Shell Scripting

13 July 2025 16:32

🐧 Shell Scripting: From Basics to Advanced (Complete

Notes)
🧠 1. What is a Shell?
• A Shell is a program that acts as an interface between the user and the operating system.
• It interprets the commands entered by the user and executes them.
Types of Shells:
Shell Description
sh Bourne Shell (original UNIX shell)
bash Bourne Again Shell (most common)
zsh Z Shell (feature-rich)
ksh Korn Shell
csh C Shell (C-like syntax)

📜 2. What is Shell Scripting?

• Shell scripting is the process of writing a sequence of commands in a file to automate tasks.
• These files are called shell scripts, typically saved with .sh extension.

🛠 3. Ge ng Started with a Shell Script

🏁 Writing Your First Script
#!/bin/bash
echo "Welcome to Shell Scripting!"
• The line #!/bin/bash is called a Shebang. It tells the system to use the bash interpreter.
• Save the file as hello.sh
🔑 Make Script Executable
chmod +x hello.sh
./hello.sh

📦 4. Variables in Shell
🔸 Declaring and Using Variables
name="Ravi"
age=25
echo "Name: $name"
echo "Age: $age"
No spaces around =
🔸 Variable Types
Type Example
String name="Ravi"

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String name="Ravi"
Integer num=5
Read-only readonly pi=3.14
Unset unset name

⌨ 5. User Input
read -p "Enter your name: " username
echo "Hello, $username!"
• read is used to get input from the user.
• -p allows prompting the user inline.

🔢 6. Arithmetic Operations
Basic Arithmetic
a=10
b=5
echo "Sum = $((a + b))"
echo "Product = $((a * b))"
With expr
expr $a + $b
Floating-point (with bc)
echo "scale=2; 5 / 3" | bc

🔁 7. Conditional Statements
If Statement
if [ $a -gt $b ]; then
echo "$a is greater"
fi
If-Else
if [ $a -gt $b ]; then
echo "a > b"
else
echo "b >= a"
fi
If-ElseIf-Else (elif)
if [ $a -gt $b ]; then
echo "a > b"
elif [ $a -lt $b ]; then
echo "a < b"
else
echo "a == b"
fi
Integer Comparison Operators
Operator Description
-eq Equal
-ne Not equal
-gt Greater than

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-gt Greater than
-lt Less than
-ge Greater or equal
-le Less or equal

String Comparison
if [ "$str1" = "$str2" ]; then
echo "Strings are equal"
fi

🔄 8. Loops in Shell
For Loop
for i in 1 2 3 4 5
do
echo $i
done
While Loop
i=1
while [ $i -le 5 ]
do
echo $i
((i++))
done
Until Loop
i=1
until [ $i -gt 5 ]
do
echo $i
((i++))
done

🧬 9. Arrays in Shell
Define and Access
fruits=("apple" "banana" "cherry")
echo ${fruits[0]} # apple
echo ${fruits[@]} # all
echo ${#fruits[@]} # count
Loop Through Array
for item in "${fruits[@]}"
do
echo $item
done

🎛 10. Case Statement (Switch-like)

read -p "Enter a number: " num
case $num in
1) echo "One";;
2) echo "Two";;
*) echo "Unknown";;

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 *) echo "Unknown";;
esac

🧾 11. Functions
greet() {
echo "Hello, $1"
}
greet "Ravi"
• $1, $2 are positional parameters

📂 12. File and Directory Operations

Create a File
touch myfile.txt
Write to a File
echo "Hello" > file.txt
Append
echo "New Line" >> file.txt
Read Line by Line
while read line
do
echo $line
done < file.txt

🧪 13. Test Conditions

if [ -f file.txt ]; then
echo "File exists"
fi
Test Type Syntax
File exists [ -f filename ]
Dir exists [ -d dirname ]
Null string [ -z "$var" ]
Non-empty [ -n "$var" ]

🧰 14. Command Line Arguments

echo $0 # script name
echo $1 # first arg
echo $# # number of args
echo $@ # all args

⏰ 15. Cron Jobs (Scheduling Scripts)

crontab -e
Cron Syntax
* * * * * /path/to/script.sh
Field Value
Minute 0–59

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Minute 0–59
Hour 0–23
Day 1–31
Month 1–12
Weekday 0–6 (Sun=0)

🧠 16. Advanced Topics

➤ Debugging Script
bash -x script.sh # step-by-step execution
➤ trap Command (Signal Handling)
trap "echo Exiting...; exit" SIGINT SIGTERM
➤ Nested Loops
for i in 1 2; do
for j in a b; do
echo "$i $j"
done
done

🧰 17. Tools Often Used in Shell Scripts

• cut, awk, sed, xargs, grep, find, sort, uniq, tee, tr, wc, head, tail
• Example with awk:
awk -F: '{ print $1 }' /etc/passwd

