1.

Background on UNIX

1.1. What is UNIX?

1.2. History

1.3. Why use UNIX?

UNIX Intro.
 •1.1. What is UNIX?
 The UNIX Operating System (OS) is a large
program (mostly coded in C) that turns the
computer into a useable machine.

 It provides a number of facilities:

– management of hardware resources
– directory and file system
– loading / execution / suspension of programs

UNIX Intro.
 1.2. (Brief) History

 1969 First UNIX at Bell Labs

 1975 Bell Labs makes UNIX freeware
 1970’s Berkeley UNIX (BSD)
 1980’s TCP/IP
MIT X-Windows
 1990’s The Web,
LINUX

UNIX Intro.
 1.3. Why Use UNIX?

 multi-tasking / multi-user
 lots of software
 networking capability
 graphical (with command line)
 easy to program
 portable (PCs, mainframes,
super-computers)
continued
UNIX Intro.
  free! (LINUX, FreeBSD, GNU)
 popular
 profitable
1996 Sales: US$34.5 Billion, up 12%
 not tied to one company
 active community

UNIX Intro.
 2. Starting / Finishing

2.1. Your Account

2.2. Login to your Account

2.3. Password Tips

2.4. Logout from your Account

UNIX Intro.
 2.1. Your Account

 Each user has their own space on fivedots,

called their account.

 Type your login ID and password to enter

your account.

 Only if the login ID and password match

will you be let in.
UNIX Intro.
 2.2. Login to your Account

login: ad You type your ID and RETURN.

Password: You type your password and

RETURN. It does not appear.

$ The UNIX prompt (or similar).

You can now enter commands.

UNIX Intro.
 2.3. Password Tips

 NEVER tell anyone your password.

 Don’t write it down.
 A good password is:
– 8 (or more) characters long
– uses a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters,
numbers, and symbols (e.g. #, %).
 You can change your password with the
passwd command (see later).

UNIX Intro.
 2.4. Logout from your Account

logout

or
^D Press CONTROL and D
together
or
exit

UNIX Intro. 1
 3. Typing UNIX Commands

3.1. The Shell

3.2. Typing Commands

3.3. Control Characters

3.4. Changing your Password

UNIX Intro. 1
 3.1. The Shell
 The UNIX user interface is called the shell.
 The shell does 4 jobs repeatedly:

display
prompt
read execute
command the shell command

process
command
UNIX Intro. 1
 3.2. Typing Commands

 Try these:
date
cal 3 1997
who
ls -a
man cal Press spacebar to continue;
^C (CONTROL and C) to stop
clear

UNIX Intro. 1
 3.3. Control Characters

 Erasing characters
DELETE delete last character
^H delete last character
(press CONTROL and H together).

^W delete last word

^U delete the line

UNIX Intro. 1
  Very useful control characters

^C terminate command

^S suspend output
^Q resume output

UNIX Intro. 1
 3.4. Changing your Password

 The command is:

passwd

 It will ask you for the new password twice.

UNIX Intro. 1
 4.1. Date Commands

 date Gives time and date

 cal Calendar
cal 1997
cal 3
cal 7 1962
cal 9 1752 Not a mistake. Why?

UNIX Intro. 1
 4.2. You and the System

 uptime Machine’s ‘up’ time

 hostname Name of the machine

 whoami Your name

 quota Your quotas
quota -v

UNIX Intro. 1
 5. UNIX Help

5.1. On-line Help

5.2. UNIX books

UNIX Intro. 1
 5.3. UNIX Books
 A Student’s Guide to UNIX, Harley Hahn,
McGraw-Hill, 1993.

 A Practical Guide to the UNIX System,

Mark G. Sobell, Benjamin-Cummings,
3rd Edition, 1995.

