Tutorial2: Unix / Linux File Management

UNIX / LINUX FILE MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS

Main Objectives of this Practice Tutorial

• Understand the Purpose of the Unix / Linux Directory Structure.

• List Common Directories that are Contained in a Typical Unix / Linux Filesystem

• Use Common Unix / Linux Commands to Perform Directory Management Tasks.

• Use Common Unix / Linux Commands to Perform Text File Management Tasks.

• Using Text Editors to Create and Manipulate Text Files
  
  

Tutorial Reference Material

Course Notes	Linux Command/Shortcut Reference		YouTube Videos
Course Notes: PDF | PPTX Tutorials: Vi Reference Sheet Les Czegel's Week 2 Notes (HTML)	File Management pwd cd ls tree mkdir rmdir cp mv rm , rm -r	Text Editors / File Content vi , *nano cat more , less touch file find diff sort uniq grep	Brauer Instructional Videos: Basic File Actions (touch, ls -l, cp, cp -r, mv, mkdir, mkdir -p, rm, rmdir, rm -r)

Unix / Linux Directories

In Unix / Linux (as opposed to MS Windows), there are no drive letters (such as C:, or D:).

All files and directories appear under a single ancestor directory called "the root directory".

A path points to a file system location by following the directory tree hierarchy expressed in a string of characters in which path components, separated by a delimiting character, represent each directory. The delimiting character is most commonly the slash ("/").

The Unix/Linux file system is hierarchical, similar to other operating systems such as
Windows, Mac OSX, etc. Files are organized in directories. Directories may contain sub-directories.

In Unix / Linux (as opposed to MS Windows), there are no drive letters (such as C:, or D:). All files and directories appear under a single ancestor directory called the "root directory".

Learning how to issue Linux commands for navigating the Linux filesystem and manipulating directory and files are essential skills for Linux users and administrators.

In the Linux (Unix) OS, the "root directory" / is the starting directory, and other "child directories", "grandchild directories", etc. are created The hierarchical structure resembles an "upside- down tree". There is actually a command called tree that can display a "tree diagram"!

Directory Pathnames

A path, the general form of the name of a file or directory, specifies a unique location in a file system. A path points to a file system location by following the directory tree hierarchy expressed in a string of characters in which path components, separated by a delimiting character, represent each directory. The delimiting character is most commonly the slash ("/").

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_(computing)

The following table displays and defines commonly used directories
(listed by directory pathname) for for ALL Unix / Linux Filesystems:

Please take a few moments to review these pathnames.

Commonly used directories (listed by directory pathname)
for for ALL Unix / Linux Filesystems.

Directory Pathname	Purpose
/	Root directory (ancestor to all directories)
/home	Used to store users’ home directories
/home/username	A specific User's Home Directory
/bin	Common system binaries (commands)
/usr/bin	Common utilities (commands) for users.
/usr/sbin	Common utilities for system administration
/etc	System administration files (eg. passwd)
/var	Dynamic files (log and mail files)
/tmp , /var/tmp	Temporary files for programs
/dev	Device driver files (terminals, printers, etc.)

Every Seneca student enrolled in the IT program has an account created on the Matrix server. When a student logs into this account, they are directed to their home directory. This directory is where the user can store files, and create subdirectories to organize their files.

We will now learn to create and manage subdirectories within your own home directory.

INVESTIGATION 1: MANAGING DIRECTORIES

In this investigation, you will learn to manage directories including their creation, navigation, listing contents and removal.

Directory File Naming Rules

Before learning to create directories, it is important to understand what represents an appropriate directory filename.

Some of the basic file-naming rules are:

• Unix/Linux characters are case sensitive. It is recommended to be consistent (e.g. use all lowercase letters)
• Adopt a consistent directory naming scheme – this will help you to navigate within your directory structure
• Make your directory names meaningful
• Avoid non-alphanumeric characters, as they may have a special meaning to the system that will make your work more difficult when changing to directories, etc.
• Avoid using spaces for directory names – consider periods, hyphens, and underscores instead

Part 1: Creating Directories

Tree Diagram of Directory Structure to Create in your Home Directory (displayed in blue text).

Creating subdirectories within your home directory makes it more efficient to save and access files on your Linux server.

A comparison would be rooms in a house. If there were no rooms, just one large room in a 3,000 square foot house, it would be "messy" and difficult to locate items. Each room in a house is used to for a specific purpose to be more productive to perform a task such as a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, etc.

You would like to create a directory structure within your home directory as displayed in the diagram on the right aide.

