Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide:
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Chapter 17. System and Administrative Commands

The startup and shutdown scripts in /etc/rc.d illustrate the uses (and usefulness) of many of these comands. These are usually invoked by root and used for system maintenance or emergency filesystem repairs. Use with caution, as some of these commands may damage your system if misused.

Users and Groups

users

Show all logged on users. This is the approximate equivalent of who -q.

groups

Lists the current user and the groups she belongs to. This corresponds to the $GROUPS internal variable, but gives the group names, rather than the numbers.

bash$ groups
bozita cdrom cdwriter audio xgrp

bash$ echo $GROUPS
501

chown, chgrp

The chown command changes the ownership of a file or files. This command is a useful method that root can use to shift file ownership from one user to another. An ordinary user may not change the ownership of files, not even her own files. [1]

root# chown bozo *.txt

The chgrp command changes the group ownership of a file or files. You must be owner of the file(s) as well as a member of the destination group (or root) to use this operation.
chgrp --recursive dunderheads *.data # The "dunderheads" group will now own all the "*.data" files #+ all the way down the $PWD directory tree (that's what "recursive" means).

useradd, userdel

The useradd administrative command adds a user account to the system and creates a home directory for that particular user, if so specified. The corresponding userdel command removes a user account from the system [2] and deletes associated files.

The adduser command is a synonym for useradd and is usually a symbolic link to it.

usermod

Modify a user account. Changes may be made to the password, group membership, expiration date, and other attributes of a given user's account. With this command, a user's password may be locked, which has the effect of disabling the account.

groupmod

Modify a given group. The group name and/or ID number may be changed using this command.

id

The id command lists the real and effective user IDs and the group IDs of the user associated with the current process. This is the counterpart to the $UID, $EUID, and $GROUPS internal Bash variables.

bash$ id
uid=501(bozo) gid=501(bozo) groups=501(bozo),22(cdrom),80(cdwriter),81(audio)

bash$ echo $UID
501

The id command shows the effective IDs only when they differ from the real ones.

Also see Example 9-5.

lid

The lid (list ID) command shows the group(s) that a given user belongs to, or alternately, the users belonging to a given group. May be invoked only by root.

root# lid bozo bozo(gid=500) root# lid daemon bin(gid=1) daemon(gid=2) adm(gid=4) lp(gid=7)

who

Show all users logged on to the system.

bash$ who bozo tty1 Apr 27 17:45 bozo pts/0 Apr 27 17:46 bozo pts/1 Apr 27 17:47 bozo pts/2 Apr 27 17:49

The -m gives detailed information about only the current user. Passing any two arguments to who is the equivalent of who -m, as in who am i or who The Man.

bash$ who -m localhost.localdomain!bozo pts/2 Apr 27 17:49

whoami is similar to who -m, but only lists the user name.

bash$ whoami bozo

w

Show all logged on users and the processes belonging to them. This is an extended version of who. The output of w may be piped to grep to find a specific user and/or process.

bash$ w | grep startx
bozo  tty1     -                 4:22pm  6:41   4.47s  0.45s  startx

logname

Show current user's login name (as found in /var/run/utmp). This is a near-equivalent to whoami, above.

bash$ logname
bozo

bash$ whoami
bozo

However . . .

bash$ su Password: ...... bash# whoami root bash# logname bozo

While logname prints the name of the logged in user, whoami gives the name of the user attached to the current process. As we have just seen, sometimes these are not the same.

su

Runs a program or script as a substitute user. su rjones starts a shell as user rjones. A naked su defaults to root. See Example A-14.

sudo

Runs a command as root (or another user). This may be used in a script, thus permitting a regular user to run the script.

#!/bin/bash # Some commands. sudo cp /root/secretfile /home/bozo/secret # Some more commands.

The file /etc/sudoers holds the names of users permitted to invoke sudo.

passwd

Sets, changes, or manages a user's password.

The passwd command can be used in a script, but probably should not be.

Example 17-1. Setting a new password

#!/bin/bash
#  setnew-password.sh: For demonstration purposes only.
#                      Not a good idea to actually run this script.
#  This script must be run as root.

ROOT_UID=0         # Root has $UID 0.
E_WRONG_USER=65    # Not root?

E_NOSUCHUSER=70
SUCCESS=0


if [ "$UID" -ne "$ROOT_UID" ]
then
  echo; echo "Only root can run this script."; echo
  exit $E_WRONG_USER
else
  echo
  echo "You should know better than to run this script, root."
  echo "Even root users get the blues... "
  echo
fi  


username=bozo
NEWPASSWORD=security_violation

# Check if bozo lives here.
grep -q "$username" /etc/passwd
if [ $? -ne $SUCCESS ]
then
  echo "User $username does not exist."
  echo "No password changed."
  exit $E_NOSUCHUSER
fi  

echo "$NEWPASSWORD" | passwd --stdin "$username"
#  The '--stdin' option to 'passwd' permits
#+ getting a new password from stdin (or a pipe).

echo; echo "User $username's password changed!"