 An Introduction to Berkeley UNIX,

Paul Wang, Wadsworth, 1992.
UNIX Intro. 2
 6. The UNIX File System

6.1. An upside-down Tree

6.2. Some System Directories
6.3. Where do you login?
6.4. Pathnames
6.5. Commands and Pathnames

UNIX Intro. 2
 6.1. An upside-down Tree
 A simplified UNIX directory/file system:
/

etc bin export dev tmp

... ... ...
date . . . cal user
home
ad ....... s3910120
exam.txt work proj1
hobby.c
UNIX Intro. ... ... 2
 6.2. Some System Directories

 / root directory

 /bin commands

 /etc system data files

(e.g. /etc/passwd)

 /dev files representing I/O devices

UNIX Intro. 2
 6.3. Where do you login?
 Your home directory, which is named after
your login ID.
/

export

user

s3910120’s home
home dir.
s3910120
proj1
hobby.c
UNIX Intro. ... 2
 6.4. Pathnames

 A pathname is a sequence of directory

names (separated by /’s) which identifies
the location of a directory.

 There are two sorts of pathnames

– absolute pathnames
– relative pathname

UNIX Intro. 2
 Absolute Pathnames

 The sequence of directory names between the

top of the tree (the root) and the directory of
interest.
 For example:
/bin
/etc/terminfo
/export/user/home/ad
/export/user/home/s3910120/proj1

UNIX Intro. 2
 Relative Pathnames
 The sequence of directory names below the
directory where you are now to the directory
of interest.

 If you are interested in the directory proj1:

proj1 if you are in s3910120
s3910120/proj1 if you are in home
home/s3910120/proj1 if you are in user

UNIX Intro. 2
 6.5. Commands and Pathnames

 Commands often use pathnames.

 For example:
/usr/games/fortune
cat /etc/passwd List the password file

UNIX Intro. 2
 7. Working with Directories
7.1. Moving between Directories

7.2. Special Directory Names

7.3. Investigate the System

7.4. Making / Deleting / Renaming

Directories

UNIX Intro. 2
  pwd Print name of current
working directory

 Move back to directory s3910120 (the

parent directory):
cd ..

UNIX Intro. 3
 7.2. Special Directory Names

 / The root directory

 . The current working directory
 .. The parent directory
(of your current directory)
 ~ Your home directory
 ~user Home directory of user

UNIX Intro. 3
 Examples

 cd / Change to root directory

 cd ~ Change to home directory
 cd (Special case; means cd ~)
 cd ~ad Change to my home dir.
 cd ../.. Go up two levels.

UNIX Intro. 3
 7.3. Investigate the System

 Use cd
 cat file List file
cd /etc
cat passwd
 ls Directory listing
ls List current dir.
ls /etc List /etc
ls -F -F option shows types

UNIX Intro. 3
 7.4. Making / Deleting /
Renaming Directories

 Usually, you can only create directories (or

delete or rename them) in your home
directory or directories below it.

mkdir Make a directory

rmdir Delete a directory
mv Rename a directory

UNIX Intro. 3
  Create a lab directory in your home directory:
cd ~
mkdir lab

 Create two directories inside the lab directory:

cd lab
mkdir week1
mkdir week2

UNIX Intro. 3
  Delete the week1 directory:
rmdir week1

 Change the name of week2 to all-weeks

mv week2 all-weeks

UNIX Intro. 3
 8. Working with Files

8.1. Creating a Text File

8.2. Listing Files
8.3. Filename Conventions
8.4. Other Basic Commands
8.5. Printing
8.6. I/O Redirection

UNIX Intro. 3
 8.1. Creating a Text File
 A quick way:
cat > file

 This will feed the text you type at the keyboard

into file until you type ^D (CONTROL and a D
together).

 A more powerful way is to use vi, a full screen

editor (see later).

UNIX Intro. 3
 8.2. Listing Files

 cat file List the file

cat hobby.c
cat /etc/passwd
cat /usr/dict/words (^C to stop)

 more file List the file a screen at

a time. Type spacebar
to go on; ^C to stop

UNIX Intro. 3
  less file Like more but more
powerful

 head file List the first few lines

 tail file List the last few lines

UNIX Intro. 4
 8.3. Filename Conventions

 Many files have a name and an extension:

file.c A C program
file.cpp A C++ program
file.txt A text file

 However, you can call a file anything. It

doesn’t have to have an extension.

