Linux Directory Structure

Laboratory Experiment II

THE LINUX DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
by Alex Shaw III

Unedited Version

March 15, 2005

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ii

Laboratory Sheets iii
Procedures iii

Data Sheets 1
Results 1
Part I 1
Part II 2
Part III 3
Part IV 3

Diagrams 4

Analysis 5
Explanations 6
Part I 6
Part II 7
Part III 7
Part IV 7
References 8

The Linux Directory Structure i

INTRODUCTION

This experiment involves working in the Linux shell and
the concept of directory tree structuring. It includes
navigating through the file structure and working with
files and directories.

Four parts make up this experiment:

Part I—deals with creating files and directories, changing
directories, and displaying directory contents.

Part II—works on various directory listing options and
the comparison between the list command options.
Part III—helps you understand the contents of the root
directory.

Part IV—determines the best way to remove a directory.

The Linux Directory Structure ii

1
LABORATORY SHEETS
LABORATORY EXPERIMENT II

LEHMAN COLLEGE Procedures
Of the City University of New York
Experiment 2: The Directory Structure
The procedures on this page represent the tasks to
Objective: To study the concept of directory tree structuring
complete, in four parts. Some tasks require simple
Procedure: Part I.
explanations, while others need a more detailed analysis.
1. Login to your working directory.
2. Make a subdirectory under your working directory. In the next section, each sheet is revisited for clarity.
• Use your name as the subdirectory name with a “01” at the end of your
name.
I.e. “your name”01.
• Use the mkdir command to create the directory. i.e. mkdir john01
3. Make another subdirectory under your home directory and use 02 at the
end of your name
4. Change directory to the “your name”01 directory.
5. Create a file in the “your name”01 directory.
6. Return to your home directory.
How did you return to your home directory?
NOTE: You were just given instruction to perform functions. You find the
commands needed to perform the functions.
7. Enter the command ls -l.
How do you tell a directory from an ordinary file?
8. Enter the command ls.
Sheet 1-1 Experiment procedures (Part I).

Part II.
1. Type the command ls -1.
2. Type the command ls -al.
What do you notice between the two commands? Did you notice any new
files or directories?
3. Type the commands ls -F.
What do you notice about the command?
4. Copy the file from “your name”01 to the directory “your name”02.
5. Change directory to “your name”02.
6. Copy the file from your home directory to the present directory.
How did you perform this task? How did you perform the task in step 4?
Explain, in detail, as to whether you used relative or absolute path
movement. Explain the difference between the two.
Sheet 1-2 Experiment procedures (Part II).

Part III.
1. Change directory to the root directory. i.e. cd /.
3. Explain and discuss the files and directories you find.
Sheet 1-3 Experiment procedures (Part III).

Part IV.
1. Return to your home directory
2. Type the command rm “your name”02. What happened?
3. Type the command rm -r “your name”02. What happened?
4. Explain, in detail, the difference between rm and rm -r commands.
Sheet 1-4 Experiment procedures (Part IV).

The Linux Directory Structure iii

2
DATA SHEETS

Procedures—Part I. Results
1. Login to your working directory.
2. Make a subdirectory under your working directory. This section contains results to the procedures presented
• Use your name as the subdirectory name with a “01” at the end of your name.
I.e. “your name”01. on the laboratory sheets in the previous section. The
• Use the mkdir command to create the directory. i.e. mkdir john01 Analysis section provides in-depth explanations to
3. Make another subdirectory under your home directory and use 02 at the end of your
name various questions.
4. Change directory to the “your name”01 directory.
6. Return to your home directory. Part I
How did you return to your home directory? Below are results for Part I (Sheet 2-1) of the experiment.
commands needed to perform the functions. 1. I logged into my working directory using my current
username and password shown in Output 2-1.





Output 2-1 Login screen (including password prompt).

2. mkdir Alex01
3. mkdir Alex02
4. cd Alex01
5. I utilized the cat command to create a file (Output 2-2).

Output 2-2 Utilizing cat to create a file.

6. cd $HOME
7. Output 2-3 displays results of the ls -l command.

Output 2-3 Results of the ls -l command (issued in home directory).

8. The ls command displays results shown in Output 2-4.

Output 2-4 Results of the ls command (issued in my home directory).

The Linux Directory Structure 1

Data Sheets

Procedures—Part II. Part II
1. Type the command ls -1. Below are results for Part II (Sheet 2-2) of the experiment.

What do you notice between the two commands? Did you notice any new files or 1. The ls -l command displays results shown in
directories?
Output 2-3 on the previous page.
2. The ls -al command displays results shown in
What do you notice about the command? Output 2-5.

How did you perform this task? How did you perform the task in step 4? Explain, in
detail, as to whether you used relative or absolute path movement. Explain the
difference between the two.


Output 2-5 Results of the ls -al command.

3. The ls -F command displays results shown in
Output 2-6.

Output 2-6 Results of the ls -F command.

4. cp Alex01/CDFILE Alex02
5. cd Alex02
6. cp ~/CONNECT CONNECT


Data Sheets

Procedures—Part III. Part III
1. Change directory to the root directory. i.e. cd /. Below are results for Part III (Sheet 2-3) of the experiment.
1. cd /.
2. The ls -al command displays results shown in
Procedures—Part IV.
Output 2-7.


Output 2-7 Results of the ls -al command.

3. Most of the files and directories contained in the root
directory (Output 2-7) are standard to the Linux
operating system (See Diagram 3-1 on page 4).
Part IV
Below are results for Part IV (Sheet 2-4) of the experiment.
1. cd ~.
2. The rm Alex02 command displays results shown in
Output 2-8.

