Chapter 10 Unix Linux Operating System

 Subject Code: 10050402

 UNIX/LINUX OPERATING SYSTEM
Introduction to Unix
History of UNIX
What is LINUX
LINUX Distributions
Unix OS Structure
Unix File System
Unix Directories, Files and Inodes
Users, Groups and Permissions
 UNIX

 Unix is a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system.

 You can have many users logged into a
system simultaneously, each running many programs.
 It's the kernel's job to keep each process
and user separate and to regulate access to
system hardware, including cpu, memory, disk and
other I/O devices.
 History of UNIX

 First Version was created in Bell Labs in 1969.

 Some of the Bell Labs programmers who had
worked on this project, Ken Thompson, Dennis
Ritchie, Rudd Canaday, and Doug McIlroy
designed and implemented the first version of the
Unix File System on a PDP-7 along with a few utilities.
It was given the name UNIX by Brian Kernighan.
 [Link] Hours, Jan 1, 1970 is time zero for UNIX. It is
also called as epoch.
Introduction to Linux
History of UNIX

 1973 Unix is re-writtenmostly in

C, a new language developed by
Dennis Ritchie.
 Being written in this high-level language greatly
decreased the effort needed to port it to new
machines.
 History of UNIX

1977 There were about 500 Unix sites world-wide.

1980 BSD 4.1 (Berkeley Software Development)
1983 SunOS, BSD 4.2, System V
1988 AT&T and Sun Microsystems jointly develop System
V Release 4 (SVR4). This later developed into UnixWare
and Solaris 2.
1991 Linux was originated.
 What is LINUX

Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally

created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of
developers around the world.
It originated in 1991 as a personal project of Linus
Torvalds, a Finnish graduate student.
The Kernel version 1.0 was released in 1994 and today the
most recent stable version is 2.6.9
Developed under the GNU General Public License , the
source code for Linux is freely available to everyone.
 LINUX Distributions
Mandrake: [Link]
RedHat: [Link]
Fedora: [Link]
SuSE/Novell: [Link]
Debian: [Link]

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Enterprise targeted Operating

System. It based on mature Open Source technology and
available at a cost with one year Red Hat Network subscription
for upgrade and support contract.
UNIX Structure
UNIX File System
 File System

 The Unix file system looks like an inverted tree

structure.
 You start with the root directory, denoted by /, at
the top and work down through sub-directories
underneath it.
 File System
Each node is either a file or a directory of files, where the
latter can contain other files and directories.
You specify a file or directory by its path name, either the
full, or absolute, path name or the one relative to a
location.
The full path name starts with the root, /, and follows the
branches of the file system, each separated by /, until you
reach the desired file, e.g.:
/home/condron/source/xntp
 File System

A relative path name specifies the path relative to

another, usually the current working directory that you
are at. Two special directories :
. the current directory
.. the parent of the current directory
So if I'm at /home/frank and wish to specify the path
above in a relative fashion I could use:
../condron/source/xntp
This indicates that I should first go up one directory level,
then come down through the condron directory, followed
by the source directory and then to xntp.
 Structure of Standard Directories in
Unix/Linux
/ The ancestor of all directories on the system; all other
directories are subdirectories of this directory, either
directly or through other subdirectories.
/bin Essential tools and other programs (or binaries).
/dev Files representing the system's various hardware
devices. For example, you use the file `/dev/cdrom' to
access the CD−ROM drive.
/etc Miscellaneous system configuration files, startup files,
etc.
 Structure of Standard Directories in
Unix/Linux
/home The home directories for all of the system's users.
/lib Essential system library files used by tools in `/bin'.
/proc Files that give information about current system
processes.
/root The superuser's home directory, whose username is
root. (In the past, the home directory for the superuser
was simply `/'; later, `/root' was adopted for this purpose
to reduce clutter in `/'.)
 Structure of Standard Directories in
Unix/Linux
/sbin Essential system administrator tools, or system
binaries.
/tmp Temporary files.
/usr Subdirectories with files related to user tools and
applications.
 Directories, Files and Inodes

