Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming, A

For use with all versions of Linux, including Ubuntu,™ Fedora,™ openSUSE,™ Red Hat,® Debian, Mandriva, Mint, and now OS X, too! Get more done faster, and become a true Linux guru by mastering the command line! Learn from hundreds of realistic, high-quality examples NEW! Coverage of the Mac OS X command line and its unique tools NEW! Expert primer on automating tasks with Perl The Most Useful Linux Tutorial and Reference, with Hundreds of High-Quality Examples for Every Distribution–Now Covers OS X and Perl, Too!   To be truly productive with Linux, you need to thoroughly master shells and the command line. Until now, you had to buy two books to gain that mastery: a tutorial on fundamental Linux concepts and techniques, plus a separate reference. Now, there’s a far better solution. Renowned Linux expert Mark Sobell has brought together comprehensive, insightful guidance on the tools system administrators, developers, and power users need most, and an outstanding day-to-day reference, both in the same book.   This book is 100 percent distribution and release agnostic: You can use it with any Linux system, now and for years to come. Use Macs, too? This new edition adds comprehensive coverage of the Mac OS X command line, including essential OS X-only tools and utilities other Linux/UNIX books ignore.   Packed with hundreds of high-quality, realistic examples, this book gives you Linux from the ground up: the clearest explanations and most useful knowledge about everything from filesystems to shells, editors to utilities, and programming tools to regular expressions. Sobell has also added an outstanding new primer on Perl, the most important programming tool for Linux admins seeking to automate complex, time-consuming tasks.   A Practical Guide to Linux® Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming, Second Edition, is the only book to deliver Better, more realistic examples covering tasks you’ll actually need to perform Deeper insight, based on Sobell’s immense knowledge of every Linux and OS X nook and cranny A start-to-finish primer on Perl for every system administrator In-depth coverage of basic and advanced Linux shell programming with bash and tcsh Practical explanations of 100 core utilities, from aspell to xargs–including Mac OS X specific utilities from ditto to SetFile All-new coverage of automating remote backups with rsync Dozens of system security tips, including step-by-step walkthroughs of implementing secure communications using ssh and scp Tips and tricks for customizing the shell and using it interactively from the command line Complete guides to high-productivity editing with both vim and emacs A comprehensive, 286-page command reference section–now with revised and expanded indexes for faster access to the information you need Instructions for updating systems automatically with apt-get and yum Dozens of exercises to help you practice and gain confidence And much more, including coverage of BitTorrent, gawk, sed, find, sort, bzip2, and regular expressions    

Table of Contents:
Preface xxxi   Chapter 1: Welcome to Linux and Mac OS X 1 The History of UNIX and GNU—Linux 2 What Is So Good About Linux? 6 Overview of Linux 11 Additional Features of Linux 16 Chapter Summary 18 Exercises 18   Part I: The Linux and Mac OS X Operating Systems 21   Chapter 2: Getting Started 23 Conventions Used in This Book 24 Logging In from a Terminal or Terminal Emulator 26 Working with the Shell 28 su/sudo: Curbing Your Power (root Privileges) 31 Where to Find Documentation 33 More About Logging In 40 Chapter Summary 43 Exercises 44 Advanced Exercises 44   Chapter 3: The Utilities 45 Special Characters 46 Basic Utilities 47 Working with Files 49 | (Pipe): Communicates Between Processes 56 Four More Utilities 57 Compressing and Archiving Files 60 Locating Commands 65 Obtaining User and System Information 67 Communicating with Other Users 70 Email 72 