UNIX Intro. 4
 8.4. Other Basic Commands

 cp file1 file2 Copy file1,

making file2

 mv file1 file2 Rename file1 as

file2

 rm file Delete file

rm -i file Double-check first
UNIX Intro. 4
  wc file Counts the lines,
words, characters
in file

 grep string file Search file for

string

UNIX Intro. 4
 8.5. Printing

 lpr file Print file

 lpq List the print queue.

Each print job has a
number.

 lprm job-number Remove that

print job
UNIX Intro. 4
  You may have to name the printer with
the -P option:
lpr -Plj5 hobby.c

 lpq and lprm understand the -P option

UNIX Intro. 4
 8.6. I/O Redirection
 Most commands output to the screen
ls
 Output can be redirected to a file with‘>‘:
ls > dir.txt
cal 1997 > year1997

 Output can be appended to a file with ‘>>‘

cal 1997 > years
cal 1998 >> years

UNIX Intro. 4
  Concatenate two files:
cat f1 f2 > fs

 Input redirection (less common) uses ‘<‘

wc < years

 Combine input and output redirection:

wc < years > year-counts

UNIX Intro. 4
 9. Communicating with People

9.1. Information on Others

9.2. Fingering People

9.3. Talking

UNIX Intro. 4
 9.1. Information on Others

 users Who else is logged on?

 who Information on current users

 ps What are people doing?

ps -au

UNIX Intro. 4
  w What are people doing?
w -sh A shorter report

 Examine password info:

more /etc/passwd
grep s38 /etc/passwd

UNIX Intro. 5
 9.2. Fingering People

 finger Info. on current users

finger -l Longer information

 finger user Information on user

(need not be logged in)
finger ad

UNIX Intro. 5
  write user Send a message to user
on this machine
write ad

 mesg n Switch off talk / write

acceptance.
mesg y Switch on

UNIX Intro. 5
 10. Electronic Mail (E-mail)

10.1. Sending E-mail

10.2. Some Writing Commands
10.3. Writing Hints
10.4. Reading E-mail
10.5. Some Reading Commands
10.6. Reading old E-mail
10.7. When has E-mail Arrived?
UNIX Intro. 5
 10.1. Sending E-mail

 Send mail to me:

mail [email protected]
Subject: Shoe Problem
What colour are my shoes? I
cannot see them at the moment
because of my desk.
- Jim
^D

UNIX Intro. 5
  On fivedots, can write:
mail ad

 Abort mail program with ^C

UNIX Intro. 5
 10.2. Some Writing Commands

 The following commands are included in the

text of the mail, at the start of the line, and on
their own.

~c s3910120 Send copy to s3910120

~r file Read file into the mail

UNIX Intro. 5
 ~e Start vi within mail.

~w file Write the message to file.

UNIX Intro. 5
  For important messages, I create the
message outside of mail, and then insert
the file with ~r

mail [email protected]
Subject: Salary Increase
~r salary.txt
^D

UNIX Intro. 5
 10.3. Writing Hints

 mail is not absolutely private

– it is possible (although difficult) to intercept
e-mail between two people

 Use :) to be nice
I want more money :)

 Think before you post

UNIX Intro. 5
 10.4. Reading E-mail

 mail

Mail headers are listed (and numbered

from 1).

Current message is number 1.

UNIX Intro. 6
 10.5 Some Reading Commands
RETURN display current message.
17 display message number 17. It
becomes the current message.
e View next message inside vi

? Help

d Delete current message. Next

one becomes current message.

UNIX Intro. 6
 h List mail headers. The current message
is marked with ‘>‘.

q Quit mail. Any read messages are stored

in the file mbox.

x Exit mail leaving everything

unchanged.

r Reply to message.
Type ^D to end input.

UNIX Intro. 6
 10.6. Reading old E-mail

 Access previously read messages in mbox:

mail -f mbox

 Delete old, unimportant mail;

it soon builds up.

UNIX Intro. 6
 10.7. When has E-mail Arrived?

 mail Start it regularly.

 from A summary of new mail

 biff y Turn on e-mail

notification
(typically a bell)
biff n Turn off.

UNIX Intro. 6