (Redhat/Mandriva/SuSE).

Changing�root's�password

This trick works well if you have forgotten your superuser password, type linux single at a LILO/Grub prompt. Then passwd once the system has started and you are at a console.

Grub:

If you are using grub go to the relevant line (the one with the kernel and various options) then press 'e' for edit and add “single” on to the end of the lines that boot the kernel. Then hit [Enter] and press 'b' (to boot).

Lilo:

If you are using lilo press escape and type “ linux single” and then hit [Enter] to boot.

CautionSecurity Warning
 

This is also a basic security hazard if you have others using your computer and security is a concern, you may like to add a password to your LILO or Grub prompt to stop this from being done.

umask

The umask is a value set by the shell. It controls the default permissions of any file created during that shell session. This information is inherited from the shell's parent and is normally set in some configuration file by the root user (in my case /etc/profile).

umask has an unusual way of doing things ...to set the umask you must describe file permissions by saying what will be disabled.

You can do this by doing 777 minus the file permissions you want. Note that umask works with numbers only, for an explanation please see, Section 14.2

For example:

You want the default during a particular shell session to be equivalent to chmod 750 (user has r/w/x, group has r/x and other has no permissions), then the command you would use would be:

umask 027

14.1. Some basic Security Tools

md5sum

Compute an md5 checksum (128-bit) for file “file_name” to verify it's integrity. You normally use the “ md5sum -c” option to check against a given file (often with a “.asc” extention) to check whether the various files are correct, this comes in handy when downloading isos as the checking is automated for you.

Command syntax:

md5sum file_name
mkpasswd�-l�10

This command will make a random password of length ten characters. This password generator creates passwords that are designed to be hard to guess. There are similar alternatives to this program scattered around the internet.


14.2. File Permissions

Use ls -l to see the permissions of files (list-long). They will appear like this, note that I have added spaces between permissions to make it easier to read:

Where: r = read, w = write, x = execute

  -  rwx   rw-   r--  1 (1) newuser newuser
type(2)owner(3)group(4)others(5)
(1)
This number is the number of hard links (pointers) to this file. You can use ln to create another hard-link to the file.
(2)
This is the type of file. '-' means a regular file, 'd' would mean a directory, 'l' would mean a link. There are also other types such as 'c' for character device and 'b' for block device (found in the /dev/ directory).
(3)
These are the permissions for the owner of the file (the user who created the file).
(4)
These are the permissions for the group, any users who belong is the same group as the user who created the file will have these permissions.
(5)
These are the permissions for everyone else. Any user who is outside the group will have these permissions to the file.

The two names at the end are the username and group respectively.

chmod

Change file access permissions for a file(s).

There are two methods to change permissions using chmod; letters or numbers.

Letters�Method:

use a + or - (plus or minus sign) to add or remove permissions for a file respectively. Use an equals sign =, to specify new permissions and remove the old ones for the particular type of user(s).

You can use chmod letter where the letters are:

a (all (everyone)), u (user), g (group) and o (other).

Examples:

chmod u+rw somefile

This would give the user read and write permission.

chmod o-rwx somefile

This will remove read/write/execute permissions from other users (doesn't include users within your group).

chmod a+r somefile

This will give everyone read permission for the file.

chmod a=rx somefile

This would give everyone execute and read permission to the file, if anyone had write permission it would be removed.

Numbers�Method:

you can also use numbers (instead of letters) to change file permissions. Where:

r (read) = 4 w (write) = 2 x (execute) = 1

Numbers can be added together so you can specify read/write/execute permissions; read+write = 6, read+execute = 5, read+write+execute = 7

Examples:

chmod 777 somefile

This would give everyone read/write/execute permission on “this_file”. The first number is user, second is group and third is everyone else (other).

chmod 521 somefile

This would give the user read and execute permission, and the group write permission (but not read permission!) and everyone else execute permission. (Note that it's just an example, settings like that don't really make sense...).

chown

Changes the ownership rights of a file (hence the name 'chown' - change owner). This program can only be used by root.

Use the -R option to change things recursively, in other words, all matching files including those in subdirectories.

Command syntax:

chown owner:group the_file_name
sticky�bit

Only the person who created the file within a directory may delete it, even if other people have write permission. You can turn it on by typing:

chmod 1700 somedirectory (where 1 = sticky bit)

or (where t represents the sticky bit)

chmod +t somedirectory

To turn it off you would need to type:

chmod 0700 somefile (where the zero would mean no sticky bit)

or (where t represents the sticky bit)

chmod -t somefile

Note that the permissions aren't relevant in the numbers example, only the first number (1 = on, 0 = off).

An example of a sticky directory is usually /tmp

suid

Allow SUID/SGID (switch user ID/switch group ID) access. You would normally use chmod to turn this on or off for a particular file, suid is generally considered a security hazard so be careful when using this.

Example:

chmod u+s file_name

This will give everyone permission to execute the file with the permissions of the user who set the +s switch.

CautionSecurity Hazard
 

This is obviously a security hazard. You should avoid using the suid flag unless necessary.

chattr

Change file system attributes (works on ext2fs and possibly others...). Use the -R option to change files recursively, chattr has a large number of attributes which can be set on a file, read the manual page for further information.

Example:

chattr +i /sbin/lilo.conf[7]

This sets the 'immutable' flag on a file. Use a '+' to add attributes and a '-' to take them away. The +i will prevent any changes (accidental or otherwise) to the “lilo.conf” file. If you wish to modify the lilo.conf file you will need to unset the immutable flag: chattr -i. Note some flags can only be used by root; -i, -a and probably many others.

Note there are many different attributes that chattr can change, here are a few more which may be useful:

  • A (no Access time) --- if a file or directory has this attribute set, whenever it is accessed, either for reading of for writing, it's last access time will not be updated. This can be useful, for example, on files or directories which are very often accessed for reading, especially since this parameter is the only one which changes on an inode when it's opened.

  • a (append only) --- if a file has this attribute set and is open for writing, the only operation possible will be to append data to it's previous contents. For a directory, this means that you can only add files to it, but not rename or delete any existing file. Only root can set or clear this attribute.

  • s (secure deletion) --- when such a file or directory with this attribute set is deleted, the blocks it was occupying on disk are written back with zeroes (similar to using shred). Note that this does work on the ext2, and ext3 filesystems but is unlikely to work on others (please see the documentation for the filesystem you are using). You may also like to see shred, please see Chapter 7

lsattr

(list attributes). This will list if whether a file has any special attributes (as set by chattr). Use the -R option to list recursively and try using the -d option to list directories like other files rather than listing their contents.

Command syntax:

lsattr

This will list files in the current directory, you may also like to specify a directory or a file:

lsattr /directory/or/file

Chapter 15. Archiving Files

The archiving files chapter provides some basic information on the simple programs that you can use to archive files. You will often see these programs used when you try to install programs without using a package management tool.

NoteThis is not a backup guide
 

Please note that while tar is useful for regular purposes, and possibly combined with bash sciprting or similar it can become useful, it is not a great program for performing real backups of data.

You should try searching the internet if you are looking for backup programs on GNU/Linux or try Sourceforge or Freshmeat for programs that you can use. You may also like to see rsync, Section 15.2.


15.1. tar (tape archiver)

Type tar then -option(s)

Options list:

  • -c --- create.

  • -v --- verbose, give more output, show what files are being worked with (extracted or added).

  • -f --- file (create or extract from file) - should always be the last option otherwise the command will not work.

  • -z --- put the file though gzip or use gunzip on the file first.

  • -x --- extract the files from the tarball.

  • -p --- preserves dates, permissions of the original files.

  • -j --- send archive through bzip2.

  • --exclude=pattern --- this will stop certain files from being archived (using a standard wild-card pattern) or a single file name.

tar�examples

tar -cvpf name_of_file.tar files_to_be_backed_up

This would create a tape archive (no compressing).

tar -zxvpf my_tar_file.tar.gz

This would extract files (verbosely) from a gzipped tape archive.


15.2. rsync

rsync

rsync is a replacement for the old rcp (remote-copy) command. It can use ssh for encryption and is a very flexible tool, it can copy from local machine to local machine, from local to remote (and vice-versa), and to and from rsync servers.

rsync uses an advanced differencing algorithm, so when to copies or syncs something it will (a) only copy new/changed files and (b) if the files have being changed it will copy the differences between the files (not the entire file). Using this method rsync saves time and bandwidth.

rsync also has advanced exclusion options similar to GNU tar. rsync has a well written manual page, for further information read the rsync documentation online or type:

man rsync

If you wish to visit the rsync site you will find it over here


15.3. Compression

There are two main compression utilities used in GNU/Linux. It's normal to first “tar” a bunch of files (using the tar program of course) and then compress them with either bzip2 or gzip. Of course either of these tools could be used without tar, although they are not designed to work on more than one file (they use the UNIX tools philosophy, let tar group the files, they will do the compression...this simplifies their program). It's normal to use tar and then use these tools on them, or use tar with the correct options to use these compression programs.

GNU�zip�(gzip)

gzip is the GNU zip compression program and probably the most common compression format on UNIX-like operating systems.

gzip your_tar_file.tar

This will compress a tar archive with GNU zip, usually with a .gz extension. Gzip can compress any type of file, it doesn't have to be a tar archive.

gunzip your_file.gz 

This will decompress a gzipped file, and leave the contents in the current directory.

bzip2

bzip2 is a newer compression program taht offers superior compression to gzip at the cost of more processor time.

bzip2 your_tar_file.tar 

This will compress a tar archive with the bzip2 compression program, usually with a .bz extension. bzip2 can compress any type of file, it doesn't have to be a tar archive.

bunzip2 your_file.tar.bz2 

This will decompress a file compressed by bzip2, and leave the contents in the current directory.

zipinfo

Use zipinfo to find detailed information about a zip archive (the ones usually generally used by ms-dos and windows, for example winzip).

Command syntax:

zipinfo zip_file.zip
zipgrep

Will run grep to look for files within a zip file (ms-dos style, for example winzip) without manually decompressing the file first.

Command syntax:

zipgrep pattern zip_file.zip
bzip2recover

Used to recover files from a damaged bzip2 archive. It simply extracts out all the working blocks as there own bzip2 archives, you can than use bzip2 -t on each file to test the integrity of them and extract the working files.

bzme

Will convert a file that is zipped or gzipped to a file compressed using bzip2.

Command syntax:

bzme filename

TipTip
 

Both gzip and bzip2 supply tools to work within compressed files for example listing the files within the archive, running less on them, using grep to find files within the archive et cetera.

For gzip the commands are prefixed with z, zcat, zless, zgrep.

For bzip2 the commands are prefixed with bz, bzcat, bzless, bzgrep.


Chapter 16. Graphics tools (command line based)

The graphics tools chapter explains some image programs that can be called from the command-line. While I have found image programs that can be used from the command-line, zgv is the only one I've ever heard of, I did not find them very useful. All the tools listed use the X windowing system to work and simply run from the command line (so they can be scripted/automated if necessary).

montage

Creates a 'montage', an image created of many other images, arranged in a random fashion.

Command syntax:

montage r34.jpg r32.jpg skylines* skyline_images.miff

The above would create a “montage” of images (it would tile a certain number of images) into a composite image called “skyline_images.miff”, you could always use display to view the image.

NoteNote
 

Note that the images are converted to the same size (scaled) so they can be tiled together.

convert

To convert the file format of an image to another image format. convert is used to change a files format, for example from a jpeg to a bitmap or one of many other formats. convert can also manipulate the images as well (see the man page or the ImageMagick site).

Example from Jpeg to PNG format:

convert JPEG: thisfile.jpg PNG: thisfile.png 
import

Captures screen-shots from the X server and saves them to a file. A screen-dump of what X is doing.

Command syntax:

import file_name
display

display is used to display (output) images on the screen. Once open you are can also perform editing functions and are able to read/write images. It has various interesting options such as the ability to display images as a slide show and the ability to capture screenshots of a single window on-screen.

Command syntax (for displaying an image):

display image_name

To display a slide show of images, open the images you want possibly using a wildcard, for example:

display *.jpg

And then click on the image to bring up the menu and then look under the miscellaneous menu for the slide show option.

CautionSpeed Warning
 

Be careful when opening multiple large sized images (especially on a slow machine) and putting the slide show on a small delay between image changes. Your processor will be overloaded and it will take a significant amount of time to be able to close ImageMagick.

identify

Will identify the type of image as well as it's size, colour depth and various other information. Use the -verbose option to show detailed information on the particular file(s).

Command syntax:

identify image_name
mogrify

mogrify is another ImageMagick command which is used to transform images in a number of different ways, including scaling, rotation and various other effects. This command can work on a single file or in batch.

For example, to convert a large number of tiff files to jpeg files you could type:

mogrify -format jpeg *.tiff

This command has the power to do a number of things in batch including making thumbnails of sets of images.

For this you could type:[8]

mogrify -geometry 120x120 *.jpg
showrgb

showrgb is used to uncompile an rgb colour-name database. The default is the one that X was built with. This database can be used to find the correct colour combination for a particular colour (well it can be used as a rough guide anyway).

To list the colours from the X database, simply type:

showrgb

NotePlease note:
 

All tools listed, excluding showrgb are part of the ImageMagick package. Type man ImageMagick for a full list of available commands. Or see the ImageMagick site ImageMagick for further information.


Chapter 17. Working with MS-DOS files

Use the mtools programs to work with ms-dos based files, execute mtools for a full listing of available m* tools. There are a lot of files within the mtools package for working with ms-dos disks, also try the info documentation of mtools for more details.