💻 18. Real-World Examples

🔹 Backup Script
#!/bin/bash
cp /home/user/data.txt /backup/data-$(date +%F).txt
🔹 Disk Usage Alert
#!/bin/bash
usage=$(df -h / | awk 'NR==2 {print $5}' | tr -d '%')
if [ $usage -gt 80 ]; then
echo "Disk usage is above 80%!"
fi
🔹 User Check Script
#!/bin/bash
read -p "Enter username: " user
if id "$user" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
echo "User exists"
else
echo "User does not exist"
fi

Here are real-world mini Shell Scripting projects you can practice and build step-by-step. Each one is
practical, widely used, and designed to help you learn real Linux automation.

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practical, widely used, and designed to help you learn real Linux automation.

🛠 Mini Projects to Prac ce Shell Scrip ng

🔹 Project 1: Daily System Health Monitor
📌 Goal:
Monitor CPU, RAM, and disk usage and log them daily with timestamp.
📂 Features:
• Logs system metrics to a file
• Runs daily via cron
• Alerts if CPU or RAM > 80%
📄 Script Outline:
#!/bin/bash
logfile="/var/log/system_health.log"
echo "----- $(date) -----" >> $logfile
cpu_usage=$(top -bn1 | grep "Cpu(s)" | awk '{print $2 + $4}')
ram_usage=$(free | awk '/Mem:/ { printf("%.2f"), $3/$2 * 100.0 }')
disk_usage=$(df -h / | awk 'NR==2 {print $5}' | tr -d '%')
echo "CPU Usage: $cpu_usage%" >> $logfile
echo "RAM Usage: $ram_usage%" >> $logfile
echo "Disk Usage: $disk_usage%" >> $logfile
if (( $(echo "$cpu_usage > 80.0" | bc -l) )); then
echo "ALERT: High CPU usage!" >> $logfile
fi
🔄 Set in cron to run daily: crontab -e

🔹 Project 2: Automatic File Backup Script

📌 Goal:
Backup files from a source to destination folder with timestamp.
📂 Features:
• Adds current date to filename
• Checks if backup folder exists
• Supports logs
📄 Script Outline:
#!/bin/bash
src="/home/user/data"
dest="/home/user/backup"
timestamp=$(date +%F-%H-%M-%S)
filename="data-backup-$timestamp.tar.gz"
mkdir -p $dest
tar -czf $dest/$filename $src
echo "Backup completed at $timestamp" >> /home/user/backup/backup.log

🔹 Project 3: User Login Tracker

📌 Goal:
Track and log when users log in to the system.
📂 Features:
• Uses last command
• Filters current date logins
• Outputs to daily file

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 • Outputs to daily file
📄 Script Outline:
#!/bin/bash
log_date=$(date +%F)
log_file="/var/log/user-login-$log_date.log"
last | grep "$(date +'%b %_d')" > $log_file
You can run this every evening via cron.

🔹 Project 4: Dead URL Checker from a File

📌 Goal:
Read a list of URLs and check if they are alive or dead.
📂 Features:
• Uses curl
• Reads from file
• Outputs dead links
📄 Script Outline:
#!/bin/bash
input="urls.txt"
output="dead_urls.txt"
> $output
while read url; do
if ! curl -s --head --request GET $url | grep "200 OK" > /dev/null; then
echo "$url is DEAD" >> $output
fi
done < $input

🔹 Project 5: Simple Menu-Driven Utility

📌 Goal:
Create a menu to show options like date, list files, check disk usage.
📂 Features:
• Interactive loop
• Uses case statement
📄 Script Outline:
#!/bin/bash
while true; do
echo "1. Show Date"
echo "2. List Files"
echo "3. Disk Usage"
echo "4. Exit"
read -p "Choose option: " opt
case $opt in
1) date ;;
2) ls -l ;;
3) df -h ;;
4) exit ;;
*) echo "Invalid Option" ;;
esac
done

🔹 Project 6: Monitor and Restart a Service

📌

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📌 Goal:
Check if a service (e.g., nginx) is running. If not, restart it.
📂 Features:
• Checks using systemctl
• Sends alert
• Logs to file
📄 Script Outline:
#!/bin/bash
service="nginx"
logfile="/var/log/service_monitor.log"
if ! systemctl is-active --quiet $service; then
echo "$(date): $service is down. Restarting..." >> $logfile
systemctl restart $service
else
echo "$(date): $service is running." >> $logfile
fi

🔹 Project 7: Auto Compress Old Log Files

📌 Goal:
Find .log files older than 7 days and compress them.
📂 Features:
• Uses find
• Auto gzip compression
• Logs operation
📄 Script Outline:
#!/bin/bash
log_dir="/var/log/myapp"
find $log_dir -type f -name "*.log" -mtime +7 -exec gzip {} \;
echo "$(date): Old logs compressed" >> /var/log/log_cleanup.log

✅ Bonus: Ideas for More Practice

Idea Description
Auto Email Report Use mail or mailx to send daily reports
SSH Login Alert Trigger alert on remote login using .bashrc
Folder Watcher Use inotifywait to monitor changes
Ping Monitor Check server connectivity every X mins
Log Analyzer Parse and summarize custom logs

Let’s take Project 1: Daily System Health Monitor and break it down step-by-step. This is a real-world
automation script commonly used by DevOps/System Admins to monitor Linux server health daily.