You should note from the previous section that the root directory is the
"starting point" in the Matrix file system, that the home directory is used to store all Matrix user accounts by their userid, and that your userid contained within the home directory represents YOUR home directory where you can create files (both directory files, text files, etc).

Perform the Following Steps:

1. Login your matrix account.
   
   
2. Issue a command to confirm you are located in your home directory. You should know how to do this from the previous tutorial.
   
   
3. Issue the following Linux command: mkdir uli101
   
   NOTE: You should always confirm that you have created a directory.
   This can be done by issuing the ls command.
   
   
   

   Creating and Confirming the Creation of a Directory.
4. Issue the following Linux command: ls uli101
   
   There are no contents that are contained in this newly-created directory; therefore, no contents appear. A useful option -d can be used to confirm that the actual directory has been created as opposed to viewing the contents of the directory.
   
   
5. Issue the following Linux command: ls -d uli101
   
   You should now see just the directory listed. You can also combine the -d and -l options to provide more detail regarding the newly-created directory.
   
   
6. Issue the following Linux command:ls -d -l uli101
   
   How can you confirm from the output of this command that the file uli101 is a directory?
   
   
7. Issue the following Linux command:ls -ld uli101
   
   Is the output from this command the same was the output from the previous command?
   If so, what does this say about how to use multiple options for Linux commands?
   
   
8. Issue the following Linux command to create the acp100 and xyz100 directories:mkdir acp100 xyz100
   
   NOTE: You should notice that you can create multiple directories by issuing the mkdir with multiple arguments.
   
   
9. Issue the following Linux command to confirm that those directories have been created: ls -ld acp100 xyz100
   
   
10. We will now create the subdirectories that are contained in the uli101 directory.
    Issue the following Linux command to move to the uli101 directory: cd uli101
    
    
11. Issue a command to confirm that your current location is in the uli101 directory.
    You should know how to issue this command from a previous tutorial.
    
    
12. Issue the following Linux command to create the directories called notes, tutorials and examples: mkdir notes tutorials examples
    
    
13. Issue a Linux command to confirm that those directories have been created. You should know how to do this...
    
    
14. This technique is considered to be inefficient. There are options and ways to create the same directory structure without using the cd command and only issue a single Linux command.
    
    Using this inefficient method tends to show that you are a novice or "newbie", and you may lose marks if you issue multiple Linux commands to performed tasks that can be performed using only a single Linux command.
    
    Although we will teach you how to remove directories and their contents in a future section, let's change back to your home directory and issue a command to remove the directory structure that you just created so you can learn a more efficient method of creating the same directory structure.
    
    
15. Issue Linux commands to move to your home directory and confirm that your current directory is your home directory. You should know how to do this...
    
    
16. Issue the following Linux command to remove all of the directories that you have created:
    rm -r uli101 acp100 xyz100
    
    NOTE: You will learn how to safely remove directories and their contents in another section.
    
    
17. Issue the following single Linux command to create the entire directory structure:
    mkdir -p uli101/notes uli101/tutorials uli101/examples acp100 xyz100
    
    NOTE: The -p option allows "parent" directories to be automatically created first to then create their subdirectories.
    
    
18. Issue the following Linux command to confirm that all of the directories have been created:
    ls -ld uli101 uli101/notes uli101/tutorials uli101/examples acp100 xyz100
    
    

Downloading & Running a Shell Script to Check your Work

Although you are being asked to create the directory structure, you might have made some mistakes:
For Example:

• Forgetting to create a directory.
• Making Syntax errors (eg. spelling or mixing up character case)
• Not creating subdirectories within specified directories.

If all all check pass, then user performed task correctly and can continue.

If there is a warning, then feedback is provided to user to correct and re-run checking script.

To check that you haven't made mistakes so you won't encounter problems in the next section a shell script has been created to check your work. If the checking shell script detects an error, then it will provide feedback and offer constructive feedback on how to fix that problem so you can re-run the checking shell scripts until your work is correct.

Perform the Following Steps:

1. Make certain that your current directory is your home directory.
   
   
2. Issue the following Linux command to download a shell script to your home directory that will check your work:
   wget https://matrix.senecacollege.ca/~murray.saul/uli101/week1-check-1
   
   
3. Run the checking script to check your work by issuing the following:
   bash week1-check-1
   
   

Part 2: Viewing Directory Contents / Copying & Moving Directories

Now that you have learned how to efficiently create your directory structure, you will now learn how to issue Linux commands to view contents contained in directories, as well as copy and move directories.

Perform the Following Steps:

Output of the tree command to display directory structure.

Output of the ls -lR command to display directory structure.

1. Issue the following Linux command: tree
   
   NOTE: You should see the directory structure that you created in the previous section. You can also issue the tree command using a directory pathname to display the directory structure for a specific scope.
   