Chapter Summary 72 Exercises 75 Advanced Exercises 75   Chapter 4: The Filesystem 77 The Hierarchical Filesystem 78 Directory Files and Ordinary Files 78 Pathnames 83 Working with Directories 85 Access Permissions 93 ACLs: Access Control Lists 99 Links 104 Chapter Summary 111 Exercises 112 Advanced Exercises 114   Chapter 5: The Shell 117 The Command Line 118 Standard Input and Standard Output 123 Running a Command in the Background 134 Filename Generation/Pathname Expansion 136 Builtins 141 Chapter Summary 142 Exercises 143 Advanced Exercises 144   Part II: The Editors 147   Chapter 6: The vim Editor 149 History 150 Tutorial: Using vim to Create and Edit a File 151 Introduction to vim Features 158 Command Mode: Moving the Cursor 164 Input Mode 168 Command Mode: Deleting and Changing Text 169 Searching and Substituting 173 Miscellaneous Commands 180 Copying, Moving, and Deleting Text 180 Reading and Writing Files 183 Setting Parameters 184 Advanced Editing Techniques 189 Units of Measure 193 Chapter Summary 196 Exercises 201 Advanced Exercises 202   Chapter 7: The emacs Editor 205 History 206 Tutorial: Getting Started with emacs 208 The emacs GUI 215 Basic Editing Commands 216 Online Help 223 Advanced Editing 225 Major Modes: Language-Sensitive Editing 239 Customizing emacs 249 More Information 254 Chapter Summary 254 Exercises 262 Advanced Exercises 264   Part III: The Shells 267   Chapter 8: The Bourne Again Shell 269 Background 270 Shell Basics 271 Parameters and Variables 290 Special Characters 304 Processes 306 History 308 Aliases 324 Functions 327 Controlling bash: Features and Options 330 Processing the Command Line 334 Chapter Summary 343 Exercises 345 Advanced Exercises 347   Chapter 9: The TC Shell 349 Shell Scripts 350 Entering and Leaving the TC Shell 351 Features Common to the Bourne Again and TC Shells 353 Redirecting Standard Error 359 Working with the Command Line 360 Variables 365 Control Structures 378 Builtins 387 Chapter Summary 391 Exercises 392 Advanced Exercises 394   Part IV: Programming Tools 395   Chapter 10: Programming the Bourne Again Shell 397 Control Structures 398 File Descriptors 431 Parameters and Variables 434 Builtin Commands 446 Expressions 460 Shell Programs 468 Chapter Summary 478 Exercises 480 Advanced Exercises 482   Chapter 11: The Perl Scripting Language 485 Introduction to Perl 486 Variables 493 Control Structures 501 Working with Files 510 Sort 513 Subroutines 515 Regular Expressions 517 CPAN Modules 523 Examples 525 Chapter Summary 529 Exercises 529 Advanced Exercises 530   Chapter 12: The AWK Pattern Processing Language 531 Syntax 532 Arguments 532 Options 533 Notes 534 Language Basics 534 Examples 541 Advanced gawk Programming 558 Chapter Summary 563 Exercises 563 Advanced Exercises 564   Chapter 13: The sed Editor 565 Syntax 566 Arguments 566 Options 566 Editor Basics 567 Examples 570 Chapter Summary 581 Exercises 581   Chapter 14: The rsync Secure Copy Utility 583 Syntax 584 Arguments 584 Options 584 Examples 587 Chapter Summary 594 Exercises 594   Part V: Command Reference 597   Standard Multiplicative Suffixes 602 Common Options 603 The sample Utility 604   Part VI: Appendixes 885   Appendix A: Regular Expressions 887 Characters 888 Delimiters 888 Simple Strings 888 Special Characters 888 Rules 891 Bracketing Expressions 892 The Replacement String 892 Extended Regular Expressions 893 Appendix Summary 895   Appendix B: Help 897 Solving a Problem 898 The Apple Web Site 899 Finding Linux and OS X—Related Information 899 Specifying a Terminal 906   Appendix C: Keeping the System Up-to-Date 909 Using yum 910 Using apt-get 916 BitTorrent 921   Appendix D: Mac OS X Notes 925 Open Directory 926 Filesystems 927 Extended Attributes 928 Activating the META Key 935 Startup Files 936 Remote Logins 936 Many Utilities Do Not Respect Apple Human Interface Guidelines 936 Mac OS X Implementation of Linux Features 936   Glossary 939 File Tree Index 989 Utility Index 991 Main Index 995