🛠 Project: Daily System Health Monitor

A bash script to monitor CPU, RAM, and Disk usage with log alerts if thresholds are breached.

📌 Objective
✅

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✅ Monitor system health (CPU, RAM, Disk)
✅ Log the data with timestamps
✅ Alert if usage crosses thresholds (e.g., 80%)
✅ Automate via cron for daily monitoring

📂 File Structure
You will create just one file:
system_health.sh
And it will write logs to:
/var/log/system_health.log

🧾 Step-by-Step Breakdown
✅ Step 1: Create Script File
touch system_health.sh
chmod +x system_health.sh
nano system_health.sh

✅ Step 2: Add Shebang

#!/bin/bash
Tells Linux to use bash interpreter.

✅ Step 3: Set Log File Path

logfile="/var/log/system_health.log"
You can change this path if you don’t have sudo access.

✅ Step 4: Log the Current Date and Time

echo "---------- $(date) ----------" >> $logfile
Adds a header for each entry.

✅ Step 5: Get CPU Usage

cpu_usage=$(top -bn1 | grep "Cpu(s)" | awk '{print $2 + $4}')
Explanation:
• top -bn1: Run top once in batch mode
• grep "Cpu(s)": Filter CPU line
• awk '{print $2 + $4}': Sum user and system CPU usage

✅ Step 6: Get RAM Usage

ram_usage=$(free | awk '/Mem:/ { printf("%.2f"), $3/$2 * 100.0 }')
Explanation:
• free: Shows memory usage
• $3 = used, $2 = total, calculate used percentage

✅ Step 7: Get Disk Usage

disk_usage=$(df -h / | awk 'NR==2 {print $5}' | tr -d '%')
Explanation:
• df -h /: Disk usage of root (/)
• awk 'NR==2 {print $5}': Extract percentage
• tr -d '%': Remove % for numeric comparison

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 • tr -d '%': Remove % for numeric comparison

✅ Step 8: Log the Values

echo "CPU Usage: $cpu_usage%" >> $logfile
echo "RAM Usage: $ram_usage%" >> $logfile
echo "Disk Usage: $disk_usage%" >> $logfile

✅ Step 9: Add Alert Thresholds

if (( $(echo "$cpu_usage > 80.0" | bc -l) )); then
echo "⚠ ALERT: High CPU usage!" >> $logfile
fi
if (( $(echo "$ram_usage > 80.0" | bc -l) )); then
echo "⚠ ALERT: High RAM usage!" >> $logfile
fi
if [ $disk_usage -gt 80 ]; then
echo "⚠ ALERT: High Disk usage!" >> $logfile
fi
bc -l: Enables floating point comparison

✅ Step 10: Final Script

#!/bin/bash
logfile="/var/log/system_health.log"
echo "---------- $(date) ----------" >> $logfile
cpu_usage=$(top -bn1 | grep "Cpu(s)" | awk '{print $2 + $4}')
ram_usage=$(free | awk '/Mem:/ { printf("%.2f"), $3/$2 * 100.0 }')
disk_usage=$(df -h / | awk 'NR==2 {print $5}' | tr -d '%')
echo "CPU Usage: $cpu_usage%" >> $logfile
echo "RAM Usage: $ram_usage%" >> $logfile
echo "Disk Usage: $disk_usage%" >> $logfile
if (( $(echo "$cpu_usage > 80.0" | bc -l) )); then
echo "⚠ ALERT: High CPU usage!" >> $logfile
fi
if (( $(echo "$ram_usage > 80.0" | bc -l) )); then
echo "⚠ ALERT: High RAM usage!" >> $logfile
fi
if [ $disk_usage -gt 80 ]; then
echo "⚠ ALERT: High Disk usage!" >> $logfile
fi
echo "" >> $logfile

⏰ Step 11: Automate with Cron

To run daily at 9 AM:
crontab -e
Add:
0 9 * * * /path/to/system_health.sh

📁 Output Example (Log File)

---------- Sun Jul 14 09:00:00 IST 2025 ----------
CPU Usage: 15.2%
RAM Usage: 63.54%

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RAM Usage: 63.54%
Disk Usage: 78%

✅ Bonus Tips
• You can send email alerts using mail command.
• Use uptime, iostat, and vmstat for more system info.
• Use logrotate to manage log file size.

