Experiment -1
Practicing of Basic UNIX Commands.
What is Unix Command?
The below article gives an overview of Unix commands. An OS providing both
command line interface (CLI) and graphical user interface (GUI) based
interaction integrated by Dennis Ritchie, Douglas Mcllroy, Joe Ossanna Brian
Kernighan, and Ken Thompson at Bell laboratory in 1970 called a multi-tasking
operating system permitting two or more users to simultaneously operate on the
operating system and offers commands for the users for interacting with the
application from command line interface, such as sudo command, chmod
command, su command, mv command, rm command, vi command, cat
command, rmdir command, mkdir command, clear command, and ls command,
which can be used to implement complex tasks.
Introduction to Unix
Unix is an OS that provides both CLI and GUI-based interaction. It was
developed by Dennis Ritchie in the C language. Unix operating system is
multitasking, which also gives an opportunity for two or more users to use its
benefits. In other words, it is a multi-user OS. Ubuntu OS is a Unix version that
enables us to do every work that Unix is supposed to do.
Hence, it's recommended by professionals who operate with servers; it's also
recommended to learn how the command-line-based operating system works.
Many large and complex applications that utilize Unix to execute because of its
aspect to handle the processes easily. It's a bit faster and provides a nice user
experience when compared with the Windows operating system.
Several testing activities, such as performance and installation testing,
depending on OS knowledge. Almost every web server is Unix based
nowadays. So, knowledge of Unix is essential for testers. If we are unfamiliar
with Unix, then learning Unix commands can be a great start. One of the best
ways to understand these commands is to practice and read them simultaneously
on Unix OS.
Study of Unix basic command list: man, who, cat, cd, cp, ps, ls, mv, rm, mkdir,
rmdir, echo, more, date, time, kill, history, chmod, chown, finger, pwd, cal,
logout, shutdown.
1. man - Manual pages
Description: Displays the manual (help) page for a command.
Example:
bash
$man ls
This will display the manual for the ls command.
2. who - Who is logged in
Description: Displays information about the users currently logged into
the system.
Example:
$who
Output:
user1 tty1 2024-12-25 10:00
user2 pts/1 2024-12-25 10:30
3. cat - Concatenate and display file contents
Description: Displays the content of a file.
Example:
$cat file.txt
This will output the content of file.txt.
4. cd - Change directory
Description: Changes the current working directory.
Example:
$cd /home/user
Other uses:
o To go back to the previous directory: cd -
o To go to the home directory: cd ~
5. cp - Copy files or directories
Description: Copies files or directories.
Example:
cp file1.txt /home/user/backup/
To copy directories:
cp -r directory_name /home/user/backup/
6. ps - Report process status
Description: Displays information about active processes.
Example:
ps aux
This lists all processes currently running on the system.
7. ls - List directory contents
Description: Lists files and directories in the current directory.
Example:
ls -l
This lists files with detailed information like permissions, size, and
modification time.
8. mv - Move or rename files or directories
Description: Moves or renames files or directories.
Example:
bash
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mv file1.txt file2.txt
To move a file:
mv file1.txt /home/user/backup/
9. rm - Remove files or directories
Description: Removes files or directories.
Example:
$rm file1.txt
To remove a directory and its contents:
$rm -r directory_name
10. mkdir - Make directories
Description: Creates a new directory.
Example:
$ mkdir new_directory
11. rmdir - Remove empty directories
Description: Deletes an empty directory.
Example:
$rmdir new_directory
12. echo - Display a line of text or variables
Description: Prints a line of text to the terminal.
Example:
$echo "Hello, World!"
This will print Hello, World! to the terminal.
13. more - View file contents one page at a time
Description: Allows you to view the content of a file page by page.
Example:
$more largefile.txt
This will display the contents of largefile.txt page by page.
14. date - Display or set system date and time
Description: Displays the current system date and time.
Example:
$date
Output:
Tue Dec 25 12:00:00 UTC 2024
15. time - Measure command execution time
Description: Measures how long a command takes to execute.
Example:
time ls
This will output the time it took to run the ls command.
16. kill - Terminate a process
Description: Sends a signal to terminate a process.
Example:
$kill 1234
This will terminate the process with PID 1234.
17. history - Display the command history
Description: Displays a list of previously entered commands.
Example:
$history
18. chmod - Change file permissions
Description: Changes the permissions of files or directories.
Example:
$chmod 755 file1.txt
Explanation:
o 7 = read, write, and execute for the owner.
o 5 = read and execute for the group.
o 5 = read and execute for others.
19. chown - Change file ownership
Description: Changes the owner and group of a file or directory.
Example:
$chown user:group file1.txt
20. finger - User information
Description: Displays information about a user on the system.
Example:
$finger user1
21. pwd - Print working directory
Description: Displays the current directory path.
Example:
$pwd
Output:
arduino
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/home/user/Documents
22. cal - Display a calendar
Description: Displays the current month’s calendar.
Example:
$cal
Output:
css
Copy code
December 2024
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31
23. logout - Logout from the current session
Description: Logs out of the current user session.
Example:
$logout
24. shutdown - Shut down or restart the system
Description: Shuts down or restarts the system.
Example:
$shutdown -h now
This shuts down the system immediately.
To restart:
$shutdown -r now