NoteThe use of slashes
 

Note that with mtools commands you can use the slashes on the a: part either way (ie. backslash (windows-style) or forward slash (UNIX system style)).

mformat

Formats an unmounted disk as an ms-dos floppy disk. Usage is similar to the ms-dos format utility, to format the first floppy disk you can type:

mformat a:
mcopy

Copies files from an ms-dos disk when it's not mounted. Similar to the ms-dos copy command except it's more advanced.

Command syntax:

mcopy a:/file_or_files /destination/directory
mmount

Mount an ms-dos disk, without using the normal UNIX system mount.

For example:

mmount a: /mnt/floppy

This will mount the floppy under /mnt/floppy (this option may or may not be necessary, it depends on your /etc/fstab setup).

mbadblocks

Scans an ms-dos (fat formatted disk) for bad blocks, it marks any unused bad blocks as “bad” so they won't be used.

Example:

mbadblocks a:
dosfsck

This program is used to check and repair ms-dos based filesystems. Use the -a option to automatically repair the filesystem (ie don't ask the user questions), the -t option to mark un-readable clusters as bad and the -v option to be more verbose (print more information).

Example:

dosfsck -at /dev/fd0

This would check your floppy disk for any errors (and bad sectors) and repair them automatically.


Chapter 18. Scheduling Commands to run in the background

There are two main tools used to perform scheduled tasks, at and cron. You may also like to try anacron if your computer does not run continuously, as cron will only work if your computer is left on (anacron can catch up with the scheduled tasks the next time the computer is on...).

at

'at' executes a command once on a particular day, at a particular time. at will add a particular command to be executed.

Examples:

at 21:30

You then type the commands you want executed then press the end-of-file key (normally CTRL-D ). Also try:

at now + time

This will run at the current time + the hours/mins/seconds you specify (use at now + 1 hour to have command(s) run in 1 hour from now...)

You can also use the -f option to have at execute a particular file (a shell script).

at -f shell_script now + 1 hour

This would run the shell script 1 hour from now.

atq

Will list jobs currently in queue for the user who executed it, if root executes at it will list all jobs in queue for the at daemon. Doesn't need or take any options.

atrm

Will remove a job from the 'at' queue.

Command syntax:

atrm job_no

Will delete the job “job_no” (use atq to find out the number of the job)

cron

cron can be used to schedule a particular function to occur every minute, hour, day, week, or month.

It's normal to use the crontab to perform the editing functions as this automates the process for the cron daemon and makes it easier for normal users to use cron.

TipAnacron
 

anacron is another tool designed for systems which are not always on, such as home computers

While cron will not run if the computer is off, anacron will simply run the command when the computer is next on (it catches up with things).

crontab

crontab is used to edit, read and remove the files which the cron daemon reads.

Options for crontab (use crontab -option(s)):

  • -e --- to edit the file.

  • -l --- to list the contents of the file.

  • -u username --- use the -u with a username argument to work with another users crontab file.

When using crontab -e you have a number of fields (6) what they mean is listed below:

Field

Allowed Values

minute

0-59

hour

0-23

day of month

1-31

month

1-12 (or names, see below)

day of week

0-7 (0 or 7 is Sun, or use three letter names)

There are also a number of shortcut methods for common tasks, including:[9]

  • @reboot --- run command at reboot

  • @yearly --- same as 0 0 1 1 *

  • @annually --- same as @yearly

  • @monthly --- same as 0 0 1 * *

  • @weekly --- same as 0 0 * * 0

  • @daily --- same as 0 0 * * *

  • @midnight --- same as @daily

  • @hourly --- same as 0 * * * *

[10]

Note that * (asterisk) is used to mean anything (similar to the wildcard). For example if you leave the day part (the 5th place) with an asterisk it would mean everyday.

Lists are allowed. A list is a set of numbers (or ranges) separated by commas. Examples: ``1,2,5,9'', ``0-4,8-12”.

Step values can be used in conjunction with ranges. Following a range with ``/<number>'' specifies skips of the number's value through the range. For example, ``0-23/2'' can be used in the hours field to specify command execution every other hour (the alternative in the V7 standard is ``0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22''). Steps are also permitted after an asterisk, so if you want to say ``every two hours'', just use ``*/2''.

When writing a crontab entry you simply type in six fields separated by spaces, the first five are those listed in the table (using numbers or letters and numbers as appropriate), the 6th field is the command to be executed and any options, cron will read everything up until the newline.

Example:

5 4 * * sun echo "run at 5 after 4 every sunday"

This would run the echo command with the string shown at 4:05 every Sunday.


Chapter 19. Miscellaneous

The miscellaneous chapter contains commands that don't really fit into the other sections of this guide.

renaming�extensions

To rename all of the files in the current directory with a '.htm' extension to '.html', type:

$ chcase -x 's/htm/html/' '*.htm'

You can get a copy of the chcase perl script here.

For more complex renaming you should read Section 7.3

rel[11]

Use rel to analyze text files for relevance to a given set of keywords. It outputs the names of those files that are relevant to the given keywords, ranked in order of relevance; if a file does not meet the criteria, it is not outputted in the relevance listing.

units�man�page

There is a man page, part of the Linux Programmers Manual called “units”. It displays various information on the various scientific measurements (such as mega, giga et cetera). This manual page also has a short discussion about the argument over which standard should be used to measure data (ie. the kibibyte vs kilobyte).

To access this man page type:

man 7 units
fortune

fortune is a tool which will print a random, hopefully interesting quote or entertaining short piece of writing. There are options to customise which area the epigrams should come from. Just type fortune to get a random epigram from any section.

Simply type:

fortune

Chapter 20. Mini-Guides

The mini-guides chapter is a section of the document that describes certain concepts in more depth than the usual command descriptions. The information listed is fairly specific as I have tried to avoid the duplication of too much information that is already online.


20.1. RPM: Redhat Package Management System

Checking

Installed RPM's

Use the rpm -V option to check whether or not a package has been modified.

For example:

rpm -V textutils

If none of the files from the textutils package have changed then rpm will exit without outputting any data. If, on the other hand, the program has changed, you may see something like this:

U.5....T /bin/cat

This isn't as cryptic as it appears. The line returned from rpm -V contains any number of eight characters plus the full path to the file. Here are the characters and their meaning:[12]

  • S --- File size differs

  • M --- Mode differs (includes permissions and file type)

  • 5 --- MD5 sum differs

  • D --- Device major/minor number mis-match

  • L --- ReadLink(2) path mis-match

  • U --- User ownership differs

  • G --- Group ownership differs

  • T --- mTime differs

TipMandriva Users Note
 

Mandriva Linux uses a customised version of RPM called urpmi (It consists of the urpm* commands, urpmi to install, urpme to remove and urpmf and urpmq to query).

This customised version has advantages over standard RPM, including automatic-dependency solving and Debian apt-get style functions (ability to download programs over the internet and have all dependencies resolved automatically).

The urpm* commands are all described in detail in Mandriva's documentation and various sources online.


20.2. Checking the Hard Disk for errors

Checking the hard disk for errors on your primary drive is very, very rarely required in GNU/Linux, most checking is automated on start-up if it is required. If you do need to check the hard disk for errors you will first need to unmount it. Then use the file system checker, fsck.

fsck.file_system_type

If you had an ext3 file-system then it would be:

fsck.ext3

TipAlso try
 

You can also try using:
fsck -t file_system_type


20.3. Duplicating disks

This simple technique shows you how you would duplicate floppy disks in a GNU/Linux system using dd. This technique is not as useful as it used to be but can still be used for creating an image of a cd (although that is best done through the cd burning program).

This information has been taken from the Linux Online Classroom, see [4] in the Bibliography for further details.

$ dd if=/dev/fd0 of=floppy-image
$ dd if=floppy-image of=/dev/fd0 

The first dd makes an exact image of the floppy to the file floppy-image, the second one writes the image to the floppy. (The user has presumably switched the floppy before the second command. Otherwise the command pair is of doubtful usefulness).

Similar techinques can be used when creating bootdisks, you simply use dd to transfer the image to the floppy disk.


20.4. Wildcards

Wildcards are useful in many ways for a GNU/Linux system and for various other uses. Commands can use wildcards to perform actions on more than one file at a time, or to find part of a phrase in a text file. There are many uses for wildcards, there are two different major ways that wildcards are used, they are globbing patterns/standard wildcards that are often used by the shell. The alternative is regular expressions, popular with many other commands and popular for use with text searching and manipulation.

TipTip
 

If you have a file with wildcard expressions in it then you can use single quotes to stop bash expanding them or use backslashes (escape characters), or both.

For example if you wanted to create a file called 'fo*' (fo and asterisk) you would have to do it like this (note that you shouldn't create files with names like this, this is just an example):
  touch 'fo*' 
  

Note that parts of both subsections on wildcards are based (at least in part) off the grep manual and info pages. Please see the Bibliography for further information.


20.4.1. Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)

Standard wildcards (also known as globbing patterns) are used by various command-line utilities to work with multiple files. For more information on standard wildcards (globbing patterns) refer to the manual page by typing:

man 7 glob

NoteCan be used by
 

Standard wildcards are used by nearly any command (including mv, cp, rm and many others).

?�(question�mark)

this can represent any single character. If you specified something at the command line like "hd?" GNU/Linux would look for hda, hdb, hdc and every other letter/number between a-z, 0-9.

*�(asterisk)

this can represent any number of characters (including zero, in other words, zero or more characters). If you specified a "cd*" it would use "cda", "cdrom", "cdrecord" and anything that starts with “cd” also including “cd” itself. "m*l" could by mill, mull, ml, and anything that starts with an m and ends with an l.

[�]�(square�brackets)

specifies a range. If you did m[a,o,u]m it can become: mam, mum, mom if you did: m[a-d]m it can become anything that starts and ends with m and has any character a to d inbetween. For example, these would work: mam, mbm, mcm, mdm. This kind of wildcard specifies an “or” relationship (you only need one to match).

{�}�(curly�brackets)

terms are separated by commas and each term must be the name of something or a wildcard. This wildcard will copy anything that matches either wildcard(s), or exact name(s) (an “or” relationship, one or the other).

For example, this would be valid:

cp {*.doc,*.pdf} ~

This will copy anything ending with .doc or .pdf to the users home directory. Note that spaces are not allowed after the commas (or anywhere else).

[!]

This construct is similar to the [�] construct, except rather than matching any characters inside the brackets, it'll match any character, as long as it is not listed between the [ and ]. This is a logical NOT. For example rm myfile[!9] will remove all myfiles* (ie. myfiles1, myfiles2 etc) but won't remove a file with the number 9 anywhere within it's name.

\�(backslash)

is used as an "escape" character, i.e. to protect a subsequent special character. Thus, "\\” searches for a backslash. Note you may need to use quotation marks and backslash(es).


20.4.2. Regular Expressions

Regular expressions are a type of globbing pattern used when working with text. They are used for any form of manipulation of multiple parts of text and by various programming languages that work with text. For more information on regular expressions refer to the manual page or try an online tutorial, for example IBM Developerworks using regular expressions. For the manual page type:

Type:

man 7 regex

NoteRegular expressions can be used by
 

Regular Expressions are used by grep (and can be used) by find and many other programs.

TipTip
 

If your regular expressions don't seem to be working then you probably need to use single quotation marks over the sentence and then use backslashes on every single special character.

.�(dot)

will match any single character, equivalent to ? (question mark) in standard wildcard expressions. Thus, "m.a" matches "mpa" and "mea" but not "ma" or "mppa".

\�(backslash)

is used as an "escape" character, i.e. to protect a subsequent special character. Thus, "\\" searches for a backslash. Note you may need to use quotation marks and backslash(es).

.*�(dot�and�asterisk)

is used to match any string, equivalent to * in standard wildcards.

*�(asterisk)

the proceeding item is to be matched zero or more times. ie. n* will match n, nn, nnnn, nnnnnnn but not na or any other character.

^�(caret)

means "the beginning of the line". So "^a" means find a line starting with an "a".

$�(dollar�sign)

means "the end of the line". So "a$" means find a line ending with an "a".

For example, this command searches the file myfile for lines starting with an "s" and ending with an "n", and prints them to the standard output (screen):

cat myfile | grep '^s.*n$'
[�]�(square�brackets)

specifies a range. If you did m[a,o,u]m it can become: mam, mum, mom if you did: m[a-d]m it can become anything that starts and ends with m and has any character a to d inbetween. For example, these would work: mam, mbm, mcm, mdm. This kind of wildcard specifies an “or” relationship (you only need one to match).

|

This wildcard makes a logical OR relationship between wildcards. This way you can search for something or something else (possibly using two different regular expressions). You may need to add a '\' (backslash) before this command to work, because the shell may attempt to interpret this as a pipe.

[^]

This is the equivalent of [!] in standard wildcards. This performs a logical “not”. This will match anything that is not listed within those square brackets. For example, rm myfile[^9] will remove all myfiles* (ie. myfiles1, myfiles2 etc) but won't remove a file with the number 9 anywhere within it's name.


20.4.3. Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)

This information has been taken from the grep info page with a tiny amount of editing, see [10] in the Bibliography for further information.

