UNIX Tutorial Four

4.1 Wildcards

The characters * and ?

The character * is called a wildcard, and will match against none

or more character(s) in a file (or directory) name. For example,
in your csnb224 directory, type

% ls list*

This will list all files in the current directory starting with list....

Try typing

% ls *list

This will list all files in the current directory ending with ....list

The character ? will match exactly one character.

So ls ?ouse will match files like house and mouse, but not
grouse.
Try typing

% ls ?list

4.2 Filename conventions

We should note here that a directory is merely a special type of

file. So the rules and conventions for naming files apply also to
directories.

In naming files, characters with special meanings such as / *

& % , should be avoided. Also, avoid using spaces within
names. The safest way to name a file is to use only
alphanumeric characters, that is, letters and numbers, together
with _ (underscore) and . (dot).
 File names conventionally start with a lower-case letter, and
may end with a dot followed by a group of letters indicating the
contents of the file. For example, all files consisting of C code
may be named with the ending .c, for example, prog1.c . Then
in order to list all files containing C code in your home directory,
you need only type ls *.c in that directory.

Beware: some applications give the same name to all the

output files they generate.

For example, some compilers, unless given the appropriate

option, produce compiled files named a.out. Should you
forget to use that option, you are advised to rename the
compiled file immediately, otherwise the next such file will
overwrite it and it will be lost.

4.3 Getting Help

On-line Manuals

There are on-line manuals which gives information about most

commands. The manual pages tell you which options a
particular command can take, and how each option modifies the
behaviour of the command. Type man command to read the
manual page for a particular command.

For example, to find out more about the wc (word count)

command, type

% man wc

Alternatively

% whatis wc

gives a one-line description of the command, but omits any

information about options etc.

Apropos

When you are not sure of the exact name of a command,

% apropos keyword
 will give you the commands with keyword in their manual page
header. For example, try typing

% apropos copy

Summary

* match any number of characters

? match one character
man command read the online manual page for a command
whatis command brief description of a command
apropos keyword match commands with keyword in their man pages
 UNIX Tutorial Five

5.1 File system security (access rights)

In your csnb224 directory, type

% ls -l (l for long listing!)

You will see that you now get lots of details about the contents
of your directory, similar to the example below.

Each file (and directory) has associated access rights, which

may be found by typing ls -l. Also, ls -lg gives additional
information as to which group owns the file (beng95 in the
following example):

-rwxrw-r-- 1 ee51ab beng95 2450 Sept29 11:52 file1

In the left-hand column is a 10 symbol string consisting of the

symbols d, r, w, x, -, and, occasionally, s or S. If d is present, it
will be at the left hand end of the string, and indicates a
directory: otherwise - will be the starting symbol of the string.

The 9 remaining symbols indicate the permissions, or access

rights, and are taken as three groups of 3.
 rwxrw-r--

• The first three (rwx) gives the file permissions for the user that
owns the file (or directory) (ee51ab in the above example);
• The next three (rw-) gives the permissions for the group of people
to whom the file (or directory) belongs (eebeng95 in the above
example);
• The last three (r--) gives the permissions for all others.

The symbols r, w, etc., have slightly different meanings depending on

whether they refer to a simple file or to a directory.

Access rights on files.

• r (or -), indicates read permission (or otherwise), that is, the
presence or absence of permission to read and copy the file
• w (or -), indicates write permission (or otherwise), that is,
the permission (or otherwise) to change a file
• x (or -), indicates execution permission (or otherwise), that is,
the permission to execute a file, where appropriate

Access rights on directories.

• r allows users to list files in the directory;

• w means that users may delete files from the directory or move
files into it;
• x means the right to access files in the directory. This implies
that you may read files in the directory provided you have read
permission on the individual files.

So, in order to read a file, you must have execute permission on

the directory containing that file, and hence on any directory
containing that directory as a subdirectory, and so on, up the
tree.

