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CSE 438: Linux For Devices
Module 3
The Linux Shell and File Structure
1
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Shell
Shell is the user interface to the operating system
Functionality:
Manage files (wildcards, I/O redirection)
Manage processes (build pipelines, multitasking)
Most popular shells:
The Bourne shell (sh)
The Korn shell (ksh)
The C shell (csh)
The Bourne Again shell (bash)
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Shell
Shell is the user interface to the operating system
Functionality:
Manage files (wildcards, I/O redirection)
Manage processes (build pipelines, multitasking)
Most popular shells:
The Bourne shell (sh)
The Korn shell (ksh)
The C shell (csh)
The Bourne Again shell (bash)
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A Bit of History
The Bourne shell /bin/sh ( S. R. Bourne, 1977)
powerful syntactical language
strong in controlling input and output
expression matching facilities
interactive use: the use of shell functions.
The C-shell /bin/csh (Bill Joy, UCB, 1978)
new concepts: job control and aliasing
much better for interactive use
different input language:
out went the good control of input and output
too buggy to produce robust shell scripts
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A Bit of History
/bin/tsch (Ken Greer, Carnegie Mellon University,
late 1970s)
User –oriented command line editing
Out most of the bugs
Korn shell /bin/ksh (David Korn, AT&T, early
1980s)
Bourne shell language
C shell’s features for interactive work
You had to pay AT&T for it!
GNU project: a free shell=> /bin/bash (the Bourne
again shell)
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SELECTING A SHELL
[c33225@snowball ~]$ echo $SHELL
/bin/bash
[c33225@snowball ~]$ bash
[c33225@snowball ~]$ exit
exit
[c33225@snowball ~]$ ksh
$ exit
[c33225@snowball ~]$ sh
sh-3.2$ exit
exit
[c33225@snowball ~]$ csh
[c33225@snowball ~]$ exit
exit
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Changing a Shell
To change your default shell use the chsh utility
which requires full pathname of the new shell
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Core Shell Functionality
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Invoking the Shell
A shell is invoked, either
automatically upon login, or
manually from the keyboard or
script
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What does the shell do?
The following takes place:
(1) reads a special startup file (.cshrc for
csh in the user's home directory) and
executes all the commands in that file
(2) displays a prompt and waits for a user
command
(3) If user enters CTRL-D (end of input)
the shell terminates, otherwise it
executes the user command(s)
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User Commands
ls (list files), ps (process info),
\ continues line, lp (send to printer)
$ ls
$ ps -ef | sort | ul -tdumb | lp
$ ls | sort | \
lp
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UNIX Commands vs Built-in Shell Commands
Shell locate the execute program in the “/bin”
directory and executes it
Example: ls
Shells have built-in commands, which it
recognizes and executes internally
Example: echo, cd
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echo
Built-in shell command
Displays its arguments to standard output
By default, appends a newline to the output
Subtle behavior may vary among different
shells
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Metacharacters
• Metacharacters are characters that specially
processed by a shell.
• When you enter a command, shell
• scans for metacharacters,
• specially processes them,
• then executes command.
• To turn off the meaning of a metacharacter: \
[c33225@snowball ~]$ echo hi>file
[c33225@snowball ~]$ cat file
hi
[c33225@snowball ~]$ echo hi \>file
hi >file
[c33225@snowball ~]$
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Shell Metacharacters
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Output Redirection
command > file
Creates file if it doesn’t exist; Overwrites if file
exists
If file exists and hasn’t write permission, an
error occur
command >> file
Creates file if it doesn’t exist, Appends to file if
file exists [c33225@snowball ~]$ echo hi>file
[c33225@snowball ~]$ cat file
hi
[c33225@snowball ~]$ echo Hello. world >> file
[c33225@snowball ~]$ cat file
hi
Hello. world
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Input Redirection
command < file
If file doesn’t exist or hasn’t read permission,
an error occur
command << word
Copies its standard input up to (not including)
the line starting with word into buffer which is
used as input
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Wildcards: Filename Substitution
Globbing is process of replacement of the pattern
with metacharacters by an alphabetically sorted
list of all matching filenames.
If string is surrounded by single (double) quotes,
shell doesn’t process wildcards in the string.
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Wildcards Example
[c33225@snowball ~]$ ls *.script
awk2.script awk.script
[c33225@snowball ~]$ ls aw?.script
awk.script
[c33225@snowball ~]$ ls [ef]*
ex1.tar ex1.txt ex2.txt file file1.tar file.tar
[c33225@snowball ~]$ ls *.perl
ls: *.perl: No such file or directory
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Pipes
Pipe metacharacter : |
command1 | command 2 | command 3
Such sequence of commands is called pipeline
Large problem can be often solved by a chain
of smaller processes,
each performed by a relatively small, reusable
utility
The standard error channel is not piped through a
standard pipeline (some shell supports it).
ls | wc -w
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tee
Causes standard input to be copied to file and
also sent to standard output.
