Unix Fundamentals

This Unix Operating System and Shell Programming training course introduces the delegate to the main concepts of the UNIX Operating System. The most commonly used unix commands are described in detail as are the command line wildcard and redirection facilities. The mechanisms by which a user acquires a login environment are discussed and the main features of the Korn/Posix/Bash Shells are introduced. It is designed to give delegates practical experience in developing and writing shellscripts. Most of the built-in unix shell commands are introduced together with the main program control structures.

Exercises and examples are used throughout the course to give practical hands-on experience with the techniques covered.

Course Prerequisites

• • For the UNIX Fundamentals course, there are no formal pre-requisites, although an understanding of and exposure to information technology and some programming experience may also prove advantageous.

Course Objectives

• • The aim of this course is to provide the skills needed to work productively in a UNIX environment to develop and customise shell programs. The delegate will learn and acquire skills as follows:
    
    
    The history of the UNIX and Linux operating systems
    Navigating and creating files and directories within the UNIX filesystem
    Navigating and searching manual pages
    Structuring commands
    File and directory management commands
    Using commands with logical AND and OR
    Shell redirection and pipe facilities
    Editing text files using the vi / Vim editor
    Customising the vi / Vim environment
    Searching and replacing text and regular expressions (regex)
    Recalling and editing commands with the Bash and Korn Shell
    Setting and changing file and directory permissions
    Creating hard and symbolic links
    Filtering and formatting text
    Monitoring and killing processes and process priorities
    Configuring the Shell environment and variables
    The find and locate commands
    Further basic commands
    Writing simple scripts to enhance basic command output
    Using the various shell quoting mechanisms appropriately
    Manipulating shell variables and user-defined variables in scripts
    Implementing conditional execution facilities
    Using the shell's built-in loop constructs where appropriate
    Writing scripts to trap user interrupts
    User defined Functions
    Developing menu-driven shellscripts
    

Target Audience for this Course

• • Programmers, administrators and support personnel who need to understand the UNIX Operating system, existing shellscripts, automate procedures and write their own utilities.

Included with this course

• • Comprehensive course materials and exercises

Unix Fundamentals Course Content

• Session 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM

  A brief history of UNIX / Linux
  The UNIX / Linux kernel
  The UNIX / Linux file system structure
  File and directory management commands
  Absolute vs Relative Pathnames
  Further basic commands

• Session 2: BASIC COMMANDS

  Command line syntax
  Basic file handling commands
  Basic Directory handling commands
  Filename wildcard characters
  Using commands with logical AND and OR
  Sequential command execution

• Session 3: REDIRECTION AND PIPES

  Input and Output redirection
  Redirecting errors
  Piping commands

• Session 4: INTRODUCTION TO THE vi/Vim EDITOR

  Overview of the vi/Vim editor
  The language of vi
  Undoing and Redoing changes
  Input Mode and Last Line Mode
  Further vi functions
  Executing commands within vi / Vim
  Customising the vi / Vim Environment
  Getting Help

• Session 5: SEARCHING AND REPLACING TEXT

  Searching and replacing text using the vi/Vim editor
  Using regular expressions (regex)
  Using sed for search and replace
  Searching for text with grep, egrep and fgrep

• Session 6: RECALLING AND EDITING COMMANDS

  Overview
  The bash shell
  The korn shell

• Session 7: FILE PERMISSIONS AND ACCESS CONTROL

  Users and user groups
  File access permissions
  Changing file attributes
  Switching users and user groups
  Linking files

• Session 8: FILTERING AND FORMATTING TEXT

  Overview
  The paste command
  The cut command
  An introduction to awk
  The nl command

• Session 9: PROCESSES

  What is a process?
  Monitoring processes
  Killing processes
  Background processes
  Job Control
  Grouping commands

• Session 10: THE USER ENVIRONMENT

  Customising the .profile or .bash_profile
  Customising the .kshrc or .bashrc

• Session 11: MORE BASIC COMMANDS

  The find command
  Using xargs command
  The locate command
  The df command
  The cut command
  The sort command
  Finding duplicate content
  Number sequencing

• Session 12: UNIX COMMAND REVIEW

  Basic Unix commands
  General commands
  File and directory handling commands
  Filename generation and regular expression characters
  I/O Redirection features
  Other commands

• Session 13: GETTING STARTED

  What is a shell script?
  Development guidelines
  Creating and editing shell scripts
  Naming and storing shell scripts
  Executing shell scripts

• Session 14: USING VARIABLES

  Environment variables
  Local variables
  Assigning values to variables
  Assessing variable values
  Using quotes
  Delimiting variable names
  Echo control sequences

• Session 15: INTEGER ARITHMETIC

  Using the expr command
  Using the (( )) notation

• Session 16: HANDLING RUN TIME DATA

  The read command
  Command line arguments

• Session 17: CONDITIONAL EXECUTION

  The if statement
  The test command

• Session 18: ADDITIONAL KORN, BASH & POSIX SYNTAX

  Other test notations
  Default and substitute variables
  Exit status codes

• Session 19: LOOP CONSTRUCTS

  The while loop
  The until loop
  The for loop
  The while true and until false loops
  Loop control commands
  

• Session 20: MULTI-BRANCH DECISIONS

  The case statement
  Menu driven applications
  

• Session 21: FUNCTIONS

  What is a function?
  Syntax
  Examples

• Session 22: INTERRUPT HANDLING

  Interrupt signals
  Trapping interrupts

• Session 23: ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND FACILITIES

  The exec commands
  The includes notation
  More about loops
  Arrays
  Here Documents