A UNIX Tutorial
What’s UNIX?
An operating system claimed to be
“standard” “from microcomputers to
supercomputers”
Invented by AT&T Bell Labs in late 60’s
Currently there are different versions of
UNIX such as SunOS, Linux, DEC
OSF/1, AIX, HP-UX 10, Solaris, IRIX,
SCO UNIX, etc.
Why we need UNIX?
For this class you need to work from your
class grove account to finish your
homework and/or submit your term paper
Knowing basic UNIX commands is
essential to finish your homework
UNIX Commands
ls [names] – list files contained in a directory
name or that match a file name. If no name is
given list those files in current directory.
ls –a list all files including hidden files
ls –l list in long format (including details like
permissions, owner, size, etc.), works very
much like dir
ls –al list all files (including hidden files) in
long format
ls –dl dir_name lists information about the
directory, “dir_name”.
What is a Directory?
Your home directory might contain a public_html directory. Your
public_html directory might contain an “index.html” file.
c3063xxx
public_html
index.html
What is a Directory?
A file cannot hold a directory or a file!
c3063xxx
public_html
index.html
New_file_or_directory
What is directory?
Directories can hold files and other
directories /
users tmp
bin etc backup
usern
user2 file1
user1 …… public_html
index.html
What’s a directory?
Files are grouped in the directory
structure. The file-system is
arranged like hierarchical tree
(inverted)structure.
The top of the tree is called “root”
which usually contains several sub-
directories. In UNIX “/”(forward
slash) is used to present the “root”.
Pathnames
Absolute Relative
Pathnames pathnames
In the previous If you are already
tree in the users
/users/usern/file1 directory, the
is an absolute relative pathname
pathname. for file1 is
usern/file1.
Specifying Paths
What is the absolute path to index.html?
/
users tmp
bin etc backup
usern
user2 file1
user1 …… public_html
index.html
Specifying Paths
What is the relative path to index.html
(assuming that usern is your pwd)?
/
users tmp
bin etc backup
usern
user2 file1
user1 …… public_html
index.html
More UNIX commands
pwd –let you know the absolute pathname of
your current working directory (Print Working
Directory)
cd [dir] – change directory
..” is the relative
cd .. –go back to parent directory. “
pathname to the parent directory.
“.” -stands for current (working) directory.
“~” – the tilde ~ character can refer your home
directory
More UNIX commands
mkdir directories – create one or more
directories. You can specify them by
absolute or relative pathnames.
cp
cp file1 file2 – copy file1 to file2. If there’s
already a file2, the old one will be
overwritten.
cp file(s) directory – file(s) will be copied to
the directory.
More UNIX commands
mv sourcefile targetfile – basically mv
renames sourcefile to targetfile. If there’s
a file with the same name as targetfile, it
will be overwritten. mv works for
directories in a similar fashion.
More UNIX commands
rm file(s) – delete file(s).
rmdir directories – delete one or more empty
directories.
rm –r directories – can be used to delete non
empty directories. !!!WARNING!!! This will
DELETE EVERYTHING in that directory!!!
You can not recover your files after you
removed them (unlike Windows OS).
Permissions
There are three types of file access
supported by UNIX.
r – read, view the contents of a file or a
directory
w –write, edit file/directory contents
x –execute, run executable file
Permissions
Here’s an example
Suppose you type in ls -l and the result is
- rwx r-x r-- 1 hans doc 858 Aug 22 22:28 hw1
What do all these symbols mean?
Permissions
- rwx r-x r-- 1 hans doc 858 Aug 22 22:28 hw1
links owner File name
type
size Modification date/time
group
User
permissions
Group Other
permissions Permissions
Permissions
User – the person who created the file.
Group – the group owns the file.
Other – the rest of the world
“754” is a decimal number. But you can
represent each digit with a binary number.
4 => read permission, 2 => write permission,
1=> execute permission
Permissions
read=4;write= 2;execute=1
rwx r-x r--
4 + 2 + 1 4 + 0 + 1 4 + 0 + 0
7 5 4
Permissions
rwx r-x r-- is a symbolic way to specify file
modes, while 754 is a numeric way (remember
7 111, 5 101, 4100 ? ). How would you
represent this file mode numerically?
--x --x –wx
How would you represent this bit string
symbolically?
614
Permissions
chmod mode file(s) – another UNIX
command! Change the access mode of
one or more files. Examples:
chmod 751 my_file – the owner of my_file has
rwx(7) permission, the group has r-x(5) permission,
others have --x permission.
Tell me what the following command will do?
chmod u=rwx, g=r, o=wr my_file
Remember user, group and others?
Get started
Create a new directory in your grove
account named public_html by using the
following command,
mkdir public_html
Go to this directory
cd public_html
Use pico to create a new file named
index.html
Editor in UNIX
Some short cuts for the pico editor
^G Get Help
^O WriteOut
^R Read File
^Y Prev Pg
^K Cut Text
^C Cur Pos
^X Exit
^J Justify
^W Where is
^V Next Pg
^U UnCut Text
^T To Spell
Get started
After you save the file index.html, change
the mode of this file by using the
following command,
chmod 644 index.html
(u=rw-, g=r--, o=r--)
Check whether you did it right
ls –l or dir
(What result should be displayed?)
Get started
Then go back to parent directory
cd ..
Change the mode of public_html directory
chmod 755 public_html
( What’s the meaning of this command?)
Check if you got the mode set right
ls –dl public_html
Where to get help?
Come to see us during the office hours
The CGS3063 tutorial available on line
(technical info)
man subject(s) – the UNIX help
command.
e.g.: to get help info about mv command you
can type man mv to get detailed manual of
mv command.
Thank you and good luck!
