Introduction to UNIX

Basic knowledge on Unix OS

Topics.
Logging in. Unix Shells and useful shell commands. File System in Unix. Program, Process and Process control. Inter-process communication. Compiling and debugging C programs. Editors.
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UNIX
UNIX is multi-user and multi-tasking operating system. Multi-tasking: Multiple processes can run concurrently. Example, different users can read mails, copy files, and print all at once.

Logging In
Enter login name and password ! System password file: /etc/passwd (usually). You can change password using the command: passwd.

Shell
After a successful login, the shell program is run. The default shell of bingsuns: tcsh bingsun2% ps PID TTY TIME CMD 2159 pts/2 0:00 tcsh Shell is a command line interpreter that reads user commands and executes them.
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Unix Shells
Common Shells: Bourne shell, the C shell, and the Korn shell. The shell on bingsuns is tcsh (tc shell). Users can switch between shells, using the commands bash, csh, ksh, sh. Control D (^d) to return back to original shell, or just use the command: exit.
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Some shell commands

Most Important command: man (manual pages). Help: unix commands, C functions. Usage: man <command/function> Try man man ! Example: man ls, man passwd, man printf.
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Some shell commands (cont)

pwd: working directory (/u0/users/2/kliu1). ls: list contents of directory mkdir <dir-name>: make directory rmdir <dir-name>: remove an empty directory rm r <dir-name>: remove a directory with all the contents cd <directory>: change directory, ~/ means your home directory cp <source> <target>: copy command.
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Some shell commands (cont)

chmod <mode> <filename>: change mode of a file/directory ls l <directory or filename>: long list with details 9 permission bits: d r w x r w x r w x 3 categories: user/group/all. Permissions: read/write/execute (r/w/x). E.g.: mode= 644 means r w _ r_ _ r _ _ command: chmod 644 <filename> first 3 bits for user. Next group. Next all others.
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Some shell commands (cont)

rm <option> <filename>: remove files e.g.: rm fr directory/filename mv <old> <new>: change the name of a file Pipes: Connect the stdout of one command with the stdin of another command e.g.: ls -l | more or ls l | less
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File System
Hierarchical arrangement of files and directories. Top level: root or / e.g.: cd /

. Current directory, .. One level higher directory

e.g.: cd . No change for it is current directory or cd .. Change to parent directory.

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File System (cont)

Pathname: absolute and relative. Absolute pathname: /u0/users/2/kliu1 Relative pathname: abc.

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Editors.
Different editors: emacs, pico, vi emacs <filename> pico <filename> vi <filename>

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The easiest editor: pico or nano

pico <filename> Full screen editor Help on the bottom of the screen The nano is an extension to the pico

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Basic operations in pico

Ctrl + v : to move page down Ctrl + y : to move page up Ctrl + o : to save the current buffer Ctrl + x : to exit with or without saving Ctrl + g : to get help Ctrl + r : to open a file Ctrl + w : to find a string in the current buffer Ctrl + c : to get the current position in the buffer
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Program & Process

Program is an executable file that resides on the disk. Process is an executing instance of a program. A Unix process is identified by a unique non-negative integer called the process ID. Check process status using the ps command.
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Foreground/background processes
A program run using the ampersand operator & creates a background process. E.g.: bingsun2% back & otherwise it creates a foreground process. E.g.: bingsun2% back
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Foreground/background processes
Only 1 foreground process for each session. Multiple background processes. Where are background processes used? All system daemons, long user processes, etc. e.g. printer-daemon process or mailer-daemon process. These processes are always running in background. Pine is foreground process.
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Process Status
bingsun2% back & [1] 16488 the process id assigned by system bingsun2% ps PID TTY TIME CMD 1973 pts/39 0:01 tcsh 16488 pts/39 0:00 back
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How to stop a process?

Foreground processes can generally be stopped by pressing CONTROL C (^C). Background processes can be stopped using the kill command. Usage: kill SIGNAL <process id list> kill -9 <process id list> (-9 means no blocked) Or kill <process id list>. If a foreground process is not stopping by ^C, you can open another session and use the kill command.
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