  • [:upper:] uppercase letters

  • [:lower:] lowercase letters

  • [:alpha:] alphabetic (letters) meaning upper+lower (both uppercase and lowercase letters)

  • [:digit:] numbers in decimal, 0 to 9

  • [:alnum:] alphanumeric meaning alpha+digits (any uppercase or lowercase letters or any decimal digits)

  • [:space:] whitespace meaning spaces, tabs, newlines and similar

  • [:graph:] graphically printable characters excluding space

  • [:print:] printable characters including space

  • [:punct:] punctuation characters meaning graphical characters minus alpha and digits

  • [:cntrl:] control characters meaning non-printable characters

  • [:xdigit:] characters that are hexadecimal digits.

NoteThese are used with
 

The above commands will work with most tools which work with text (for example: tr).

For example (advanced example), this command scans the output of the dir command, and prints lines containing a capital letter followed by a digit:

ls -l | grep '[[:upper:]][[:digit:]]'

The command greps for [upper_case_letter][any_digit], meaning any uppercase letter followed by any digit. If you remove the [�] (square brackets) in the middle it would look for an uppercase letter or a digit, because it would become [upper_case_letter�any_digit]


Appendix A. Appendix

A.1. Finding Packages/Tools

A.1.1. Finding more useful tools

If you are looking to find more tools, the GNU project (GNU's Not Unix) maintains a directory, a website listing categorized links to various free-software tools (which they consider useful) called the GNU Directory.

Also try sites such as Sweet Code which offer mailing lists of useful tools which they find.

You may also try looking at the most highly rated, most active or most downloaded programs at SourceForge and FreshMeat.


A.1.2. Finding a particular tool(s)

Many of the tools listed in this guide are part of a package of tools, such as diffutils which contains the various tools used to find differences between files, such as diff, sdiff, diff3, cmp. Most small tools are bundled together in this fashion. Most major distribution's will offer a search function to help you search the packages by file, you can of course do this via the command-line interface or a GUI.

If you need to search the distribution's available packages via the command-line, the method will vary depending on the distribution you are using, see the subsections below or consult your distribution's documentation (or of course the internet):


A.1.2.1. Mandriva (urpm* commands, rpm based)

To find where a particular file came from use urpmf.

Command syntax:

urpmf file_name

The results are often overwhelming as this particular command will take a string and list every file of every package in it's database that contains the particular keyword (ie. both uninstalled and installed packages). To refine the results you may want to add a pipe to it and send it through grep -w file_name (the -w option will only show you only exact (whole word) matches). How you would do this is shown below:

urpmf file_name | grep -w file_name

For more information on the urpm* commands, please refer to the tip towards the end of this section: Section 20.1.


A.1.2.2. Red Hat (rpm)

To find which package a particular file came from use rpm with the -qf option.

Command syntax:

rpm -qf /path/to/the/file

This will find which package the file came from. You need to use rpm -qf not with a keyword but with the location of the actual file. To find more information on the particular package listed use rpm with the -qi option.

Command syntax:

rpm -qi package_name

Note that the package name is the name of the package without the .arch.rpm (often .i386.rpm) extension on the end.

For more information on the usage of rpm, please refer to this section Section 20.1.


A.1.2.3. Debian (deb)

To find where a particular file came from use dpkg with the -S option.

There are two ways to do this:

dpkg -S file_name

or:

dpkg -S /path/to/file

You may also like to try (if it's installed, it's generally a lot faster than the dpkg search):

dlocate -S file_name

For more information on dpkg and dlocate please refer to the relevant manual pages and online sources of information.


A.1.3. Finding package(s)

Packages can be found via the internet utilizing sites such as:

  • RPMFind for RPM based packages.

  • Debian Package Listfor deb packages.

  • RPMSeek, this site intends to index Debian packages as well as RPM.

  • TuxFinder where you can search for deb, rpm, tgz, iso and even documentation.

Also try the author's homepage and large sites such as FreshMeat and SourceForge.


A.2. Further Reading

A.2.1. General Further Reading

This guide is simply a short summary of some of the available tools of a GNU/Linux based distribution. If you find a particular command interesting and useful, you can look up the on-line manual, or/and info page to learn more about how to use this command or check the HOWTO's online at Linux Documentation Project.

The manual/info pages will always be an up-to-date source of information on how to use the command. Also have a look at the documentation installed on your distribution, its normally located in /usr/share/doc.

Check the references section of this document, Bibliography, for some links to useful resources which were used in the creation of this document.

Of course if you are having trouble with a particular command try using a search engine such as Google or AllTheWeb, or search the usenet groups Google Groups. If you still can't find a solution, look for a mailing list which is related to the topic you are having trouble with, or try a forum which is related to the topic.

Readers who would like another reference to commands may want to have at:

If you wish to learn more about GNU/Linux on a variety of subjects also see the various online (free) tutorials published by IBM Developerworks.

If you are looking for a general reference to everything GNU/Linux try the Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition. Or take a look at your distributions documentation, Debian maintains comprehensive documentation, debian documentation site.


A.2.2. Specific Further reading

The most obvious place to look for documentation is to find the homepage of the program. Although sometimes there are other sources of information such as the Linux Documentation Project or various online HOWTO's or similar guides. They are usually easily found using search engines. Try large sites such as (ibiblio) the publics library and digital archive or TuxFinder which can search for documentation.

Below is a very short list of some further reading for a few of the more complex tools:


A.2.2.1. The UNIX tools philosophy further reading

  • An article within the coreutils documentation (installed on nearly every GNU/Linux distro) provides further explanation of the UNIX tools philosophy. To access the article simply type:

    info coreutils

    Then type / (slash; runs a search) then the string “toolbox” (toolbox is the string to be searched for) then hit enter (follow hyperlink) and then go down to the “Toolbox introduction” section and hit enter. This will give you access to the article.

  • Other articles online include an: Orielly article on the UNIX tools philosophy.

  • A listing of important qualities of the philosophy.

  • Linux Exposed The Unix Philosophy Explained

  • Or an entire book which is considered the authoritative guide toward understanding the philosophy behind how the UNIX system was built. The book is called “The Unix Philosophy” ISBN: 1555581234.


A.2.3. Online Manual And Info Pages

While manual pages and info pages are usually installed with the program itself they are also available online if you need them, the listed links are usually listed by category or by the man page sections.


A.2.3.2. Downloadable Manual Pages:


A.2.3.3. Online Info Page Website:


A.3. GNU Free Documentation License

GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.1, March 2000

Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.


A.3.1. PREAMBLE

The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other written document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.

This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.

We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.


A.3.2. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS

This License applies to any manual or other work that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. The "Document", below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you".

A "Modified Version" of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language.

A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly within that overall subject. (For example, if the Document is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them.

The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License.

The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License.

A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose specification is available to the general public, whose contents can be viewed and edited directly and straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose markup has been designed to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. A copy that is not "Transparent" is called "Opaque".

Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple HTML designed for human modification. Opaque formats include PostScript, PDF, proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML produced by some word processors for output purposes only.

The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.


A.3.3. VERBATIM COPYING

You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.

You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies.


A.3.4. COPYING IN QUANTITY

If you publish printed copies of the Document numbering more than 100, and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.

If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.

If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a publicly-accessible computer-network location containing a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material, which the general network-using public has access to download anonymously at no charge using public-standard network protocols. If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to the public.

It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.


A.3.5. MODIFICATIONS

You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:

A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.

B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has less than five).

C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.

D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.

E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.

F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.

G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice.

H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.

I. Preserve the section entitled "History", and its title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section entitled "History" in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.

J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the "History" section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.

K. In any section entitled "Acknowledgements" or "Dedications", preserve the section's title, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.

L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.

M. Delete any section entitled "Endorsements". Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.

N. Do not retitle any existing section as "Endorsements" or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.

If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.

You may add a section entitled "Endorsements", provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties--for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.

You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.

The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.


A.3.6. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice.

The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.

In the combination, you must combine any sections entitled "History" in the various original documents, forming one section entitled "History"; likewise combine any sections entitled "Acknowledgements", and any sections entitled "Dedications". You must delete all sections entitled "Endorsements."


A.3.7. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.

You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.


A.3.8. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, does not as a whole count as a Modified Version of the Document, provided no compilation copyright is claimed for the compilation. Such a compilation is called an "aggregate", and this License does not apply to the other self-contained works thus compiled with the Document, on account of their being thus compiled, if they are not themselves derivative works of the Document.

If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one quarter of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on covers that surround only the Document within the aggregate. Otherwise they must appear on covers around the whole aggregate.


A.3.9. TRANSLATION

Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License provided that you also include the original English version of this License. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original English version of this License, the original English version will prevail.


A.3.10. TERMINATION

You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.


A.3.11. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See Copyleft.

Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.


Bibliography

(1) Tony Steidler-Dennison, Lockergnome Penguin Shell Series, Lockergnome.

Responsible for many of the commands listed in this document. In particular Lockergnome inspired much of the wildcards section: Section 20.4

(2) Brandon Rhodes, Linux Network Commands Page.

Responsible for parts of the network commands section: Chapter 13

(3) Michael Stutz, Linux Cookbook Homepage, No Starch Press.

Many of these commands have come from the Linux Cookbook (version 1.2). I highly recommend this book to any novice or intermediate GNU/Linux user, have a look at it online, and then of course buy it :).

(4) Michael Jordan, Linux Online Classroom, Linux Online.

Some very small sections of this document were taken from the Beginner's course on the Linux Online Website.

(5) man and info pages.

The man and info pages of various tools listed in this document have been used as a resource to assist in the creation of this document. They are a useful resource of up-to-date information on a program and should be consulted when you require information about a particular tool.

(6) Focus On Unix -- Unix.about.com.

Some of the tutorials under the power commands section of the unix.about.com site were used in the construction of this guide. In particular parts of the xargs command: Chapter 8 and parts of the cut command: Section 11.4 were used from their tutorials.

(7) MandrakeSoft Command Line Manual, MandrakeSoft.

The Command Line Manual developed for Mandake Linux 9.0 was used in the creation of this document. A small section (in regard to command-line completion) was used from this document. If you are running mandrake you will most likely find this guide here.

(8) MandrakeSoft Starter Guide, MandrakeSoft.

The MandrakeSoft Starter Guide, a guide developed for Mandake Linux 9.0 was used in the creation of this document. A small section (in regard to how to recover from a system freeze) was used from this document. If you are running a mandrake system you will most likely find the document here.

(9) Hrvoje Niksic, Wget Manual page, Free Software Foundation.

A section of the wget manual page was used in this guide, from this page, Wget Manual page. In particular relating to downloading multiple files while using the http protocol.

(10) Grep, Free Software Foundation.

Both wildcards subsections are based off the grep manual and info pages. The Useful Categories of Characters (as defined from the POSIX standard) was taken from the grep info page.

(11) Marc Ewing, Jeff Johnson, and Erik Troan, RPM Manual Page, Red Hat.

A small section of the RPM manual page was used in the creation of the RPM verifying subsection, without any kind of editing.

(12) Markku Rossi, Enscript Manual Page, Free Software Foundation.

The examples for enscript are based off those shown in the enscript manual page.

(13) Paul Vixie, Cron Manual Page, 4th Berkeley Distribution.

The information from the crontab section (below and including the table) was taken (unedited, but with small additions) from the crontab manual pages. Type man 1 crontab and man 5 crontab to access the 2 different manual pages.

(14) IBM Developerworks.

Some parts of the IBM Developerworks tutorials have been used in the creation of this document. IBM Developerworks frequently publishes new tutorials on a variety of subjects, visit the IBM Developerworks Linux site (see link above) for more information on their GNU/Linux tutorials.

(15) Suso Banderas, Num-utils homepage.

The num-utils manual pages were used in the creation of the maths section. In particular all the description of the num-utils tools are based off the manual pages on the num-utils homepage.

(16) Carla Schroder, Archive of the LinuxChix posting.

This particular LinuxChix posting was made through a mailing list discussion about cron under the TechTalk mailing list. The posters homepage is http://www.tuxcomputing.com.

(17) Joe Barr, CLI for noobies: import, display, mogrify.

This particular article by Joe Barr was used in the description of the mogrify tool in particular the example on creating thumbnails.

(18) Kyle Rankin, Please, For the Love of All That's Recoverable, Shred Your Hard Drive!.

This particular article by Kyle Rankin was used (only a paragraph) for information on the shred command.