tee –ia {fileName}+
-a: appends the input to the file instead of
overwriting
-i: ignores interrupts
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tee Example
[c33225@snowball ~]$ who
c33225 pts/1 2010-06-29 22:13 (adsl-92-195-16.asm.bellsouth.net)
sou pts/2 2010-06-29 11:46 (ascsc-1408-w7.cs.gsu.edu)
c33201 pts/3 2010-06-29 20:51 (c-98-219-41-48.hsd1.ga.comcast.net)
[c33225@snowball ~]$ who | tee who.capture | sort
c33201 pts/3 2010-06-29 20:51 (c-98-219-41-48.hsd1.ga.comcast.net)
c33225 pts/1 2010-06-29 22:13 (adsl-92-195-16.asm.bellsouth.net)
sou pts/2 2010-06-29 11:46 (ascsc-1408-w7.cs.gsu.edu)
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Command Substitution
A command in grave accents (`) is executed
Its standard output is inserted in the command
in its place
Any newlines in the output are replaced with
spaces.
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Sequences
Commands or pipelines separated by semi-colons
Executed from left to right
[c33225@snowball ~]$ date > date.txt; ls; pwd > pwd.txt; who | sort >
sort.txt; cat date.txt; cat pwd.txt; cat sort.txt
awk2.script date.txt file practice script.ksh temp
awk.script ex1.tar file1.tar pwd.txt script.sh testif.sh
databook1.txt ex1.txt file.tar readme.sh sort.txt who.capture
databook.txt ex2.txt letter script.csh temo.txt.4014
Tue Jun 29 23:27:27 EDT 2010
/home/c33225
c33225 pts/1 2010-06-29 22:13 (adsl-92-195-16.asm.bellsouth.net)
sou pts/2 2010-06-29 11:46 (ascsc-1408-w7.cs.gsu.edu)
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Conditional Sequences
Every Unix process terminates with an exit
value:
0 means successful completion
Non zero means failure
Built-in shell commands return 1 if they fail.
&&: executes the next commands only if the
previous command returns 0.
||: executes the next command only if the
previous command returns a nonzero exit code
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Conditional Sequences
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Grouping Commands
Commands can be grouped by placing them
between ()
Grouped commands are executed by a child
shell (subshell).
Grouped commands share standard input,
standard output and standard error channels.
Group can be redirected and piped.
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Grouping Example
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Background Processing
Command, or pipeline, or sequence, or group
of commands is followed by &:
A subshell is created to execute the
commands as a background process
Runs concurrently with a parent shell
Does not take control over keyboard
Returns user job number and system
process number
[c33225@snowball ~]$ find . -name '*.sh' -print &
[1] 4901
[c33225@snowball ~]$ ./readme.sh
./testif.sh
./script.sh
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BACKGROUND PROCESSING
Redirect the output to a file (if desired)
prevents background output on terminal
find . – name ‘*.c’ –print > find.txt &
Background process cannot read from
standard input
If they attempt to read from standard input; they
terminate.
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Shell Programming: Scripts
• Script is a text file containing series of shell commands for later execution.
• Execute permission (chmod +x scriptName)
• When script is run
• System determines which shell should be used
• Executes the shell with script as input
• If the first line is
• #: current shell
• #!pathName: the executable program pathName
• otherwise: Bourne shell
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Shell Programming: Scripts
Subshells
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• Several ways a parent shell can create a child
shell (subshell)
• Group of commands are executed
• Script is executed
• Background job (concurrent execution)
• Parent shell sleeps till child shell terminates
(execution in background can be useful)
• A subshell has its own working directory
• cd commands in subshell do not change working directo ry of parent shell
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Shell’s Data Areas
Every shell has two data Parent shell
Child shell
areas Environment
- environment space Environment
Local
- local-variable space Local: clean
Child shell gets a copy of
the parent's environment
space
- starts with an empty local-
variable space.
Variables Amity School Of Engineering And Technology
User defined variables within a shell are known as Shell Variables
A shell supports two kinds of variables:
Local variables
Environment variables
Both hold data in string format
Every shell has a set of pre-defined environment variables and local
variables.
A variable name may be any set of alphabetic characters including
underscore.
A name may also include a number , but the number cannot be the first character
in the name.
A name may not have any other type of character, such as ?, & or even space
A name may not include more than one word
Shell uses spaces on the command line to distinguish different components of a
command such as options, arguments and name of the command
A Value to a variable is assigned using assignment operator
Poet=Virgil
Accessing variables in all shells is done by prefixing the name with a $ sign.
Variables Amity School Of Engineering And Technology
• Some pre-defined environment variables available in all shells:
• $HOME : full pathname of home directory
• $PATH : list of directories to search for commands
• $MAIL : the full pathname of mailbox
• $USER : your username
• $SHELL : the full pathname of login shell
• $TERM : the type of your terminal
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Assigning values to variables
• Depends on shell:
• sh, bash, ksh:
• variable=value
• variable="value"
• Notice no spaces around equal sign
• csh:
• set variable=value
• set variable="value"
• Access the variable: append prefix $ to the name of a variable.