   You can also use the -R option for the ls command to display all directories and subdirectories for a specified directory path (referred to as a recursive directory listing).
   
   
2. Issue the following Linux command: ls -lR
   
   What directories do you see?
   
   
3. Issue the following Linux command: ls -lR uli101
   
   Note the differences between both of these commands.
   
   You can copy and move entire directories (and their contents) to other directories.
   
   

   Output of the tree command to confirm copy of uli101 directory (and contents) to the xyz directory.

   Output of the tree command to confirm movement of acp100 directory directory (and contents) to the xyz diredtory.

4. Issue the following Linux command:
   cp -R uli101 xyz100
   
   
5. Issue the following Linux command to display the directory structure of your home directory to confirm you copied the uli101 directory:
   tree
   
   
6. Issue the following Linux command:
   mv acp100 xyz100/uli101/tutorials
   
   
7. Issue the following Linux command to display the directory structure of your home directory to confirm you copied the uli101 directory:
   tree
   
   Let's download and run a checking script to see if you moved and copied the directories correctly.
   
   
8. Make certain that your current directory is your home directory.
   
   
9. Issue the following Linux command to download a shell script to your home directory that will check your work:
   wget https://matrix.senecacollege.ca/~murray.saul/uli101/week1-check-2
   
   
10. Run the checking script to check your work by issuing the following:
    bash week1-check-2
    
    

Part 3: Removing Directories

In this section, we will learn how to safely remove directories and their contents.

Perform the Following Steps:

1. Confirm that you are located in your home directory.
   
   The rmdir command is used to remove empty directories.
   
   
2. Issue the following Linux command to remove the empty directory called uli101/tutorials: rmdir uli101/tutorials
   
   
3. Issue the following Linux command to remove the empty directory called uli101: rmdir uli101
   
   NOTE: You should get an error message, since the uli101 directory is NOT empty.
   
   To remove non-empty directories, you can use the rm -r command.
   The -r option stands for recursive, which can travel down the directory paths and their contents.
   
   
4. Issue the following Linux command to remove the uli101 directory and its contents: rm -r uli101
   
   
5. Issue the tree command to confirm that the uli101 directory (contained in your home directory) and its contents have been removed.
   
   NOTE: To safely remove non-empty directories, you can add the -i option which will prompt the user if they wish to remove contents as it your travel recursively down a directory to remove directories and their contents.
   
   
6. Issue the following Linux command (entering "y" when prompted): rm -ri xyz100
   
   NOTE: You should have removed all directories that you have created.
   
   Let's download and run a checking script to see if you have removed all of the directories that you earlier created.
   
   
7. Make certain that your current directory is your home directory.
   
   
8. Issue the following Linux command to download a shell script to your home directory that will check your work:
   wget https://matrix.senecacollege.ca/~murray.saul/uli101/week1-check-3
   
   
9. Run the checking script to check your work by issuing the following:
   bash week1-check-3
   
   

INVESTIGATION 2: MANAGING TEXT FILES

The Nano Text Editor is Easy to Operate for Novice Users.

The Vi Text Editor, although taking longer to master, has outstanding features and allow the user to be more productive.

Since students will be working in the Unix / Linux command line environment, it is useful for them to learn a least a couple of command-line text editors.

Although programming students can use graphical IDE's to code and compile programs, they can create source code using a text editor in the Linux system, and compile that source code to generate executable programs (without having to transfer them for compilation or execution).

Networking and Tech Support students would find a text editor useful to edit configuration files. These students in upper grades will become familiar with the process of installing, configuring, and running network services and text editors are an important tools
to help setup but also "tweak" or make periodic changes to those networking services.

A general rule is for a student to expose themselves to a number of different text editors and then use one that they feel most comfortable working with. The two most readily-available command line text editors in Linux are Nano and Vi. The Nano text editor would seem like an easier-to-use text editor, but Vi (although taking longer to learn) has outstanding features and allow the user to be more productive.

Part 1: Creating Text Files Using The Nano Text Editor

Enter the following text that appears in this diagram.

The tutorial for using this text editor will be very basic including entering, editing, saving text.

Perform the Following Steps:

1. Create the following directory structure (displayed on the right side) by issuing a single Linux command:
   
   
2. Issue the following Linux command to edit a text file called mytext.txt in the linux/practice directory:
   nano uli101/practice/mytext.txt
   
   NOTE: When using the Nano text editor, you are placed in INPUT mode, so you can enter text immediately.
   
   
3. Enter the lines shown in the other diagram of the nano text editor on the right side.
   
   NOTE: The ^ symbol represents press the <ctrl> followed by a character.
   