Index

Symbols

!, General Shell Tips
!!, The command-line history
!-n, The command-line history
!n, The command-line history
!string, The command-line history
$, General Shell Tips, Regular Expressions
%cpu, Controlling Processes
%mem, Controlling Processes
&&, Performing more than one command
&>, Usage
*, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
--color=auto, General Shell Tips
--date=, Working with files and folders, Date/Time/Calendars
--forest, Controlling Processes
--h, Help
--help, Help
--mirror, Internet Specific Commands
--verbose, Mathematical tools
-?, Help
-a, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Finding Text Within Files, Internet Specific Commands, Working with MS-DOS files
-b, Working with files and folders, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files
-c, Working with files and folders, Controlling Processes, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools, Internet Specific Commands, Some basic Security Tools, tar (tape archiver)
-CONT, Controlling Processes
-d, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Date/Time/Calendars, Text manipulation tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, File Permissions
-e, General Shell Tips, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
-exec, Finding files, Finding information about the system
-F, General Shell Tips, Help, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Controlling services, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools, tar (tape archiver), Scheduling Commands to run in the background
-format, Graphics tools (command line based)
-g, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools
-geometry, Graphics tools (command line based)
-h, Help, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
-HUP, Controlling Processes
-i, General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, File Permissions
-iregex, Finding files
-jj, tar (tape archiver)
-k, Working with files and folders, Text manipulation tools
-kill, Controlling Processes
-l, Moving around the filesystem, Finding information about partitions, Controlling Processes, Text Information Tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
-lx, Finding information about the system
-m, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Internet Specific Commands
-n, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files, Internet Specific Commands
-name, Finding files
-nx, Finding information about the system
-o, Finding files
-p, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, tar (tape archiver)
-path, Finding files
-print, Finding files
-prune, Finding files
-q, Finding Text Within Files
-R, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Controlling services, Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files, Remote Administration Related, File Permissions
-regex, Finding files
-S, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Date/Time/Calendars, Controlling services
-STOP, Controlling Processes
-t, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools, Internet Specific Commands, File Permissions, Compression, Working with MS-DOS files, Checking the Hard Disk for errors
-u, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools, Internet Specific Commands, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
-v, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Finding Text Within Files, tar (tape archiver), RPM: Redhat Package Management System
-verbose, Graphics tools (command line based)
-w, Text Information Tools, Finding Text Within Files
-x, General Shell Tips, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools, Internet Specific Commands, tar (tape archiver), Miscellaneous
-y, Date/Time/Calendars
-z, Working with files and folders, tar (tape archiver)
., Moving around the filesystem, Regular Expressions
.*, Regular Expressions
.bz, Compression
.doc, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
.gz, Compression
.h, Conversion tools
.pdf, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
/, Moving around the filesystem
/dev/null, Usage
/etc/groups, Users/Groups
/etc/hosts, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Network Commands
/etc/init.d, Controlling services
/etc/inittab, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
/etc/passwd, Users/Groups, Text manipulation tools
/etc/profile, Security
/etc/resolv.conf, Internet Specific Commands
/proc, Finding information about the system, Finding information about partitions
/proc/net, Network Commands
192.168.0.1, Network Configuration
192.168.0.2, Network Configuration
192.168.1.100, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Network Commands
1MB, Finding information about the system
2>, Usage
:n, Text Viewing Tools
:p, Text Viewing Tools
;, Performing more than one command, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
<, Usage
<<, Usage
>, Usage
>>, Usage
?, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
@, General Shell Tips
[ ], Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
[!], Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
[http://www.linuxexposed.com/Articles/General/Linux Exposed, The UNIX tools philosophy further reading
[http://www.tldp.org/dman pages, Online Manual Page Websites:
[^], Regular Expressions
\, General Shell Tips, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
\r, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
^, Regular Expressions
{ }, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
|, Usage, Regular Expressions
||, Performing more than one command
~, General Shell Tips

A

A, File Permissions
a-z, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
abilities, Virtual Terminals and screen
ability, Graphics tools (command line based)
able, Working with files and folders, Network Configuration , Remote Administration Related, Graphics tools (command line based)
absolute, Moving around the filesystem
Absolute path, Moving around the filesystem
access, The command-line history, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Internet Specific Commands, File Permissions, Miscellaneous
access keys, Conventions used in this guide
access time, File Permissions
accessed, File Permissions
add, General Shell Tips, Finding files, Text manipulation tools, Conversion tools, Mathematical tools, Network Configuration , Internet Specific Commands, Remote Administration Related, Security, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Regular Expressions
addition, Network Configuration
additional, Controlling Processes
address, Network Configuration , Internet Specific Commands
addressed, Contributors
adjust, Working with files and folders
administration, Managing users
administrative, Controlling Processes
administrator, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
administrators, Who would want to read this guide?
admonitions, Conventions used in this guide
advanced, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Text Editors, Text manipulation tools, Network Commands, Internet Specific Commands, rsync, Working with MS-DOS files
advanced bash scripting, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
advanced bash scripting guide, Text manipulation tools
advancement, Feedback
advantage, Working with files and folders
advice, Feedback, Contributors
affect, Finding Text Within Files
algorithm, rsync
alias, General Shell Tips
aliases, General Shell Tips
allow, General Shell Tips, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools
allowed, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
allows, Virtual Terminals and screen, Controlling services, Text manipulation tools
AllTheWeb, General Further Reading
alpha, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
alphabetic, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
alphabetical, Text manipulation tools
alphabetically, Text manipulation tools
alphanumeric, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
alternative, General Shell Tips, Usage, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Wildcards
alternatively, The command-line history
alternatives, Some basic Security Tools
American text encoding standard, The Unix Tools Philosophy
amount, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Text manipulation tools, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
anacron, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
analyze, Miscellaneous
AND, Performing more than one command
antiword, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
antiword homepage, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
append, Moving around the filesystem, Finding information about the system, File Permissions
appendix, Introduction, Who would want to read this guide?
application, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Working with files and folders
apply, Controlling Processes
apropos, Help
apt-get, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
archive, Internet Specific Commands, Archiving Files, Compression
archived, tar (tape archiver)
archives, Compression
archiving, Archiving Files
argument, Working with files and folders, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools, Internet Specific Commands, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Miscellaneous
arguments, The command-line history, Working with files and folders
arranged, Graphics tools (command line based)
arrow, The command-line history
arrow keys, The command-line history
art, Conversion tools
article, Contributors
ASCII, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Conversion tools
aspell, Text manipulation tools
assign, Controlling Processes
assist, Working with files and folders, Security
assistance, Resources used to create this document
associated, Help
asterisk, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
at, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
atq, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
atrm, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
Attach, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)
attempt, General Shell Tips, The command-line history, Regular Expressions
attempting, Controlling Processes
Attempts, Working with files and folders, Network Commands
attribute, File Permissions
attributes, File Permissions
audible, General Shell Tips
author, Feedback, Disclaimer
authored, Who would want to read this guide?, Security
authors, Who would want to read this guide?
authors opinion, Who would want to read this guide?
automated, Some basic Security Tools, Checking the Hard Disk for errors
automates, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
Automatic Command Completion, General Shell Tips
automatically, General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders, Working with MS-DOS files
available, Availability of sources, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Controlling services, Users/Groups, Network Commands, Working with MS-DOS files
avoid, Mini-Guides

B

back off, General Shell Tips
Back-Cover, License
background, Controlling Processes, Controlling services
Backgrounds, Controlling Processes
backslash, General Shell Tips, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
bandwidth, rsync
based off, Contributors
bash, Introduction, General Shell Tips, Finding files, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Internet Specific Commands, Specific Further reading
bash scripting, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Specific Further reading
Basic, Finding files, Network Commands, Security, Archiving Files
Bastille Linux, Security
batch, Graphics tools (command line based)
beep, General Shell Tips
beginners, Who would want to read this guide?
beginning, Regular Expressions
bell, General Shell Tips
bg, Controlling Processes
binary, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Text Information Tools
bit, Mathematical tools, File Permissions
bitmap, Graphics tools (command line based)
block, Working with files and folders
blocks, File Permissions, Compression, Working with MS-DOS files
bmp, Working with files and folders
book, Who would want to read this guide?, Availability of sources
bookmarks.html, Internet Specific Commands
boot, Security
bootdisks, Duplicating disks
boots, Security
bootup, Finding information about the system
Bourne-Again-SHell, Introduction
brackets, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
brands, Disclaimer
break key, Controlling Processes
broad-casted, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
broken, Working with files and folders
built, Graphics tools (command line based)
built-in, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
bunch, Compression
burning, Duplicating disks
bytes, Working with files and folders, Text Information Tools
bz* commands, Text Viewing Tools
bzgrep, Text Viewing Tools
bzip2, Text Viewing Tools , tar (tape archiver), Compression
bzip2recover, Compression
bzless, Text Viewing Tools
bzme, Compression

C

cached, Finding information about the system
cal, Date/Time/Calendars
calculator, Mathematical tools
calendar, Date/Time/Calendars
calls, Finding Text Within Files
capital, Text manipulation tools, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
capture, Graphics tools (command line based)
captures, Network Commands
careful, Working with files and folders, File Permissions
carriage, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
carriage returns, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
cat, Usage, Text manipulation tools
catch, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
cause, General Shell Tips, Moving around the filesystem, Controlling Processes, Internet Specific Commands
causes, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
caution, Disclaimer
cd, General Shell Tips, Moving around the filesystem, Duplicating disks
cdrecord, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
cdrom, Finding information about partitions, Controlling the system, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
cdrom-drive, Controlling the system
centimeters, Mathematical tools
change, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Date/Time/Calendars, Controlling Processes, Managing users, Users/Groups, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Network Configuration , Internet Specific Commands, File Permissions, Graphics tools (command line based)
change owner, File Permissions
character, General Shell Tips, Text manipulation tools, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
character sequences, General Shell Tips
characters, Finding files, Text manipulation tools, Some basic Security Tools, RPM: Redhat Package Management System, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
chat, Text Editors
chattr, Working with files and folders, File Permissions
chcase, Text manipulation tools, Miscellaneous
chcase homepage, Text manipulation tools
check, Text manipulation tools, Internet Specific Commands, Security, Some basic Security Tools, Working with MS-DOS files, RPM: Redhat Package Management System, Checking the Hard Disk for errors
checker, The Unix Tools Philosophy
checking, Some basic Security Tools, RPM: Redhat Package Management System, Checking the Hard Disk for errors
chfn, Users/Groups
chmod, Security, File Permissions
chown, File Permissions
Chris Karakas, Availability of sources, Resources used to create this document
chronological, Contributors
chsh, Users/Groups
clarity, Conventions used in this guide
CLI, Who would want to read this guide?
click, Graphics tools (command line based)
closed, Network Commands
clusters, Working with MS-DOS files
cmp, Text Information Tools, Finding a particular tool(s)
Code, Conventions used in this guide, The Unix Tools Philosophy
colon, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools
colour, Conversion tools, Graphics tools (command line based)
colours, Graphics tools (command line based)
column, Text manipulation tools
columns, Contributors , Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools
combination, Conventions used in this guide
combinations, Conventions used in this guide
combine, Text Viewing Tools
Combines, Text Viewing Tools
comm, Text Information Tools
command history, Shell Tips, The command-line history
command line-interface, Who would want to read this guide?
command list, Who would want to read this guide?
command name, General Shell Tips
command number, The command-line history
command substitution, Command Substitution
command syntax, Conventions used in this guide
command-line, Who would want to read this guide?, Who would not want to read this guide?, Resources used to create this document , The Unix Tools Philosophy, Shell Tips, General Shell Tips, The command-line history, Virtual Terminals and screen, Graphics tools (command line based), Finding a particular tool(s)
command-line interface, Who would not want to read this guide?, Finding a particular tool(s)
command-line-based, Introduction
command-lists, General Further Reading
command1, Performing more than one command, Finding information about the system
command2, Performing more than one command, Finding information about the system
commandName, The command-line history
commas, Text manipulation tools, Mathematical tools, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
Commmand, Finding files
common, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools, Compression, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
commonly, General Shell Tips
compares, Text Information Tools
complete, Who would not want to read this guide?, General Shell Tips
completions, General Shell Tips
complex, Introduction, The Unix Tools Philosophy, General Shell Tips, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools, Miscellaneous
complicated, Network Commands
composite, Graphics tools (command line based)
comprehensive, Who would want to read this guide?, Security
compress, Compression
compressed, Text Viewing Tools , Compression
compression, Compression
Comptechdoc's Linux Command Quickreference, General Further Reading
computer, Finding information about the system, Remote Administration Related, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
computers, Network Commands
concatenate, Usage
Concatenates, Usage, Text manipulation tools
concepts, Disclaimer, Mini-Guides
configuration, Network Configuration , Security
configure, Network Configuration
confirm, General Shell Tips
confusing, Finding information about the system
conjunction, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
connect, Remote Administration Related
connected, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Finding information about partitions
consistency, Contributors
console, The command-line history, Security
contact, Internet Specific Commands
content, Disclaimer
contents, Disclaimer, Usage, Moving around the filesystem, Finding information about the system, Conversion tools, Network Commands, File Permissions, Compression, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
continuous, Text Viewing Tools
contribution, Contributors
contributions, Contributors
contributors, Resources used to create this document
control, Controlling the system, Controlling services, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
Control key, Conventions used in this guide
controlling, Controlling the system, Controlling Processes
controls, Security
conventions, Conventions used in this guide
conversion, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Mathematical tools
convert, Resources used to create this document , Finding information about the system, Text manipulation tools, Mathematical tools, Compression
converts, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
copies, Working with files and folders, Remote Administration Related, rsync
copy, License, General Shell Tips, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Remote Administration Related, Miscellaneous
copying, General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders
Copyright, License
copyrights, Disclaimer
core, The Unix Tools Philosophy
coreutils, The UNIX tools philosophy further reading
correct, Contributors , Controlling Processes, Mathematical tools, Some basic Security Tools, Compression, Graphics tools (command line based)
correctly, Internet Specific Commands
cost, Compression
count, Working with files and folders, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools
cp, Working with files and folders
CPU, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes
crackers, Internet Specific Commands
criteria, Miscellaneous
critical, Controlling services
criticism, Feedback, Contributors
criticisms, Contributors
cron, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
crontab, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
cryptic, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
CSS, Contributors
CTRL-A, Other Key combinations, Virtual Terminals and screen
CTRL-ALT-DEL, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
CTRL-ALT-F*, Virtual Terminals and screen
CTRL-C, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Controlling Processes, Text Viewing Tools , Network Commands
CTRL-D, General Shell Tips, Other Key combinations, Usage, Managing users, Mathematical tools, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
CTRL-E, Other Key combinations
CTRL-K, Other Key combinations
CTRL-N, Virtual Terminals and screen
CTRL-P, Virtual Terminals and screen
CTRL-R, The command-line history, Other Key combinations
CTRL-W, Other Key combinations
CTRL-X-$, General Shell Tips
CTRL-X-Y, General Shell Tips
CTRL-Y, Other Key combinations
CTRL-Z, Conventions used in this guide, Other Key combinations, Controlling Processes
curl, Internet Specific Commands
current, Conventions used in this guide, Moving around the filesystem, Finding information about the system, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Text manipulation tools, Internet Specific Commands, File Permissions, Compression, Miscellaneous
current directory, Moving around the filesystem
customisable, Controlling Processes
customisation, Text manipulation tools
customisations, Contributors
customise, Finding files, Date/Time/Calendars, Conversion tools, Miscellaneous
cut, Text manipulation tools