Here’s a comprehensive list of Shell Scripting interview questions — categorized by beginner,

intermediate, and advanced levels — along with sample answers, real-world context, and tips to
impress the interviewer.

🔰 Beginner-Level Shell Scripting Questions

1. What is a Shell?
Answer: A shell is a command-line interpreter that allows users to interact with the operating system by
executing commands. Common shells include sh, bash, zsh, and ksh.

2. How do you create a simple shell script?

#!/bin/bash
echo "Hello, World!"
Save as hello.sh, make it executable with chmod +x hello.sh, then run ./hello.sh.

3. What is the use of chmod +x?

Answer: It makes a shell script executable.

4. How do you pass arguments to a shell script?

Answer:
echo "First argument is $1"
echo "All arguments: $@"

5. What is the purpose of $0, $1, $#, $@, $??

Variable Purpose
$0 Script name
$1 First argument
$@ All arguments as separate strings
$# Number of arguments
$? Exit status of the last command

6. What is a shebang (#!) in a script?

Answer: It's the first line that tells the OS which interpreter to use (e.g., #!/bin/bash).

7. How do you read user input in shell script?

read -p "Enter name: " name
echo "Hello $name"

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echo "Hello $name"

8. How do you perform arithmetic operations?

sum=$((5 + 3))
echo $sum

9. What is the difference between > and >>?

Symbol Meaning
> Overwrite a file
>> Append to a file

10. How do you comment a line in shell?

Answer: Use # for single-line comments.

⚙ Intermediate-Level Shell Scrip ng Ques ons

11. What are loops available in shell scripting?
• for
• while
• until
Example:
for i in 1 2 3; do echo $i; done

12. How do you check if a file exists?

if [ -f "file.txt" ]; then
echo "File exists"
fi

13. How do you check if a variable is empty?

if [ -z "$var" ]; then
echo "Variable is empty"
fi

14. What is the difference between [ ] and [[ ]]?

Brackets Features
[] Traditional test
[[ ]] Bash extension (supports &&, `

15. Explain case statement with example.

case $var in
1) echo "One" ;;
2) echo "Two" ;;
*) echo "Other" ;;
esac

16. What is set -e and set -x?

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Command Purpose
set -e Exit on any command failure
set -x Debug mode: shows each command

17. What is a function in shell script?

greet() {
echo "Hello $1"
}
greet "Ravi"

18. How do you log script output to a file?

./script.sh > output.log 2>&1

19. What is the purpose of trap?

Answer: To catch signals (e.g., SIGINT) and execute a cleanup command.
trap "echo 'Exiting...'" SIGINT

20. What is the use of && and ||?

mkdir mydir && cd mydir # executes cd only if mkdir succeeds
rm file || echo "Failed" # echo only if rm fails

🚀 Advanced-Level Shell Scripting Questions

21. How do you handle floating-point arithmetic?
echo "scale=2; 10 / 3" | bc

22. How do you schedule a script using cron?

crontab -e
Example entry:
0 8 * * * /home/user/script.sh

23. What are associative arrays in Bash?

declare -A user
user[name]="Ravi"
user[age]=30
echo ${user[name]}

24. How do you monitor a process and restart it if it fails?

if ! pgrep nginx > /dev/null; then
systemctl restart nginx
fi

25. How do you find and compress .log files older than 7 days?
find /var/log -name "*.log" -mtime +7 -exec gzip {} \;

26. How do you read a file line by line?

while read line; do

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while read line; do
echo $line
done < file.txt

27. Explain IFS variable in shell.

Answer: IFS (Internal Field Separator) defines the delimiter used to split input.
IFS=',' read -r name age <<< "Ravi,25"

28. How do you extract data from a string using cut, awk, or sed?
• cut:
echo "a:b:c" | cut -d ':' -f2
• awk:
awk -F':' '{print $2}' <<< "a:b:c"
• sed:
echo "Hello World" | sed 's/World/Universe/'

29. What is the difference between $* and $@?

Expression Meaning
$* All arguments as a single string
$@ All arguments as separate strings

30. How do you write a script to check internet connectivity?

ping -c 1 google.com &> /dev/null
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
echo "Online"
else
echo "Offline"
fi

✅ Bonus: Behavioral Interview Questions (Shell Scripting)

🔹 "Tell me about a time you automated a task using shell script."
✅ Talk about:
• The manual task
• Your approach to scripting
• Time saved or errors reduced
• Tools used (cron, systemd, logging)

🔹 "Have you handled script failures in production?"

✅ Mention:
• Using set -e and trap
• Logging mechanisms
• Fallback plans or notifications

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