Every directory and file is listed in its parent

directory.
In the case of the root directory, that parent is itself.
A directory is a file that contains a table listing the
files contained within it, giving file names to the
inode numbers in the list.
The information about all the files and directories is
maintained in INODE TABLE
An Inode (Index Nodes) is an entry in the table
containing information about a file (metadata)
including file permissions, UID, GID, size, time
stamp, pointers to files data blocks on the disk etc.
Users, Groups and Access Permissions
In UNIX/LINUX, there is a concept of user and an
associated group

The system determines whether or not a user or

group can access a file or program based on the
permissions assigned to them.

Apart from all the users, there is a special user

called Super User or the root which has permission
to access any file and directory
 Access Permissions
There are three permissions for any file, directory
or application program.

The following lists the symbols used to denote

each, along with a brief description:

r — Indicates that a given category of user can

read a file.

w. — Indicates that a given category of user can

write to a file.

x. — Indicates that a given category of user can

execute the file.
 Access Permissions
Each of the three permissions are assigned to
three defined categories of users.
The categories are:

owner — The owner of the file or

application.
group — The group that owns the file or
application.
others — All users with access to the
system.
 Access Permissions
One can easily view the permissions for a file by
invoking a long format listing using the command
ls -l.

For instance, if the user juan creates an executable

file named test, the output of the command ls -l test
would look like this:

-rwxrwxr-x 1 juan student 0 Sep 26 12:25 test

 Access Permissions
The permissions for this file are listed are listed at
the start of the line, starting with rwx.
This first set of symbols define owner access.

The next set of rwx symbols define group access

The last set of symbols defining access permitted

for all other users.
 Access Permissions
This listing indicates that the file is readable,
writable, and executable by the user who owns the
file (user juan) as well as the group owning the file
(which is a group named student).

The file is also world-readable and world-

executable, but not world-writable.
 Listing the Content of a Directory

ls is used to list the contents of a directory.

If the command ls is written with parameter –l then

the command lists contents of the working
directory with details. Example:

$ ls –l
 Moving in Directories

cd try_it
Changes the directory to try_it
pwd
Prints present working directory (e.g.
/home/smith/try_it)
cd .. Move to superior directory
pwd : Prints /home/smith
cd /home The absolute path
pwd : Prints /home
cd The system is returned to the user home
directory
pwd : Print /home/smith
 Make Directory

The command mkdir my_dir

makes new directory my_dir (the path is given

relative) as a subdirectory of the current directory.
 Remove Directory

The command rmdir your_dir

removes directory your_dir if it is empty.
 Copy File

The command cp file_1 file_2

copies file_1 to file_2. The both files must be in the

same working directory. If they are in various
directories, the path must be given.
Introduction to Linux
Rename and/or Move the File

The command mv file_1 file_2

moves file_1 to file_2

The both files must be in the same working

directory.

If they are in different directories, the path must be

given.

The file_1 is removed from the disk.

 Remove File

The command rm file_a

removes the file_a from the system
If you use wildcard. For example
rm h*c
you will remove all files beginning with h and
ending with c which are in working directory.
If you write
rm *
you will erase all files from your working directory.
Access Permission of File/Directory
The ownership of the file or directory can be
changed using the command
chown <owner> <file/directory name>
The group of the file or directory can be changed
using the command
chgrp <group> <file/directory name>
The permissions of the file can be changed using
chmod command
chmod -R ### <filename or directory>
-R is optional and when used with directories will
traverse all the sub-directories of the target
directory changing ALL the permissions to ###.
Access Permission of File/Directory
The #'s can be:
0 = Nothing
1 = Execute
2 = Write
3 = Execute & Write (2 + 1)
4 = Read
5 = Execute & Read (4 + 1)
6 = Read & Write (4 + 2)
7 = Execute & Read & Write (4 + 2 + 1)