D

daemon, Controlling services, Remote Administration Related, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
Daemons, Controlling services
damage, Disclaimer, Internet Specific Commands
damaged, Compression
dash sign, Conventions used in this guide
data, Working with files and folders, Controlling Processes, File Permissions, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
database, Graphics tools (command line based)
databases, Internet Specific Commands
date, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Date/Time/Calendars
dates, tar (tape archiver)
Dave Wreski, Security
David Lawyer, Contributors
day, Date/Time/Calendars, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
days, Date/Time/Calendars
db2lyx, Resources used to create this document
dd, Working with files and folders, Date/Time/Calendars, Duplicating disks
deactivating, Network Configuration
deb, Debian (deb), Finding package(s)
Debian documentation, General Further Reading
Debian Package List, Finding package(s)
debugging, Finding information about the system
decending, Moving around the filesystem
decimal, Mathematical tools, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
decompress, Compression
default, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Controlling Processes, Controlling services, Text manipulation tools, Network Configuration , Security, Graphics tools (command line based)
definitions, Concept Definitions
delete, General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
deleted, Working with files and folders, File Permissions
delimiter, Text manipulation tools
dependent, Moving around the filesystem
Depending, Moving around the filesystem
depth, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Text Related Tools, Internet Specific Commands, Mini-Guides
describe, Security
described, Text Viewing Tools
describes, Mini-Guides
description, Introduction, Help
descriptions, Mini-Guides
designed, Who would want to read this guide?, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Usage, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Mathematical tools, Internet Specific Commands, Security, Some basic Security Tools, Compression
destination, Working with files and folders, Network Commands
destroy, Working with files and folders, Managing users
detail, Controlling Processes
detailed, Introduction, Who would not want to read this guide?, Contributors , Help, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Compression, Graphics tools (command line based)
details, Help, Moving around the filesystem, Controlling the system, Internet Specific Commands, Working with MS-DOS files, Duplicating disks
develop, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
device, Controlling the system, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Network Configuration , RPM: Redhat Package Management System
devices, Working with files and folders, Controlling the system
df, Finding information about the system, Finding information about partitions
dictionary, Internet Specific Commands
diff, Text Information Tools, Finding a particular tool(s)
diff3, Text Information Tools, Finding a particular tool(s)
difference, Concept Definitions, Text Information Tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Network Commands
differences, rsync
different, Finding files, Managing users, Text Information Tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Finding Text Within Files, Remote Administration Related, File Permissions, Wildcards
diffutils, Finding a particular tool(s)
dig, Internet Specific Commands
digit, Text manipulation tools, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
digits, Working with files and folders, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
dir, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
dir1, Finding information about the system
dir2, Finding information about the system
directories, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Remote Administration Related, File Permissions
directory, General Shell Tips, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Finding information about partitions, Controlling services, Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files, Internet Specific Commands, Compression, Miscellaneous, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
disable, General Shell Tips
disabled, Security
disclaimer, Legal
discuss list, Contributors
disk, Finding files, Finding information about partitions, File Permissions, Working with MS-DOS files, Checking the Hard Disk for errors
disks, Working with files and folders, Finding information about partitions, Working with MS-DOS files, Duplicating disks
display, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Date/Time/Calendars, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files, Network Configuration , Graphics tools (command line based)
distinct, Command Substitution
distribute, License
distributions, Finding information about partitions, Security
divide, Working with files and folders
dlocate, Debian (deb)
dmesg, Finding information about the system
DNS, Internet Specific Commands
DocBook, Resources used to create this document
document, Introduction, Contributors , Help, Text Viewing Tools , Mini-Guides
document processor, Availability of sources, Resources used to create this document
documentation, Virtual Terminals and screen, Help, Finding information about partitions, Network Commands, Remote Administration Related, File Permissions, rsync, Working with MS-DOS files
documents, Contributors , Disclaimer, Text Viewing Tools , Text Conversion/Filter Tools
domain information groper, Internet Specific Commands
Dos-style, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
dos2unix, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
dosfsck, Working with MS-DOS files
dot, Moving around the filesystem
dots, Moving around the filesystem
double, Help
download, Internet Specific Commands
downloadable, Availability of sources
downloaded, Internet Specific Commands
downloader, Internet Specific Commands
downloading, Internet Specific Commands, Some basic Security Tools
downloads, Internet Specific Commands
downwards, Moving around the filesystem
dpkg, Debian (deb)
dpkg -S, Debian (deb)
Dr. B. Guillion, Resources used to create this document
drive, Working with files and folders, Finding information about partitions, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)
drives, Finding information about partitions, Controlling the system
du, Working with files and folders
duplicate, Text manipulation tools, Duplicating disks
duplication, Mini-Guides

E

echo, General Shell Tips, Finding information about the system, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
edit, The command-line history, Users/Groups, Internet Specific Commands, Security, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
editing, Users/Groups, Graphics tools (command line based), Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
editor, Text Editors
editors, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Text Related Tools, Text Editors, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
effects, Graphics tools (command line based)
efficient, Who would want to read this guide?
eject, Controlling the system
emacs, The command-line history, Text Editors, Specific Further reading
email, Feedback
emerged, The Unix Tools Philosophy
emphasize, Conventions used in this guide
emphasized, Conventions used in this guide
empty, Working with files and folders
enable, Introduction, Conventions used in this guide
encodings, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
encouraged, Feedback
encrypted, Remote Administration Related
encryption, rsync
end, Usage, Finding files, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Text manipulation tools, Security, Regular Expressions
end-of-file, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
end-of-line, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
ending, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
endorsements, Disclaimer
ends, Internet Specific Commands, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
english, Conventions used in this guide
enhancements, Availability of sources
enscript, Conversion tools
enter, Mathematical tools
entered, The command-line history
entries, Text Viewing Tools
entry, Text manipulation tools, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
environment, Managing users
environment variable, General Shell Tips
epigram, Miscellaneous
epigrams, Miscellaneous
equals, File Permissions
equivalent, The command-line history, Moving around the filesystem, Date/Time/Calendars, Security, Regular Expressions
error, Concept Definitions, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system
Error output, Concept Definitions, Usage
errors, Contributors , Disclaimer, Working with MS-DOS files, Checking the Hard Disk for errors
ESC-$, General Shell Tips
ESC-Y, General Shell Tips
escape, General Shell Tips, Security
escape character, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
eth0, Network Configuration
evaluates, Mathematical tools
events, Controlling services
everyday, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
everyone, File Permissions
everything, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Finding information about the system, Managing users, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
exact, Help, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Controlling Processes, Duplicating disks, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
exactly, General Shell Tips, Command Substitution, Working with files and folders, Controlling Processes, Mathematical tools
examples, Introduction, Conventions used in this guide, Disclaimer, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Text Viewing Tools , Scheduling Commands to run in the background
exclude, Finding files
exclude=pattern, tar (tape archiver)
Excluding, Finding files, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
executable, Conventions used in this guide, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files
execute, The command-line history, Command Substitution, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Mathematical tools, Remote Administration Related, File Permissions, Working with MS-DOS files
execution, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
exist, Usage, Working with files and folders, Internet Specific Commands
existing, Usage, Controlling Processes, File Permissions
exit, General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders, Text Viewing Tools , Mathematical tools, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
expand, General Shell Tips, Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files
expanding, General Shell Tips, Internet Specific Commands
expands, General Shell Tips
expert, Who would not want to read this guide?
explaining, Conventions used in this guide
explains, Directing Input/Output, Network Commands, Graphics tools (command line based)
explanation, Finding information about the system, Security
explanations, Who would want to read this guide?
explicitly, Conventions used in this guide
expression, Mathematical tools
expressions, Mathematical tools, Regular Expressions
ext2, Working with files and folders, File Permissions
ext3, Working with files and folders, File Permissions, Checking the Hard Disk for errors
extended, Controlling Processes
extension, Finding files, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Miscellaneous
extentions, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
extract, tar (tape archiver), Compression

F

factors, Mathematical tools
fail, The command-line history
fails, Performing more than one command
familiar, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
fdisk, Finding information about partitions
Feedback, Feedback
fg, Other Key combinations, Controlling Processes
fgrep, Finding Text Within Files
field, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
fields, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
figlet, Conversion tools
file access, File Permissions
file name, General Shell Tips
file permissions, Security
File Streams, Concept Definitions
file system, Working with the file-system
file-system, General Shell Tips, Working with the file-system, Working with files and folders, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)
file-systems, Finding information about the system
file1, Working with files and folders, Text Information Tools
file2, Working with files and folders, Text Information Tools
filename1, Working with files and folders
filename2, Working with files and folders
filepart1, Text Viewing Tools
filepart2, Text Viewing Tools
filepart3, Text Viewing Tools
filespec, Text manipulation tools
filesystem, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Finding information about partitions, Remote Administration Related, File Permissions, Working with MS-DOS files
filesystems, Working with MS-DOS files
filter, Text manipulation tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
filters, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
find, General Shell Tips, The command-line history, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools, Mathematical tools, rsync, Graphics tools (command line based), Wildcards
finding, Working with the file-system, Controlling Processes, Text Information Tools
finding tools, Finding a particular tool(s)
finds, Help, Finding files, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Finding Text Within Files
findsmb, Network Commands
finger, Users/Groups
finish, Working with files and folders
finished, Usage, Working with files and folders, Mathematical tools
five, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
fix, General Shell Tips, Managing users
fixing, Contributors
flag, File Permissions
flags, File Permissions
flash, General Shell Tips
flexible, rsync
floppy, Working with files and folders, Working with MS-DOS files, Duplicating disks
floppy-image, Duplicating disks
fmt, Text manipulation tools
folders, Finding files
followed, Controlling Processes, Controlling services, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
following, General Shell Tips, Concept Definitions, Text manipulation tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
Follows, Finding Text Within Files, Mathematical tools
force, Working with files and folders, Controlling Processes
foreground, Controlling Processes
forgotten, Security
form, Controlling Processes, Regular Expressions
format, Availability of sources, General Shell Tips, Finding information about the system, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Compression, Graphics tools (command line based), Working with MS-DOS files
formats, Text Related Tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Graphics tools (command line based), Working with MS-DOS files
formatted, Working with MS-DOS files
forms, Text manipulation tools
fortune, Miscellaneous
forwards, Text Viewing Tools
found, Contributors , The command-line history, Finding information about partitions, Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files, Security, Graphics tools (command line based)
fractions, Mathematical tools
frame, Conventions used in this guide
frameset, Conventions used in this guide
free, Finding information about the system
Free Software Foundation, License
FreeBSD, The Unix Tools Philosophy
freeze, Controlling Processes
Freshmeat, Text Editors, Archiving Files, Finding more useful tools, Finding package(s)
Freshmeat., Remote Administration Related
from/to dos website, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
fromdos, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
Front-Cover, License
FSF, License
ftp, Internet Specific Commands
full, Text manipulation tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Internet Specific Commands, Working with MS-DOS files, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
function, Introduction, General Shell Tips, Controlling Processes, Network Commands, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
functions, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Managing users
further reading, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Specific Further reading

G

gallons, Mathematical tools
garbled, General Shell Tips
Gareth Anderson, Feedback, License
gateway, Network Configuration
general, Contributors , Mathematical tools, Internet Specific Commands
generator, Some basic Security Tools
George Harmon, Contributors
GFDL, License, GNU Free Documentation License
giga, Miscellaneous
global aliases, General Shell Tips
globbing, Wildcards
globbing pattern, Regular Expressions
globbing patterns, Conventions used in this guide, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
GNU, License, Compression, Finding more useful tools
GNU Directory, Finding more useful tools
GNU Documentation License Site, License
GNU Free Documentation License, License, GNU Free Documentation License
GNU Manual's, Online Info Page Website:
GNU/Linux Tools Summary Homepage, Availability of sources
Google, General Further Reading
Google Groups, General Further Reading
gopher, Internet Specific Commands
grammar, Contributors
grand, Working with files and folders
granted, License
graph, Moving around the filesystem
graphical, Network Commands, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
graphically printable, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
Graphics, Introduction, Graphics tools (command line based)
great, Mathematical tools
greater, Usage
greatly, Text manipulation tools
grep, Finding information about the system, Finding Text Within Files, Mathematical tools, Wildcards, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard), Mandriva (urpm* commands, rpm based)
group, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Users/Groups, Security, File Permissions, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
groups, Users/Groups
grub, Security
GUI, Introduction, Who would want to read this guide?, Finding a particular tool(s)
guide, Introduction, Contributors , Text Related Tools, Graphics tools (command line based)
gunzip, tar (tape archiver)
gzip, Text Viewing Tools , tar (tape archiver), Compression
gzipped, tar (tape archiver), Compression