Output 2-8 Results of the rm Alex command.

3. The rm -r Alex02 command removes the Alex02
directory.
4. See Analysis section.


3
DIAGRAMS

Root Directory Structure

Purpose File/Directory File/Directory Purpose

Current directory . bin Contains executable files

Parent directory .. boot Contains the files needed to boot Linux

Contains device driver files, mainly for hardware
Automatic file system check autofsck dev
devices

Used mainly by the system administrator for host-
automount automount etc
specific files and directories

Contains old commands .bash_history home Contains the user’s home directories

Contains fonts .fonts_cache-1 initrd Loads drivers necessary to the system1

Contains files or an archive for programs, such as
lib
C, C++, or FORTRAN

Contains files not connected to any directory A
lost+found
fsck (file system check) is used to trace these files

Contains source and executables of a number of
misc
programs needed for the installation2

Used by the administrator to mount file systems
mnt
with the mount command

opt Contains add-on software packages

pgsql pgsql

proc Contains process and system information

root Usually acts as the home directory

Contains system administrator commands and
sbin
utilities

tftpboot tftpboot

Contains temporary files, which could be used by
tmp
the user also

Contains information that can be shared between
usr
users

Contains data the changes while the system is
var
running
Diagram 3-1 Root directory structure.

Notes:
1. A Detailed Look at the Boot Process: http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/ref-guide/s1-boot-init-shutdown-process.html
2. Linux.com—Anatomy of the Red Hat FTP site: http://www.linux.com/howtos/RedHat-CD-HOWTO/redhat-ftp-site.shtml


4
ANALYSIS

Procedures—Part I. This section contains a more detailed discussion of the
1. Login to your working directory. results presented in the Data Sheets' section. It also notes
2. Make a subdirectory under your working directory. any discoveries or errors encountered during the
• Use your name as the subdirectory name with a “01” at the end of your name.
I.e. “your name”01. experiment.
• Use the mkdir command to create the directory. i.e. mkdir john01
3. Make another subdirectory under your home directory and use 02 at the end of your
name Some questions presented straightforward results;
4. Change directory to the “your name”01 directory. therefore, I only note questions that need explanations.
6. Return to your home directory. The procedures (Sheets 1–4) listed to the left revisit the
How did you return to your home directory? tasks for each part. It may assist you in locating the task
mentioned in the explanations.
commands needed to perform the functions.






Procedures—Part II.

1. Type the command ls -1.

What do you notice between the two commands? Did you notice any new files or
directories?


What do you notice about the command?


How did you perform this task? How did you perform the task in step 4? Explain, in
detail, as to whether you used relative or absolute path movement. Explain the
difference between the two.


Procedures—Part III.

1. Change directory to the root directory. i.e. cd /.


Procedures—Part IV.




Analysis

Explanations
Part I
1. Task 1:
Once I login, my system defaults to the home
Output 4-1 Results of the ls l command. It lists the directory directory; therefore, my experiments start in the
contents in long format. The first column displays the file attributes. home directory.
2. Task 5:
Although the cat command concatenates files or
show contents of a file, it can also create files with
the '>' symbol (243). To create the new file—
CDFILE—I used the code below:

cat > CDFILE <Enter>
This file was created using the 'cat' command. <Enter>
<ctrl-d>

Discovery: The touch command (A-74), given by a
hint from the professor, also creates a file. If a file
does not exist, it can be created with the following
syntax:

touch CDFILE <Enter>

3. Task 6:
I used cd $HOME to return to the home directory.
cd ~ also returns to the home directory.

4. Task 7:
ls -l lists directory contents in long format. To
distinguish between files and directories, look at the
first item in the attribute list. A directory usually
displays a 'd' and a file displays a '-' (Output 4-1).

5. Task 8:
The ls command lists the directory contents. In this
list, directories are usually a different color, such as
blue. However, not all systems display color-coded
directories.

Discovery: When I login from a Microsoft Windows
system via Telnet, no color-coded distinction
between files and directories appears with the ls
command. Therefore, I would have to use ls -l or
another option to distinguish between the two.


Analysis

Part II
1. Task 2:
The ls -al command lists all contents in long format,
Output 4-2 Results of the ls -F command. including hidden files.
2. Task 3:
Output 4-2 revisits the ls -F command (174). It
displays '/' after directories, '*' after binary
executables, and '@' after symbolic links.

Output 4-3 Results of the rm Alex command. Discovery: Text files contain no symbol.

3. Task 6:
Absolute paths move directly from the root directory
to the target directory without shortcuts or skipping
any subdirectories. All absolute paths start with the
'/' symbol.

Absolute path example:
cd /home/brw05/Alex02

Relative paths do not start with the '/' symbol.

Relative path example:
cd ../../Alex02

Part III
1. Task 3:
Please see Diagram 3-1 on page 4.

Part IV
1. Task 2:
Because the rm Alex02 command attempted to
remove a directory, an error (Output 4-3) occurs.

2. Task 3:
The rm -r Alex02 command removed the Alex02
directory.

3. Task 4:
The rm command removes files. It will not remove
a directory without any arguments.

The rm -r removes a directory and the files in it.

Discovery: rmdir also removes a directory.
However, the directory has to be empty first. The
rmdir and rm -r commands will 'not' work if you
are in the current directory.


Analysis

References
1. Sarwar, Syed Mansoor, Robert Koretsky, Syed
Aqeel Sarwar. Linux: The Textbook. Boston:
Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 2002.


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