UNIX Tools and Shell Scripting  Short Courses

What will I learn?

• Revision of basic and frequently used Unix commands - ls, cp, ps, cat, sort, find, chmod etc.
• Overview of the main programming tools available to the Unix administrator: the programmable Unix shell, sed and awk. The importance of the programming tools to the Unix administrator - the automation of regular administrative tasks
• Writing Bourne shell scripts (programs). Creating scripts using the built-in commands as building blocks. Making scripts executable. Controlling the way Unix executes shell programs
• Writing versions of the built-in commands - e.g cat
• Inter process communication using pipes. Standard input and output and using redirection
• Introduction to basic programming techniques - iteration and the use of conditional expressions. Processing command line arguments and other lists. The test command. The expr command
• Review of some scripts of particular importance to administrators - a script to add users to the system, scripts that control the user's environment
• The init process and its importance. Introduction to the way Unix creates processes - parent and child processes
• Run levels and the scripts that control the movement between run levels
• An overview of the architecture of TCP/IP. RPC (Remote Procedure Call). Systems that use RPC - the Network Information System (NIS) and the Network File System (NFS)
• How to integrate local and remote files into one file hierarchy - NFS and the fstab file
• How NIS provides an alternate way of administrating a Unix system. Advantages and disadvantages of using NIS

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• understand how to write Bourne shell scripts, using basic programming structures (conditional statements, iteration)
• identify elements of the awk and sed programming languages
• be familiar with some of the key elements of the work of a Unix administrator.