H

halt, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
hand, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
handles, Controlling services
handy, Shell Tips, Some basic Security Tools
hard links, Working with files and folders
hard-link, Working with files and folders
hard-links, Working with files and folders
harmless, General Shell Tips
hda, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
hdb, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
hdc, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
head, Text Viewing Tools
header, Working with files and folders, Conversion tools
help, Help, Network Configuration , Remote Administration Related
hexadecimal, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
hidden, Moving around the filesystem, Internet Specific Commands
hierarchy, Working with the file-system, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)
higher, Controlling Processes
highlight, Conversion tools
highlighting, Conversion tools
highly, Disclaimer
history, The command-line history, Other Key combinations
hit, Mathematical tools, Security
hitting, Usage
Home, Conventions used in this guide, General Shell Tips, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Users/Groups, Remote Administration Related, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
host, Network Commands, Internet Specific Commands
hosted, Availability of sources
hostname, Network Commands, Internet Specific Commands, Remote Administration Related
hosts, Network Commands
hour, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
hours, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
HOWTO's, Specific Further reading
hp166, Remote Administration Related
HTML, Contributors , Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Conversion tools
http, Internet Specific Commands
http://slashdot.org, Internet Specific Commands
httrack, Internet Specific Commands
huge, Internet Specific Commands
human readable, Working with files and folders
human-readable, Working with files and folders

I

ibiblio, Specific Further reading
IBM Developerworks, Regular Expressions, General Further Reading
id, Controlling Processes
id's, Controlling Processes
idea, Who would want to read this guide?
ideas, Feedback
identify, Graphics tools (command line based)
ifcfg, Network Configuration
ifconfig, Network Configuration
ifdown, Network Configuration
ifup, Network Configuration
image, Working with files and folders, Graphics tools (command line based), Duplicating disks
ImageMagick, Graphics tools (command line based), Specific Further reading
images, Graphics tools (command line based)
immutable, File Permissions
import, Graphics tools (command line based)
importance, Conventions used in this guide
improve, Contributors
improved, Contributors
improvements, Contributors
inaccuracies, Disclaimer
inbuilt, General Shell Tips
inches, Mathematical tools
include, Contributors , File Permissions
includes, Finding information about the system, Network Commands
including, General Shell Tips, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Text manipulation tools, Internet Specific Commands, Remote Administration Related, File Permissions, Graphics tools (command line based), Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
increase, Controlling Processes
indented, Text manipulation tools
index, Who would want to read this guide?, Contributors
indication, Controlling Processes
individual, Help, Text Viewing Tools
info, Help, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools, Network Commands, Working with MS-DOS files, Wildcards, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard), General Further Reading
Info Pages, Online Info Page Website:
information, Who would not want to read this guide?, Legal, General Shell Tips, Help, Working with files and folders, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Finding information about the system, Finding information about partitions, Controlling Processes, Users/Groups, Finding Text Within Files, Network Commands, Network Configuration , Internet Specific Commands, Security, Archiving Files, rsync, Miscellaneous, Mini-Guides, Duplicating disks, Regular Expressions
inode, File Permissions
input, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Concept Definitions, Usage, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Text manipulation tools, Mathematical tools
insensitive, Finding files
insert, Usage
inside, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
inspection, Network Commands
install, Archiving Files
installed, Help, Finding Text Within Files, Mathematical tools, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
instances, Text manipulation tools
instructions, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
integer, Mathematical tools
integrated, Contributors
integrity, Some basic Security Tools, Compression
interact, Controlling the system, Controlling Processes
interactive, Controlling Processes, Mathematical tools
interchangeably, Introduction, Command Substitution
interface, Network Commands, Network Configuration
interfaces, Network Configuration
intermediate, Who would want to read this guide?
internal, Remote Administration Related
internet, Virtual Terminals and screen, Text Editors, Network Commands, Internet Specific Commands, Some basic Security Tools
interpret, Finding files, Regular Expressions
interpreted, Mathematical tools
interprets, Network Commands
interrelate, Controlling Processes
Introduction to Linux guide, Who would want to read this guide?
Invariant, License
invention, The Unix Tools Philosophy
IP address, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Network Configuration
ispell, Text manipulation tools
issues, Contributors
italic, Conventions used in this guide
italics, Conventions used in this guide

L

lang, Conversion tools
language, Contributors
language review, Contributors
last, The command-line history, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Text Viewing Tools , File Permissions
lastlog, Finding information about the system
LaTeX, Availability of sources, The Unix Tools Philosophy
ldap, Internet Specific Commands
leading, Moving around the filesystem
learn, Who would want to read this guide?, Contributors , Moving around the filesystem, Text manipulation tools, Mathematical tools, Network Configuration
learning, Who would want to read this guide?, Text Editors
least, Text manipulation tools, Wildcards
legal, Legal
length, Some basic Security Tools
less, Usage, Text Viewing Tools
lesser, General Shell Tips, Text manipulation tools
let, Compression
letter, Finding information about partitions, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
letters, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
level, Conventions used in this guide, Security
levels, Moving around the filesystem
liability, Disclaimer
license, License, GNU Free Documentation License
licensing, Legal
lilo, Security
limited, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
line, General Shell Tips, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Finding information about the system, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files, RPM: Redhat Package Management System, Regular Expressions
line-by-line, Text Information Tools
lines, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files, Regular Expressions, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
link, Working with files and folders
linked, Controlling the system
links, Working with files and folders, Internet Specific Commands
link_name, Working with files and folders
linux, Security
Linux Cookbook, Who would want to read this guide?
Linux Documentation Project, Contributors , Security, General Further Reading, Specific Further reading
Linux in a Nutshell, General Further Reading
Linux in a Nutshell 3rd Edition, Who would want to read this guide?
Linux Newbie Admin guide, General Further Reading
Linux Online Classroom, Duplicating disks
Linux Security, Security
Linux Security howto, Security
list, Who would want to read this guide?, Contributors , General Shell Tips, The command-line history, Help, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Users/Groups, Text manipulation tools, Network Commands, File Permissions, tar (tape archiver), Graphics tools (command line based), Scheduling Commands to run in the background
listed, Introduction, General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Text Information Tools, Network Commands, Graphics tools (command line based), Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
listen, Controlling services
listens, Controlling services
listing, Who would not want to read this guide?, Contributors , Text Conversion/Filter Tools, File Permissions, Working with MS-DOS files
lists, Who would not want to read this guide?, Usage, Moving around the filesystem, Finding Text Within Files, Network Commands, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
literal, Finding Text Within Files
litres, Mathematical tools
ln, Working with files and folders
loaded, Finding information about the system
local, Remote Administration Related, rsync
locates, Finding files
location, Usage
locking, Users/Groups, Security
log, The command-line history, Virtual Terminals and screen
logged, Finding information about the system, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Network Commands, Remote Administration Related
logging, Remote Administration Related
logical, Performing more than one command, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
login, Users/Groups, Internet Specific Commands, Remote Administration Related
logout, General Shell Tips
logs-out, General Shell Tips
long, Moving around the filesystem, Finding information about the system, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
look, Usage, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Finding information about partitions, Text Information Tools, Finding Text Within Files, Mathematical tools, Compression, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
looking, Introduction, Finding information about the system, Date/Time/Calendars, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Internet Specific Commands, Security
looks, Finding files, Text manipulation tools
lookup, Internet Specific Commands
lost, Controlling Processes
low, Working with files and folders
low-level, Working with files and folders
lowercase, Text manipulation tools, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
ls, General Shell Tips, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, File Permissions
lsattr, File Permissions
lsd, Moving around the filesystem
LyX, Availability of sources, Contributors
lyxtox, Resources used to create this document , Contributors

M

machine, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling services, Text Related Tools, Network Commands, Internet Specific Commands, rsync
machine name, General Shell Tips
Machine-translated, Availability of sources
machines, Network Commands, Security
Machtelt Garrels, Who would want to read this guide?, Contributors
magic character, General Shell Tips
maintainers, Availability of sources
maintenance, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
major, Internet Specific Commands, Wildcards
majority, Introduction
makewhatis, Help
man, Help, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Graphics tools (command line based)
man -f, Help
man -K, Help
man page, General Shell Tips
man pages, Who would not want to read this guide?
management, Controlling services
Mandrake, Controlling services
Mandriva, Controlling services, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
manipulate, Working with the file-system, Text Related Tools, Graphics tools (command line based)
manipulation, Wildcards, Regular Expressions
manual, Virtual Terminals and screen, Help, Moving around the filesystem, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Finding information about partitions, Text Viewing Tools , Network Commands, Internet Specific Commands, File Permissions, Miscellaneous, Wildcards, Regular Expressions, General Further Reading
manually, Compression
map, Working with files and folders
mark, Working with MS-DOS files
marks, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Working with MS-DOS files
markup language, Availability of sources
masquerade, Network Commands
mass, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
mass rename, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
mass renaming, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
mass-rename, Working with the file-system
match, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
matched, Regular Expressions
matching, Help, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Finding Text Within Files, File Permissions, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
material, Contributors
maximum, Controlling Processes
mbadblocks, Working with MS-DOS files
mbm, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
mcm, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
mcopy, Working with MS-DOS files
md5, Some basic Security Tools, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
md5sum, Some basic Security Tools
mdm, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
measure, Finding information about the system, Miscellaneous
measurement, Mathematical tools
measurements, Miscellaneous
measures, Finding information about the system
mega, Miscellaneous
Megabyte, Working with files and folders
megabytes, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system
memory, Finding information about the system, Controlling services
Mendel Cooper, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Text manipulation tools
Menu, Conventions used in this guide, Graphics tools (command line based)
message, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
meters, Mathematical tools
method, rsync
methods, File Permissions
mformat, Working with MS-DOS files
Michael Kerrisk, Contributors
Microsoft, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
middle, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
mind, Working with files and folders
mini-guide, Introduction
mini-guides, Introduction, Mini-Guides
mini-tutorials, Introduction
minimal, Users/Groups, Text Editors
minimum, Controlling Processes
minor, Contributors , Managing users
minus, Security, File Permissions, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
minute, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
minutes, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
mis-match, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
miscellaneous, Graphics tools (command line based), Miscellaneous
mixed, Concept Definitions
mkdir, Working with files and folders
mmount, Working with MS-DOS files
mmv, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
mode, Working with files and folders, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Controlling Processes
modifiable, Availability of sources
modification, Moving around the filesystem
modified, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
modify, License, Network Configuration , File Permissions
mogrify, Graphics tools (command line based)
mom, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
montage, Graphics tools (command line based)
month, Date/Time/Calendars, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
months, Date/Time/Calendars
more, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Text Related Tools, Text manipulation tools, Conversion tools, Network Commands, Network Configuration , Remote Administration Related, Compression, Working with MS-DOS files, Miscellaneous, Wildcards, Regular Expressions
morning, Working with files and folders
motivation, Who would want to read this guide?
mount, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Working with MS-DOS files
mounted, Finding files, Finding information about the system, Finding information about partitions, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Working with MS-DOS files
mouse, Conventions used in this guide
move, Working with files and folders, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Finding information about the system, Text Viewing Tools
moving, Finding files, Working with files and folders
mozilla, Controlling Processes
mp3, Finding information about the system
ms-dos, Compression, Working with MS-DOS files
mTime, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
mtools, Working with MS-DOS files
mull, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
multiple, Working with files and folders, Controlling Processes, Text Viewing Tools , Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
mum, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
must, Controlling Processes
mv, Working with files and folders
myfile, Regular Expressions
myfiles1, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
myfiles2, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions

N

named, Finding files, Controlling Processes
Naming, Disclaimer
NetBSD, The Unix Tools Philosophy
netstat, Network Commands
network, Network Commands, Network Configuration
networking, Network Commands, Network Configuration
new, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Date/Time/Calendars, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Network Commands, Network Configuration , Remote Administration Related, File Permissions
newer, Working with files and folders, Compression
newline, General Shell Tips, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
newlines, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
newstring, Text manipulation tools
new_location, Working with files and folders
Next, Conventions used in this guide, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Text Viewing Tools
NFTS, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)
ng, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
nice, Date/Time/Calendars, Controlling Processes
nl, Text manipulation tools
nmap, Network Commands
nmap site, Network Commands
nn, Regular Expressions
nnnn, Regular Expressions
nnnnnnn, Regular Expressions
non-blank, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools
none, General Shell Tips, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
normal, Controlling Processes, Internet Specific Commands, Compression, Working with MS-DOS files, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
NOT, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
number, Directing Input/Output, Working with the file-system, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Finding information about partitions, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Controlling Processes, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools, Mathematical tools, Internet Specific Commands, File Permissions, Graphics tools (command line based), Scheduling Commands to run in the background, RPM: Redhat Package Management System, Regular Expressions
number lines, Text manipulation tools
numbering, Text manipulation tools
numbers, Users/Groups, Mathematical tools, Security, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
numeric, Text manipulation tools
numgrep, Mathematical tools