• $variableName
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Assigning Variables
set command is used to obtain list of all defined variables and their values.
The unset command undefines a variables
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Built-In Variables
$$ the process ID of the shell
$0 the name of the shell script
$1..$9 $n refers to the nth command line argument
$* a list of all command-line arguments
Example
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Quoting Amity School Of Engineering And Technology
-Single quotes(‘) inhibit wildcard replacement, variable
substitution and command substitution.
-Double quotes (“) inhibit wildcard replacement only.
-When quotes are nested, only the outer quotes have
any effect.
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Job Control
ps : allows to monitor a status of
processes.
kill: allows you to terminate a process on
the basis of its ID number
wait: allows a shell to wait for one of its
child processes to terminate
sleep seconds: sleeps for the specified
number of seconds, then terminates
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ps Command
$ ps -efl
• - e: include all running processes
• - f: include full listing
• - l: include long listing
PID : process ID
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Signaling Processes: kill
• kill [signalId] {pid}+
• kill –l
• -l: list valid signal names
• Sends the signal with code signal-Id to the list of
numbered processes.
• signalId is the number or name of the signal
• if signal is not specified the default signal is SIGTERM (15)
• SIGKILL (9) is useful if the process refuses to die
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Signaling Processes: kill
Processes may protect themselves from all signals except KILL
Process wouldn’t be allowed to clean up and terminate normally, as it would
do when it receives TERM
The kill utility allows you to specify 0 as pid
All processes associated with shell would be terminated.
Waiting for a Child Process: wait
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wait pid
-Causes the shell to suspend operation until the child
process with the specified process ID terminates.
-If no arguments are specified, shell waits for all of its
child processes to terminate.
Finding a Command: $PATH
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-Shell checks if command
is built-in.
-If yes, executes it
directly.
-Otherwise, checks
whether it begins with /
-If yes, shell assumes
that it is the absolute
pathname of a
command and tries to
execute the file with
such absolute
pathname.
-If there is no such file
or it’s not executable,
an error occur.
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Finding a Command: $PATH
Else, shell searches the directories (from left to right) in
the PATH environment variable.
If match is found, the file is executed.
If match is not found, or it’s not an executable, an error
occurs.
If PATH is not set or is empty string, only current directory
is searched.
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Termination
• Bourne, Korn and Bash shells: special variable $? Which contains
the value of the previous command’s exit code.
• C shell: $status holds the exit code.
• Any script written by you should contain the exit command:
• exit <number>
• If the script does not exit with a exit code, the exit code of the last command is returned by
default.
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Core Built-In Commands: eval
eval is a built-in linux command which is used to execute
arguments as shell Command.
Combines arguments into a single string and uses it as an input to the
shell and execute the commands
Syntax: eval [arg ...]
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Core Built-In Commands: exec
Causes the shell’s image to be replaced with
command in the process’ memory space.
The exec command does not spawn a new
process. Instead, exec command is executed in
place of the current shell .
If commands is successfully executed, the shell
that performed the exec ceases to exist.
If it was login shell, the login session is terminated
when command terminates.
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Common Core Built-in commands
exec command
The exec shell command causes the
shell's image to be replaced with the
command in the process' memory space.
As a result, if the command terminates,
the shell also ceases to exist; If the shell
was a login shell, the login session
terminates.
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Core Built-In Commands: shift
This command causes all of the positional
parameters $2..$n to be renamed $1..$(n-1)
and $1 is lost.
Useful in processing command line
parameters. $ cat script3.csh
» #!/bin/csh
» echo first argument is $1, all args are $*
» shift
» echo first argument is $1, all args are $*
»
» $ script3.csh a b c d
» first argument is a, all args are a b c d
» first argument is b, all args are b c d
Umask Amity School Of Engineering And Technology
On Linux and Unix operating system, all new files are created
with a default set of permissions.
The umask utility allows you to view or to set the file mode
creation mask, which determines the permissions bits for
newly created files or directories.
It is used by mkdir, touch, tee , and other commands that
create new files and directories.
Every linux file is associated with an owner and a group and
assigned with permission access rights for three different
classes of users:
The file owner.
The group members.
Everyone else.
There are three permissions types that apply to each class. 55
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umask Command
Linux does not allow a file to be created with execute
permissions
Default permission values are
File 666 => read and write permission to users, group and others
Directory 777 => read, write and execute permission to users, group
and others
Default creation permissions can be modified
using umask utility
Every Unix process has a special quantity called umask value.
Default value: 022 octal
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umask Command
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To calculate the umask value, simply subtract the desired
permissions from the default one:
Umask value: 777-750 = 027
E.g. made by vi or by redirection
File permissions (usually 666) masked with umask value
Example: 022 to produce the permission 644
To see current umask value:
$ umask
To change umask value:
$ umask octalValue
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Summary
• Covered core shell functionality
• Built-in commands
• Scripts
• Variables
• Redirection
• Wildcards
• Pipes
• Subshells
• Background processing