# Using the 'passwd' command in a script is dangerous.

exit 0

The passwd command's -l, -u, and -d options permit locking, unlocking, and deleting a user's password. Only root may use these options.

ac

Show users' logged in time, as read from /var/log/wtmp. This is one of the GNU accounting utilities.

bash$ ac
        total       68.08

last

List last logged in users, as read from /var/log/wtmp. This command can also show remote logins.

For example, to show the last few times the system rebooted:

bash$ last reboot
reboot   system boot  2.6.9-1.667      Fri Feb  4 18:18          (00:02)    
 reboot   system boot  2.6.9-1.667      Fri Feb  4 15:20          (01:27)    
 reboot   system boot  2.6.9-1.667      Fri Feb  4 12:56          (00:49)    
 reboot   system boot  2.6.9-1.667      Thu Feb  3 21:08          (02:17)    
 . . .

 wtmp begins Tue Feb  1 12:50:09 2005

newgrp

Change user's group ID without logging out. This permits access to the new group's files. Since users may be members of multiple groups simultaneously, this command finds only limited use.

Kurt Glaesemann points out that the newgrp command could prove helpful in setting the default group permissions for files a user writes. However, the chgrp command might be more convenient for this purpose.

Terminals

tty

Echoes the name (filename) of the current user's terminal. Note that each separate xterm window counts as a different terminal.

bash$ tty
/dev/pts/1

stty

Shows and/or changes terminal settings. This complex command, used in a script, can control terminal behavior and the way output displays. See the info page, and study it carefully.

Example 17-2. Setting an erase character

#!/bin/bash
# erase.sh: Using "stty" to set an erase character when reading input.

echo -n "What is your name? "
read name                      #  Try to backspace
                               #+ to erase characters of input.
                               #  Problems?
echo "Your name is $name."

stty erase '#'                 #  Set "hashmark" (#) as erase character.
echo -n "What is your name? "
read name                      #  Use # to erase last character typed.
echo "Your name is $name."

exit 0

# Even after the script exits, the new key value remains set.
# Exercise: How would you reset the erase character to the default value?

Example 17-3. secret password: Turning off terminal echoing

#!/bin/bash
# secret-pw.sh: secret password

echo
echo -n "Enter password "
read passwd
echo "password is $passwd"
echo -n "If someone had been looking over your shoulder, "
echo "your password would have been compromised."

echo && echo  # Two line-feeds in an "and list."


stty -echo    # Turns off screen echo.
#   May also be done with
#   read -sp passwd
#   A big Thank You to Leigh James for pointing this out.

echo -n "Enter password again "
read passwd
echo
echo "password is $passwd"
echo

stty echo     # Restores screen echo.

exit 0

# Do an 'info stty' for more on this useful-but-tricky command.

A creative use of stty is detecting a user keypress (without hitting ENTER).

Example 17-4. Keypress detection

#!/bin/bash
# keypress.sh: Detect a user keypress ("hot keys").

echo

old_tty_settings=$(stty -g)   # Save old settings (why?).
stty -icanon
Keypress=$(head -c1)          # or $(dd bs=1 count=1 2> /dev/null)
                              # on non-GNU systems

echo
echo "Key pressed was \""$Keypress"\"."
echo

stty "$old_tty_settings"      # Restore old settings.

# Thanks, Stephane Chazelas.

exit 0

Also see Example 9-3 and Example A-43.

terminals and modes

Normally, a terminal works in the canonical mode. When a user hits a key, the resulting character does not immediately go to the program actually running in this terminal. A buffer local to the terminal stores keystrokes. When the user hits the ENTER key, this sends all the stored keystrokes to the program running. There is even a basic line editor inside the terminal.

bash$ stty -a speed 9600 baud; rows 36; columns 96; line = 0; intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^H; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>; eol2 = <undef>; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R; werase = ^W; lnext = ^V; flush = ^O; ... isig icanon iexten echo echoe echok -echonl -noflsh -xcase -tostop -echoprt

Using canonical mode, it is possible to redefine the special keys for the local terminal line editor.
bash$ cat > filexxx wha<ctl-W>I<ctl-H>foo bar<ctl-U>hello world<ENTER> <ctl-D> bash$ cat filexxx hello world bash$ wc -c < filexxx 12
The process controlling the terminal receives only 12 characters (11 alphabetic ones, plus a newline), although the user hit 26 keys.

In non-canonical ("raw") mode, every key hit (including special editing keys such as ctl-H) sends a character immediately to the controlling process.