O

occupying, File Permissions
occurances, Finding files, Text manipulation tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
off, Network Commands, File Permissions, Wildcards
office, Users/Groups
official, Availability of sources
old, File Permissions, rsync
oldstring, Text manipulation tools
omit, Remote Administration Related
on-screen, Graphics tools (command line based)
one-line, Text manipulation tools
online, Help, Finding information about partitions, Mini-Guides
online info pages, Online Manual And Info Pages
online man pages, Online Manual And Info Pages
open, Controlling the system, Text Viewing Tools , Network Commands, Graphics tools (command line based)
OpenBSD, The Unix Tools Philosophy
opened, File Permissions
OpenSSH, Specific Further reading
operate, The Unix Tools Philosophy
operating, Finding information about the system, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Security
operations, Finding files
option, General Shell Tips, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Controlling services, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files, Internet Specific Commands, Some basic Security Tools, File Permissions, Graphics tools (command line based), Working with MS-DOS files, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
optional, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system
options, Introduction, Who would not want to read this guide?, General Shell Tips, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Date/Time/Calendars, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Controlling Processes, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools, Conversion tools, Network Commands, Internet Specific Commands, rsync, Graphics tools (command line based), Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Miscellaneous
OR, Performing more than one command, Regular Expressions
order, Moving around the filesystem, Text manipulation tools, Miscellaneous
Orielly, The UNIX tools philosophy further reading
original, Availability of sources, Conventions used in this guide, Working with files and folders, Managing users, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, tar (tape archiver)
OS, Finding information about the system
output, The Unix Tools Philosophy, General Shell Tips, Help, Command Substitution, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Text Information Tools, Finding Text Within Files, Mathematical tools, Internet Specific Commands, tar (tape archiver), Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
Outputs, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Text Viewing Tools , Text Information Tools, Finding Text Within Files, Miscellaneous
override, General Shell Tips
overwrite, Usage, Working with files and folders
overwriting, Working with files and folders, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Internet Specific Commands
ownership, Moving around the filesystem, File Permissions, RPM: Redhat Package Management System

P

package, Resources used to create this document , Remote Administration Related, Working with MS-DOS files, RPM: Redhat Package Management System, Mandriva (urpm* commands, rpm based), Red Hat (rpm)
package management, Archiving Files
packages, Finding a particular tool(s), Mandriva (urpm* commands, rpm based), Finding package(s)
packet, Network Commands
packets, Network Commands
page, Conventions used in this guide, Virtual Terminals and screen, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Date/Time/Calendars, Controlling Processes, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools, Conversion tools, Network Commands, Internet Specific Commands, File Permissions, rsync, Graphics tools (command line based), Miscellaneous, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
pages, Controlling Processes
paranoia, Working with files and folders
parent, Internet Specific Commands, Security
parent directory, Moving around the filesystem
parse, Internet Specific Commands
part, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Remote Administration Related
particular, General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Controlling services, Users/Groups, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files, Network Commands, File Permissions, Graphics tools (command line based), Scheduling Commands to run in the background
partition, Working with files and folders, Finding information about partitions
partitions, Finding information about partitions
parts, Contributors , Wildcards, Regular Expressions
pass, Working with files and folders
passed, General Shell Tips, Finding information about the system
passes, Working with files and folders
passwd, Users/Groups
password, Users/Groups, Remote Administration Related, Some basic Security Tools
passwords, Users/Groups, Remote Administration Related, Some basic Security Tools
paste, Text manipulation tools
path, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Working with files and folders, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
pattern, Finding files, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
PC, Remote Administration Related
peace, Working with files and folders
people, Contributors , File Permissions
perform, The command-line history, Usage, Working with files and folders, Controlling services, Remote Administration Related, Graphics tools (command line based), Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Wildcards
performing, Finding information about the system, Controlling services
performs, Network Commands, Regular Expressions
perl, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Text manipulation tools, Miscellaneous
Permission, License, File Permissions
permissions, Security, File Permissions, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
permitted, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
person, Text manipulation tools, Remote Administration Related, File Permissions
pgrep, Controlling Processes
philosophy, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Compression
phrase, Text Information Tools, Wildcards
physical, Virtual Terminals and screen, Finding files
pictures, Conventions used in this guide
pid, Controlling Processes
pid's, Controlling Processes
piece, Miscellaneous
ping, Network Commands
pipe, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Usage, Command Substitution, Text manipulation tools, Regular Expressions
pipes, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Command Substitution
pkill, Controlling Processes
place, The command-line history, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)
plain, Working with files and folders, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Remote Administration Related
play, Text Editors
PNG, Graphics tools (command line based)
pointers, Working with files and folders
popular, Wildcards
ports, Network Commands
Positive, Feedback, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
possible, General Shell Tips, Network Commands
possibly, Graphics tools (command line based)
post, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
postscript, Conversion tools
power, Managing users, Graphics tools (command line based)
power down, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
power users, Who would want to read this guide?
powerful, Directing Input/Output, Finding information about the system, Text Editors, Text manipulation tools, Mathematical tools, Network Commands
poweroff, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
practice, Managing users
preceding, Moving around the filesystem
prefix, Text Information Tools
prefixed, Text Viewing Tools
present, Date/Time/Calendars
preserves, tar (tape archiver)
press, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Managing users, Mathematical tools, Security, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
prevent, Internet Specific Commands, File Permissions
Prevents, Working with files and folders
Previous, Conventions used in this guide, Performing more than one command, Moving around the filesystem, Text Viewing Tools
primary, Checking the Hard Disk for errors
Print, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling services, Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files, Miscellaneous
print working directory, Moving around the filesystem
printable, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
printed, Conventions used in this guide, General Shell Tips, Concept Definitions
printing, Working with files and folders, Text Information Tools
prints, Help, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools, Regular Expressions, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
priorities, Controlling Processes
priority, Controlling Processes
privileges, Managing users
probably, Text manipulation tools, Remote Administration Related, File Permissions, Compression
problems, Feedback, Contributors , Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
proc filesystem, Finding information about partitions
procedure, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
proceed, Disclaimer
proceeding, Regular Expressions
process, Usage, Controlling Processes, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
process id, Controlling Processes
process information, Finding information about the system
processed, Working with files and folders
processes, Finding information about the system, Controlling the system, Controlling Processes
processing, Users/Groups
processor, Finding information about the system, Compression
products, Disclaimer
program, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Help, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools, Mathematical tools, Internet Specific Commands, Security, Compression, Working with MS-DOS files, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
programmers, Who would want to read this guide?, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Miscellaneous
programming, Mathematical tools, Regular Expressions
programs, Concept Definitions, Conversion tools, Archiving Files, Compression, Graphics tools (command line based), Working with MS-DOS files
program_name, Finding files
prompt, Help, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools, Security
prompts, Text manipulation tools
protect, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
protocols, Network Commands, Internet Specific Commands
provide, Controlling services
provided, Introduction, Contributors
provides, Help, Controlling Processes, Archiving Files
ps, Controlling Processes
pstree, Controlling Processes
punctuation, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
purpose, Who would not want to read this guide?
putting, General Shell Tips
pwd, Moving around the filesystem
python, Mathematical tools

R

r, File Permissions
Rahul Sundaram, Contributors
random, Working with files and folders, Some basic Security Tools, Graphics tools (command line based), Miscellaneous
range, Mathematical tools, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
ranges, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
ranked, Miscellaneous
rcp, rsync
re-combine, Working with files and folders
readability, Contributors , Text Information Tools
reader, Conventions used in this guide
readers, Who would not want to read this guide?
reading, Conventions used in this guide, File Permissions
reads, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
reboot, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
rebooted, Finding information about the system
reboots, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
receive, Network Configuration
received, Concept Definitions
recode, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
recognised, Moving around the filesystem
recommend, Mathematical tools
recommended, Contributors , Users/Groups
records, Finding information about the system
recover, Compression
recovered, Working with files and folders
recursive, Finding Text Within Files
recursively, Working with files and folders, File Permissions
Redhat, Controlling services
redirect, Usage
Refer, Conventions used in this guide, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Finding information about the system, Date/Time/Calendars, Controlling Processes, Internet Specific Commands, Remote Administration Related, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
reference, Who would want to read this guide?, Who would not want to read this guide?, The command-line history, Working with files and folders
references, Contributors , Internet Specific Commands, General Further Reading
referencing, Contributors
referred, The Unix Tools Philosophy
reflected, Users/Groups
regarded, Disclaimer
regardless, Finding files
regular, Finding Text Within Files
regular expression, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Controlling Processes
regular expressions, Finding files, Finding Text Within Files
rel, Miscellaneous
relationship, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
Relative paths, Moving around the filesystem
release number, Finding information about the system
relevance, Miscellaneous
relevant, Finding information about partitions, Text manipulation tools, Security, File Permissions, Miscellaneous
reliable, Working with files and folders
reloaded, Text Viewing Tools
remote, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Internet Specific Commands, Remote Administration Related, rsync
remote machines, Network Commands
remotely, Remote Administration Related
removable, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)
remove, General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Text manipulation tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
removes, Working with files and folders, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Text manipulation tools, Network Configuration
removing, Finding files
rename, Working with files and folders, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, File Permissions, Miscellaneous
Renames, Working with files and folders, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
renaming, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Miscellaneous
renaming extensions, Miscellaneous
renders, General Shell Tips
renice, Controlling Processes
Repair, Contributors , Working with MS-DOS files
repairs, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
repeatedly, The command-line history
repeats, General Shell Tips
replace, Text manipulation tools
replacement, rsync
report, Controlling Processes
represent, Moving around the filesystem, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Mathematical tools, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
represents, Moving around the filesystem, File Permissions
requests, Network Commands
required, Contributors , Moving around the filesystem, Checking the Hard Disk for errors
reset, General Shell Tips
resources, Text Editors
respective owners, Disclaimer
respectively, File Permissions
respond, Network Commands
responses, Network Commands
responsibility, Disclaimer
responsible, Contributors
restart, Controlling services
restricted, Internet Specific Commands
restrictions, Managing users
result, Command Substitution, Text manipulation tools
results, Usage, Finding information about the system, Text manipulation tools
retrieve, Working with files and folders, Internet Specific Commands
return, Moving around the filesystem, Controlling Processes, Controlling services, Managing users, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Internet Specific Commands
returned, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
returns, Internet Specific Commands
reverse, Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools, Internet Specific Commands, Remote Administration Related
review, Contributors
Review Coordinator, Contributors
rgb, Graphics tools (command line based)
rgrep, Finding Text Within Files
rights, File Permissions
risk, Disclaimer
rm, General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
rm -i, General Shell Tips
rmdir, Working with files and folders
root, Help, Controlling Processes, Managing users, Remote Administration Related, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
root directory, Finding files
root's password, Security
rotation, Graphics tools (command line based)
rough, Contributors , Graphics tools (command line based)
round, Network Commands
route, Network Commands, Network Configuration
routing, Network Configuration
RPM, Security, RPM: Redhat Package Management System, Red Hat (rpm), Finding package(s), Specific Further reading
rpm -qf, Red Hat (rpm)
rpm -qi, Red Hat (rpm)
RPMFind, Finding package(s)
RPMSeek, Finding package(s)
rsync, Archiving Files, rsync, Specific Further reading
rsync site, rsync
rtf, Conversion tools
run, General Shell Tips, Help, Working with files and folders, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Controlling Processes, Text Viewing Tools , Text Information Tools, Mathematical tools, Compression, Graphics tools (command line based), Scheduling Commands to run in the background
running, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Controlling services, Text Viewing Tools , Mathematical tools, Remote Administration Related
Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition, General Further Reading

