Basic Unix Commands

Unix is Confusing, So Why Use It?

Simple Unix Commands

Logging In
Listing Files With ls
Listing Files Details With ls -al
What Directory Am I In? - pwd
Moving and Renaming Files With mv
Deleting Files With rm
Creating Directories With mkdir
Removing Directories With rm -r

Advanced Unix Commands

Connecting to Other Computers With telnet
Moving Files With ftp
Web browsing with Lynx
Editing Files With joe
Manual Pages

Unix is Confusing, So Why Use It?

Unix is the base language of the Internet, for better or worse. Most web servers, game servers, and other computers that you can connect to use Unix. It will be useful to know a few simple Unix commans to log in , delete files, and so on, though you may not need to know this stuff if all you want to do is play games.

Start Telnet/SSH

In order to use any Unix function such as Talk or Unix Mail, first you need to get a Unix Session and log in with your user name and password.

Mac's come with telnet and ssh built in. Start a terminal window and type "telnet hostname" or "ssh hostname" to start a session.

Windows users should use "putty". Instructions for LACC students are here.

Log In

Here is a sample of how to start a telnet session at Brand X internet. We are assuming that you have already connected with a program such as PUTTY.

login: jimp
Password:
Last login: Sat Nov 11 17:40:28 from 204.137.205.102
Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
Copyright (c) 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994
The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.

cellini %

Note the parts of the session: login, I type my username, then password, I answer with my (secret) password, then the computer comes back with the date, the copyright of the operating system, a note that I have some mail and a cute quote before brining up the system prompt (in this case it's "cellini" but this varies from computer to computer even at Brand X Internet.)

Simple Unix Commands

These examples show in a practical way how to use some of the basic Berkeley Unix commands on the Brand X system.

Logging In

To log in you need to use your username and password. Here's an example. Note that the password is not echoed, but you do have to type it in. Note also that you can not use a PPP username to log in to Unix session.

BSDI BSD/OS 2.0 (brandx.net) (ttyp1)

login: jimp
Password:
Last login: Sun Aug  4 17:23:32 from A00.brandx.net
Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
Copyright (c) 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994
        The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.

BSDI BSD/OS 2.0 Kernel #0: Fri Feb  3 17:51:37 MST 1995

Use of this software is governed by the BSDI End User Software License.

Brand X %

Listing Files With ls

ls is used to list out files. Here's an example:

Brand X % ls
.README                 .Xresources-mosaic      .mailrc
.Xmodmap                .Xresources-xterm       .profile
Brand X %

Listing Files Details With ls -al

This command lists out the files with dates and sizes.

Brand X % ls -al
total 76
drwxr-xr-x     2 david  user     512 Jul 10 22:21 .
drwxrwxr-x  1352 root   wheel  22016 Aug  3 17:00 ..
-rw-r--r--     1 david  user    2046 Apr  4 22:29 .README
-rw-r--r--     1 david  user    1262 Jul 10 21:06 .cshrc
-rw-r--r--     1 david  user    1951 Apr  4 22:29 .fvwmfmgr
Brand X %

As you look at the above file listings, you will see the following columns:

access permissions, owner, group, size, modification date, name For example, check the listings for .README:

Access: -rw-r--r--
Owner: david  
Group: user    
Size: 2046 
Modification Date: Apr  4 22:29 
Name: .README

What Directory Am I In? - pwd
This command tells you what directory you are in. Here's an example:
Moving and Renaming Files With mv
Mv is short for "move" and this is what "mv" is used for. When you move a file you need to give both the current name/location and the new name/location. Here's an example, where we have renamed a file by moving it without actually going to a new location:
Note that when we listed out the files, we found the file was there with the new name.
Deleting Files With rm
This is the Unix equivalent of the DOS delete command.
Note that when we listed the files, it showed nothing.

Creating Directories With mkdir

You can create new directories in areas that you own. Here's an example of creating a directory.

Brand X % mkdir testdirectory
Brand X % ls -al
total 77
drwxr-xr-x     3 jimp  wheel    512 Aug  4 18:22 .
drwxrwxr-x  1352 root  wheel  22016 Aug  3 17:00 ..
drwxr-xr-x     2 jimp  wheel    512 Aug  4 18:22 testdirectory

Removing Directories With rm -r
This deletes a directory and all the files and subdirectories in it. Make sure you know what you are doing before you use it! In this example we will remove the directory we just created above with the mkdir command.

Advanced Unix Commands

These pages aren't installed yet, but I will type them up soon.

Connecting to Other Computers With telnet
Type "telnet hostname" to connect to another host.
Moving Files With ftp
FTP is a useful program for moving files from one computer to another. Documentation is currently in progress.
Editing Files With Joe text editor
There is a separate document showing how to useJoe, the text editor we provide with BSD Unix on the Brand X system.
Web browsing with LYNX
Type "lynx www.yahoo.com" to start lynx and go to that website.
Use the arrow keys or enter to go places. q=quit g=go to a page.
We will add more complete instructions later.
Manual Pages
You can find out information on any Unix command by using the "man: command. For example, to find out all of the details of usage of the ftp program, you would type "man ftp" at the Brand X prompt.

Homework
Log into the server as described here and create a text file with "joe". Call your file "myname.html" where you should replace "myname" with your name WITH NO SPACES IN IT.
For example I will call my file "jimpickrell.html"
So to start joe for this file I will type
```
joe jimpickrell.html
```
Once you have started the file, you will type up a short bio page. Include your name, your email address, your hometown, your education, your occupation.
Then add some personal information: Your hobbies, your favorite storts teams, your favorite food and restauarant.
Finally add some things you don't like, for example, I don't like eating vegetables and I don't like parking tickets.
We will format this as a web page. That means you should type formatting commands before things that need to be formatted. For example the header should look like this:
```
(h1)Header(/h1)

And you should put (P) at the end of each paragraph.
```
Note: I have substituted parenthesis, you should use angle brackets in the above examples.
Finally view your new web page Here If the page looks good then you are doing well!