   
4. To save your editing session, press: <ctrl><x>
   
   
5. You will be prompted to modify your file: type the letter y for yes.
   
   
6. The name of the file will be displayed: press ENTER.
   
   NOTE: This prompt for file name allows you to change the name of the file if you wish. By pressing ENTER, it will accept the default filename.
   
   
7. Refer to the table below for a list of the most common editing commands:
   
   

   Keyboard Combination	Purpose
   <ctrl><k>	Cut line
   <alt><M><^>	Copy Line
   <ctrl><u>	Paste Cut/Copied Text

   
   

   Part 2: Creating Text Files Using The Vi Text Editor

   

   The online vi-tutorial provides users "hands-on" experience of using the vi text editor.

   An online tutorial was created two decades ago to provide you "hands-on" experience in using the Vi text editor. It is recommended that you run this online tutorial in your Matrix account to learn how to create and edit text files with the Vi text editor.

   
   Perform the Following Steps:

   1. Issue the following to run the Vi online tutorial:
      /home/murray.saul/vi-tutorial
      
      
   2. In the tutorial menu, select the first menu item labelled "USING THE VI TEXT EDITOR"
      
      
   3. Read and follow the instructions in the tutorial. Eventually, you will be in the simulated Vi environment and will receive step-by-step instructions on how to use this text editor.
      
      
   4. When you have completed that section, you will be returned to the main menu. If you want to get extra practice, you can select the menu item labelled "REVIEW EXERCISE".
      
      
   5. When you want to exit the tutorial, select the menu option to exit the tutorial.
      
      

   Part 3: Manage Text File Content

   We finish this tutorial by learning to use commands that manage the content contained instead text files whether it relate to to viewing file content or manipulating file content.

   Perform the Following Steps:

   1. In your Matrix account, issue the following command:
      ~uli101/assign1
      
      
   2. At the main menu, select menu option 2 labelled Basic Unix Commands.
      
      NOTE: In the previous tutorial it recommended that you complete parts 1'Bold text', 2 and 3 from this section. You need to now complete parts 4, 5 and 6 of this section to learn about Linux commands that manage text file content.
      
      
   3. Complete parts 4 to 6 in this sedtion which are respectively labelled: Managing Files , Accessing Files and Review Exercise.
      
      
   4. Proceed to the next section to perform additional practice. After you have completed next week's tutorial, you should be able to perform the remainder of assignment #1, but you need to get a lot of practice with directory and file management. Therefore, you should answer all of the questions in the next review section.
      
      

   LINUX PRACTICE QUESTIONS

   The purpose of this section is to obtain extra practice to help with quizzes, your midterm, and your final exam.

   Here is a link to the MS Word Document of ALL of the questions displayed below but with extra room to answer on the document to simulate a quiz:

   https://ict.senecacollege.ca/~murray.saul/uli101/uli101_week2_practice.docx

   Your instructor may take-up these questions during class. It is up to the student to attend classes in order to obtain the answers to the following questions. Your instructor will NOT provide these answers in any other form (eg. e-mail, etc).

   
   Review Questions:

   
   1. Write a single Linux command to create the directory structure starting from your home directory from the diagram displayed on the right.
   2. Write a Linux command to display a detailed listing of history directory.
      How would this command differ if you wanted to also view hidden files as well?
      
   3. Write a Linux command to change to the project directory.
      What command would you issue to return to your home directory?
      
   4. Write a Linux command to copy the project directory and its contents to the history directory.
   5. Write a Linux command to move the directory called directories to the history directory.
   6. Write a Linux command to remove both directories called 1 and 2.
   7. Write a Linux command to remove the concepts directory and its contents.
   8. Write a Linux command to remove the concepts directory and prompt the user if they want to remove this directory’s contents.
   9. Write a single Linux command to create the following empty files in the concepts directory:
      myfile.txt
      yourfile.txt
      thefile.txt
      
      
   10. Write a Linux command to view the contents of the myfile.txt text file to prove it is empty.
       What is the difference between the commands: cat, more and less?
   11. Write a Linux command to sort the contents of a file called uli101/customers.txt
   12. Write a Linux command to display the first 4 lines of a file called uli101/customers.txt
   13. Write a Linux command to display the last line of a file called uli101/customers.txt
   14. Write a Linux command to match a line containing the pattern Linux in a file called uli101/customers.txt
   15. Write a Linux command to display unique occurrences of consecutive lines in a file called uli101/customers.txt
   16. Create a table listing each Linux command, useful options that are displayed near the top of this tutorial labelled: Tutorial Reference Material