S

s, File Permissions
samba, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Specific Further reading
save, Controlling Processes, Network Commands
saved, Controlling Processes
saves, rsync, Graphics tools (command line based)
scales, Mathematical tools
scaling, Graphics tools (command line based)
scanner, Network Commands
Scans, Working with MS-DOS files, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
scattered, Some basic Security Tools
schedule, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
scheduled, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
scientific, Miscellaneous
scores, Text Information Tools
scp, Remote Administration Related
screen, General Shell Tips, Virtual Terminals and screen, Concept Definitions, Date/Time/Calendars, Controlling Processes, Graphics tools (command line based)
screen-dump, Graphics tools (command line based)
screen-shots, Graphics tools (command line based)
script, General Shell Tips, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Controlling services, Network Configuration
scripting, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
scripts, Contributors , Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Controlling services
scroll, The command-line history, Text Viewing Tools
sdiff, Text Information Tools, Finding a particular tool(s)
search, Help, Finding files, Controlling Processes, Text Editors, Text manipulation tools, Regular Expressions
search and replace text, Text manipulation tools
Searches, Help, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
searching, Virtual Terminals and screen, Finding files, Wildcards
section, Conventions used in this guide, Resources used to create this document , Contributors , Text Viewing Tools , Text manipulation tools, Finding Text Within Files, Security, Miscellaneous, Mini-Guides
Sections, License, Text manipulation tools, Miscellaneous
sectors, Working with files and folders
secure, Remote Administration Related
secure copy, Remote Administration Related
secure ftp, Remote Administration Related
secure shell, Remote Administration Related
Security, Shell Tips, Network Commands, Security, File Permissions
selected, Text manipulation tools
sell, Working with files and folders
send, Feedback, Directing Input/Output, Usage, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Controlling Processes, Network Configuration , tar (tape archiver)
sends, Usage, Network Commands
sensitive, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Text Information Tools
sentences, Text manipulation tools
separate, Text manipulation tools
separated, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
separation, Text manipulation tools
separator, Text manipulation tools
sequentially, Performing more than one command
serial, Text manipulation tools
series, Network Commands
server, Remote Administration Related, Graphics tools (command line based)
servers, Internet Specific Commands, rsync
service, Controlling services
service mark, Disclaimer
services, Controlling services
session, General Shell Tips, Security
set, General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Date/Time/Calendars, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Security, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
set bell-style, General Shell Tips
Sets, Controlling Processes, File Permissions, Graphics tools (command line based)
setting, Network Configuration
settings, Network Configuration
setup, Moving around the filesystem, Text manipulation tools
several, Contributors , General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders, Conversion tools, Network Commands
sftp, Remote Administration Related
SGML, Availability of sources, Resources used to create this document , Contributors
sharing, Network Commands
shell, Conventions used in this guide, Shell Tips, Finding files, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools, Security, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Wildcards
shell scripting, Usage
shell scripts, Usage
shells, Introduction, Other Key combinations, Users/Groups
shopping, Text manipulation tools
shortcut, Shell Tips, Other Key combinations, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
show, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools, Network Commands, tar (tape archiver), Graphics tools (command line based)
shown, Moving around the filesystem, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Text manipulation tools, Internet Specific Commands
showrgb, Graphics tools (command line based)
shows, Moving around the filesystem, Text Viewing Tools
shred, Working with files and folders, File Permissions
shredding, Working with files and folders
shutdown, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
shutdown -h, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
shutdown -r, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
sign, Controlling Processes
signal, Controlling Processes
signalled, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
signals, Controlling Processes
single-user, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System
site, Internet Specific Commands
Sitemenu, Conventions used in this guide
sites, Security
six, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
size, Moving around the filesystem, Working with files and folders, Text manipulation tools, Graphics tools (command line based)
sizes, Working with files and folders
skill, Controlling Processes
slide, Graphics tools (command line based)
slocate, Finding files
smaller, Working with files and folders
SMB, Network Commands
smbmount, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)
smbumount, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)
snice, Controlling Processes
sniffer, Network Commands
snort, The command-line history
software, Who would want to read this guide?, Working with files and folders
some_file, Text manipulation tools
some_text_file, Text manipulation tools
sort, Moving around the filesystem, Text manipulation tools
sorted, Moving around the filesystem
Sorting, Text manipulation tools
sound, Controlling services, Network Commands
source, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Conversion tools
Sourceforge, Text Editors, Remote Administration Related, Archiving Files, Finding more useful tools, Finding package(s)
sources, Availability of sources
space, General Shell Tips, Finding information about the system, Text manipulation tools, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
space-seperated, Controlling Processes
spaces, Help, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
special, Conventions used in this guide, File Permissions
special character, General Shell Tips, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
special characters, General Shell Tips
special symbols, General Shell Tips
specialcharacter, Regular Expressions
specific, Introduction, Resources used to create this document , Usage, Date/Time/Calendars, Mini-Guides
specifically, Disclaimer, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
specified, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
specifies, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
specify, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools, Network Commands, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
speed, Other Key combinations
spell, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Text manipulation tools
spelling, The command-line history
spend, Text Related Tools
split, Working with files and folders
Splits, Working with files and folders
square, Regular Expressions
squeeze, Text manipulation tools
SS64.com list of commands, General Further Reading
ssh, Virtual Terminals and screen, Remote Administration Related
sshd, Controlling services
standard, Conventions used in this guide, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Text manipulation tools, Mathematical tools, Miscellaneous
Standard error, Concept Definitions
Standard input, Concept Definitions, Usage, Mathematical tools
Standard output, Concept Definitions, Usage, Regular Expressions
standard wild-card, tar (tape archiver)
standard wildcard, Regular Expressions
standard wildcards, Conventions used in this guide, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Internet Specific Commands, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
standards, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
Start, Conventions used in this guide, Moving around the filesystem, Controlling Processes, Mathematical tools
start-up, Checking the Hard Disk for errors
started, Mathematical tools, Security
starting, The command-line history, Moving around the filesystem, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Finding Text Within Files, Regular Expressions
starts, Controlling Processes, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
stat, Working with files and folders
statements, Finding files
statistics, Finding information about the system
status, Controlling services, Network Commands
steep, Text Editors
Step, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
Steps, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
sticky, File Permissions
stop, General Shell Tips, Usage, Finding files, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Controlling Processes, Controlling services, Network Commands, Internet Specific Commands, tar (tape archiver)
stored, Network Configuration
Streams, Concept Definitions
string, The command-line history, Help, Usage, Moving around the filesystem, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Regular Expressions
strings, Help
structure, Contributors
style, Moving around the filesystem, Text Information Tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Compression
su, Finding information about the system, Managing users
subdirectories, Moving around the filesystem, Finding files, Working with files and folders, File Permissions
subdirectory, Working with files and folders
subsections, Wildcards
subsequent, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns), Regular Expressions
substituted, General Shell Tips, Finding information about the system
substitution, Finding information about the system
Subsystem, Network Commands
successful, Performing more than one command, Controlling Processes
sudo, Managing users
suggesting, Text manipulation tools
suggestions, Feedback, Contributors
suid, File Permissions
suited, Who would want to read this guide?, Who would not want to read this guide?
sum, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
summarise, Introduction
summarised, Who would want to read this guide?
summarises, Working with files and folders
summary, Who would not want to read this guide?, Resources used to create this document , Help
sums, Mathematical tools
superior, Compression
superuser, Managing users, Security
support, Internet Specific Commands
supports, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Internet Specific Commands
suppress, Text Information Tools
surf, Text Editors
suspend, Controlling Processes
Sweet Code, Finding more useful tools
switch, Virtual Terminals and screen, Managing users, File Permissions
switched, Duplicating disks
symbol, Usage, Text manipulation tools
symbolic, Working with files and folders
symbolic link, Working with files and folders
Symbolic links, Working with files and folders
symbols, General Shell Tips, Moving around the filesystem
syncs, rsync
syntax, Conventions used in this guide, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Finding Text Within Files, Remote Administration Related
system bell, General Shell Tips

T

TAB, General Shell Tips, Text manipulation tools
TAB key, General Shell Tips
tab-stop, Text manipulation tools
Tabatha Marshall, Contributors
Tabatha Persad, Contributors
table, Conversion tools, Network Configuration , Scheduling Commands to run in the background
Table of Contents, Conventions used in this guide
tabs, Text manipulation tools, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
tac, Text Viewing Tools
tail, Text Viewing Tools
tape, tar (tape archiver)
tar, rsync, Compression
tarball, tar (tape archiver)
target_name, Working with files and folders
task, Introduction, Controlling services
tasks, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Controlling services, Text Editors
tcpdump, Network Commands
techinques, Duplicating disks
technique, Directing Input/Output, Duplicating disks
tee, Usage
tell, Controlling Processes, Controlling services, Mathematical tools, Network Commands
tells, Controlling the system
temporary, Remote Administration Related
tends, Finding information about the system
term, Disclaimer, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
terminal, General Shell Tips, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Controlling Processes
terminate, Usage
terms, License, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
test, Virtual Terminals and screen, Compression
TeX, The Unix Tools Philosophy
text, General Shell Tips, Working with files and folders, Text Related Tools, Text Information Tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Finding Text Within Files, Wildcards, Regular Expressions
text-based, The Unix Tools Philosophy
Texts, License
textutils, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
The Linux Documentation Project, Resources used to create this document
The Open Group, Disclaimer
The Unix Philosophy, The UNIX tools philosophy further reading
throw, Working with files and folders
thumbnails, Graphics tools (command line based)
ties, Text manipulation tools
tiff, Graphics tools (command line based)
tilde, General Shell Tips
tile, Graphics tools (command line based)
tille, Contributors
time, Working with files and folders, Date/Time/Calendars, Controlling Processes, Users/Groups, Text Viewing Tools , rsync, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Wildcards
times, The command-line history, Finding information about the system, Text manipulation tools, Regular Expressions
timestamp, Working with files and folders
timestamps, Working with files and folders, Date/Time/Calendars
tiny, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
TLDP, Contributors
today, The Unix Tools Philosophy
todos, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
top, Moving around the filesystem, Controlling Processes
total, Working with files and folders
totals, Finding information about the system
touch, Working with files and folders
tr, Usage, Text manipulation tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
tracepath, Network Commands
traceroute, Network Commands
trademark, Disclaimer
traditional, Text Editors
transfer, Working with files and folders, Network Commands, Duplicating disks
transform, Graphics tools (command line based)
translators, Availability of sources
travel, Network Commands
tree, Moving around the filesystem, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Controlling Processes
trick, Moving around the filesystem, Security
tunnel, Remote Administration Related
turn, General Shell Tips, File Permissions
turn off, General Shell Tips
tutorial, Finding information about the system
TuxFinder, Finding package(s), Specific Further reading
types, Working with files and folders, Conversion tools
typescript, General Shell Tips

U

UID, Controlling Processes
umask, Security
umount, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions)
un-readable, Working with MS-DOS files
unalias, General Shell Tips
uname, Finding information about the system
unbuffered, Concept Definitions
uncompile, Graphics tools (command line based)
unexpand, Text manipulation tools
unfamiliar, Controlling Processes
unfinished, Internet Specific Commands
Unfortunately, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Controlling Processes
uniq, Text manipulation tools
unique, Text Information Tools, Text manipulation tools
units, Mathematical tools
units man page, Miscellaneous
UNIX, Disclaimer, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Concept Definitions, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Date/Time/Calendars, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, Controlling services, Text Editors, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Security, Compression
UNIX system, Who would want to read this guide?, The Unix Tools Philosophy
UNIX tools, The UNIX tools philosophy further reading
UNIX Tools Philosophy, Introduction, The Unix Tools Philosophy, The UNIX tools philosophy further reading
UNIX-like, Compression
unix-tools, The UNIX tools philosophy further reading
unix2dos, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
unmount, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Checking the Hard Disk for errors
unmounted, Working with MS-DOS files
unrecoverable, Working with files and folders
unset, File Permissions
unusual, Conversion tools
Up, Conventions used in this guide
update, Working with files and folders, Users/Groups
updated, Controlling Processes, Text Viewing Tools , File Permissions
upload, Internet Specific Commands
uppercase, Text manipulation tools, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
uptime, Finding information about the system
URL, Internet Specific Commands
urpm*, RPM: Redhat Package Management System, Mandriva (urpm* commands, rpm based)
urpme, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
urpmf, RPM: Redhat Package Management System, Mandriva (urpm* commands, rpm based)
urpmi, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
urpmq, RPM: Redhat Package Management System
usage, General Shell Tips, Internet Specific Commands, Working with MS-DOS files
usenet, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools
user name, General Shell Tips
user-name, General Shell Tips
username, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools, Internet Specific Commands, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background
usernames, Controlling Processes, Text manipulation tools
utilities, Text Viewing Tools , Compression, Standard Wildcards (globbing patterns)
utility, Working with files and folders, Finding information about the system, Users/Groups, Text manipulation tools, Working with MS-DOS files

W

w, Finding information about the system, File Permissions
waiting, Network Commands
wave, Finding information about the system
wc, Text Information Tools
website, Internet Specific Commands
wget, Internet Specific Commands
whatis, Help
whereis, Finding files
which, Finding files, Working with files and folders, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Controlling Processes, Network Commands, Miscellaneous
whitespace, Text manipulation tools, Useful�categories�of�characters�(as�defined�by�the�POSIX�standard)
who, Finding information about the system, Shutting Down/Rebooting the System, File Permissions
whoami, Finding information about the system
whois, Internet Specific Commands
wildcard, General Shell Tips, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Regular Expressions
wildcards, Conventions used in this guide, General Shell Tips, Finding files, Mass Rename/copy/link Tools, Internet Specific Commands, Wildcards, Regular Expressions
William West, Contributors
window, The command-line history, Finding information about the system, Graphics tools (command line based)
window manager, Virtual Terminals and screen
windowing, Graphics tools (command line based)
windows, Working with files and folders, Mounting and Unmounting (Floppy/CDROM/Hard-drive Partitions), Text Related Tools, Text Conversion/Filter Tools, Network Commands, Compression
Windows-format, Text Conversion/Filter Tools
work-around, Internet Specific Commands
write, Text manipulation tools, File Permissions
writing, The Unix Tools Philosophy, Working with files and folders, File Permissions, Scheduling Commands to run in the background, Miscellaneous

Notes

[1]

This information was adopted (with editing) from Mandrakesoft's Command Line Manual, see [7] in the Bibliography for further information.

[2]

This information (as quoted) has come from the “Please, For the Love of All That's Recoverable, Shred Your Hard Drive!” article, number 18 in the Bibliography

[3]

This particular command and explanation has been used (with editing) from the Linux Online Classroom, see [4] in the Bibliography for further information.

[4]

This information has been taken from the Linux Cookbook (without editing). See [3] in the Bibliography for further information.

[5]

These examples are based off information from the enscript manual page, see [12] in the Bibliography for further information.

[6]

This way around the wildcard limitation has been adopted (with a tiny amount of editing) from wget manual page, see [9] in the Bibliography for further information.

[7]

This example and tiny parts of the explanation have been taken from the Linux Online Classroom, see [4] in the Bibliography for further information.

[8]

This example has come been used from (unedited) “CLI for noobies: import, display, mogrify”, see [16] in the Bibliography for further information.

[9]

This information has come from (without editing) a post on the LinuxChix techtalk mailing list, please see [16] in the Bibliography for further information.

[10]

This information comes from the cron manual page with small additions (no changes to original content), refer to [13] in the Bibliography for further information.

[11]

This information information comes from the Linux Cookbook (without editing). See [3] in the Bibliography for further information.

[12]

Note that the list under section 24.1.2 comes from the RPM manual page, see [11] in the Bibliography for further details.