Some examples

-rwxrwxrwx a file that everyone can read, write and execute (and delete).
a file that only the owner can read and write - no-one else
-rw------- can read or write and no-one has execution rights (e.g. your
mailbox file).
5.2 Changing access rights

chmod (changing a file mode)

Only the owner of a file can use chmod to change the

permissions of a file. The options of chmod are as follows

Symbol Meaning
u user
g group
o other
a all
r read
w write (and delete)
x execute (and access directory)
+ add permission
- take away permission

For example, to remove read write and execute permissions on

the file biglist for the group and others, type

% chmod go-rwx biglist

This will leave the other permissions unaffected.

To give read and write permissions on the file biglist to all,

% chmod a+rw biglist

Exercise 5a

Try changing access permissions on the file science.txt and on

the directory backups

Use ls -l to check that the permissions have changed.

5.3 Processes and Jobs

A process is an executing program identified by a unique PID

(process identifier). To see information about your processes,
with their associated PID and status, type
% ps

A process may be in the foreground, in the background, or be

suspended. In general the shell does not return the UNIX
prompt until the current process has finished executing.

Some processes take a long time to run and hold up the

terminal. Backgrounding a long process has the effect that the
UNIX prompt is returned immediately, and other tasks can be
carried out while the original process continues executing.

Running background processes

To background a process, type an & at the end of the command

line. For example, the command sleep waits a given number
of seconds before continuing. Type

% sleep 10

This will wait 10 seconds before returning the command

prompt %. Until the command prompt is returned, you can do
nothing except wait.

To run sleep in the background, type

% sleep 10 &

[1] 6259

The & runs the job in the background and returns the prompt
straight away, allowing you do run other programs while waiting
for that one to finish.

The first line in the above example is typed in by the user; the
next line, indicating job number and PID, is returned by the
machine. The user is be notified of a job number (numbered
from 1) enclosed in square brackets, together with a PID and is
notified when a background process is finished. Backgrounding
is useful for jobs which will take a long time to complete.
 Backgrounding a current foreground process

At the prompt, type

% sleep 100

You can suspend the process running in the foreground by

holding down the [control] key and typing [z] (written as
^Z) Then to put it in the background, type

% bg

Note: do not background programs that require user

interaction e.g. pine

5.4 Listing suspended and background processes

When a process is running, backgrounded or suspended, it will

be entered onto a list along with a job number. To examine this
list, type

% jobs

An example of a job list could be

[1] Suspended sleep 100

[2] Running netscape
[3] Running nedit

To restart (foreground) a suspended processes, type

% fg %jobnumber

For example, to restart sleep 100, type

% fg %1

Typing fg with no job number foregrounds the last suspended

process.
5.5 Killing a process

kill (terminate or signal a process)

It is sometimes necessary to kill a process (for example, when

an executing program is in an infinite loop)

To kill a job running in the foreground, type ^C (control c). For

example, run

% sleep 100
^C

To kill a suspended or background process, type

% kill %jobnumber

For example, run

% sleep 100 &

% jobs

If it is job number 4, type

% kill %4

To check whether this has worked, examine the job list again to
see if the process has been removed.

ps (process status)

Alternatively, processes can be killed by finding their process

numbers (PIDs) and using kill PID_number

% sleep 100 &

% ps

PID TT S TIME COMMAND

20077 pts/5 S 0:05 sleep 100
21563 pts/5 T 0:00 netscape
21873 pts/5 S 0:25 nedit
 To kill off the process sleep 100, type

% kill 20077

and then type ps again to see if it has been removed from the
list.

If a process refuses to be killed, uses the -9 option, i.e. type

% kill -9 20077

Note: It is not possible to kill off other users' processes !!!

Summary

ls -lag list access rights for all files

chmod [options] file change access rights for named file
command & run command in background
^C kill the job running in the foreground
^Z suspend the job running in the foreground
bg background the suspended job
jobs list current jobs
fg %1 foreground job number 1
kill %1 kill job number 1
ps list current processes
kill 26152 kill process number 26152