The Bash prompt disables both icanon and echo, since it replaces the basic terminal line editor with its own more elaborate one. For example, when you hit ctl-A at the Bash prompt, there's no ^A echoed by the terminal, but Bash gets a \1 character, interprets it, and moves the cursor to the begining of the line.

St�phane Chazelas

setterm

Set certain terminal attributes. This command writes to its terminal's stdout a string that changes the behavior of that terminal.

bash$ setterm -cursor off bash$

The setterm command can be used within a script to change the appearance of text written to stdout, although there are certainly better tools available for this purpose.

setterm -bold on echo bold hello setterm -bold off echo normal hello

tset

Show or initialize terminal settings. This is a less capable version of stty.

bash$ tset -r Terminal type is xterm-xfree86. Kill is control-U (^U). Interrupt is control-C (^C).

setserial

Set or display serial port parameters. This command must be run by root and is usually found in a system setup script.

# From /etc/pcmcia/serial script: IRQ=`setserial /dev/$DEVICE | sed -e 's/.*IRQ: //'` setserial /dev/$DEVICE irq 0 ; setserial /dev/$DEVICE irq $IRQ

getty, agetty

The initialization process for a terminal uses getty or agetty to set it up for login by a user. These commands are not used within user shell scripts. Their scripting counterpart is stty.

mesg

Enables or disables write access to the current user's terminal. Disabling access would prevent another user on the network to write to the terminal.

It can be quite annoying to have a message about ordering pizza suddenly appear in the middle of the text file you are editing. On a multi-user network, you might therefore wish to disable write access to your terminal when you need to avoid interruptions.

wall

This is an acronym for "write all," i.e., sending a message to all users at every terminal logged into the network. It is primarily a system administrator's tool, useful, for example, when warning everyone that the system will shortly go down due to a problem (see Example 19-1).

bash$ wall System going down for maintenance in 5 minutes! Broadcast message from bozo (pts/1) Sun Jul 8 13:53:27 2001... System going down for maintenance in 5 minutes!

If write access to a particular terminal has been disabled with mesg, then wall cannot send a message to that terminal.

Information and Statistics

uname

Output system specifications (OS, kernel version, etc.) to stdout. Invoked with the -a option, gives verbose system info (see Example 16-5). The -s option shows only the OS type.

bash$ uname
Linux

bash$ uname -s
Linux


bash$ uname -a
Linux iron.bozo 2.6.15-1.2054_FC5 #1 Tue Mar 14 15:48:33 EST 2006
 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

arch

Show system architecture. Equivalent to uname -m. See Example 11-27.

bash$ arch
i686

bash$ uname -m
i686

lastcomm

Gives information about previous commands, as stored in the /var/account/pacct file. Command name and user name can be specified by options. This is one of the GNU accounting utilities.

lastlog

List the last login time of all system users. This references the /var/log/lastlog file.

bash$ lastlog root tty1 Fri Dec 7 18:43:21 -0700 2001 bin **Never logged in** daemon **Never logged in** ... bozo tty1 Sat Dec 8 21:14:29 -0700 2001 bash$ lastlog | grep root root tty1 Fri Dec 7 18:43:21 -0700 2001

This command will fail if the user invoking it does not have read permission for the /var/log/lastlog file.

lsof

List open files. This command outputs a detailed table of all currently open files and gives information about their owner, size, the processes associated with them, and more. Of course, lsof may be piped to grep and/or awk to parse and analyze its results.

bash$ lsof COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME init 1 root mem REG 3,5 30748 30303 /sbin/init init 1 root mem REG 3,5 73120 8069 /lib/ld-2.1.3.so init 1 root mem REG 3,5 931668 8075 /lib/libc-2.1.3.so cardmgr 213 root mem REG 3,5 36956 30357 /sbin/cardmgr ...

The lsof command is a useful, if complex administrative tool. If you are unable to dismount a filesystem and get an error message that it is still in use, then running lsof helps determine which files are still open on that filesystem. The -i option lists open network socket files, and this can help trace intrusion or hack attempts.

bash$ lsof -an -i tcp COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME firefox 2330 bozo 32u IPv4 9956 TCP 66.0.118.137:57596->67.112.7.104:http ... firefox 2330 bozo 38u IPv4 10535 TCP 66.0.118.137:57708->216.79.48.24:http ...

See Example 30-2 for an effective use of lsof.

strace

System trace: diagnostic and debugging tool for tracing system calls and signals. This command and ltrace, following, are useful for diagnosing why a given program or package fails to run . . . perhaps due to missing libraries or related causes.

bash$ strace df execve("/bin/df", ["df"], [/* 45 vars */]) = 0 uname({sys="Linux", node="bozo.localdomain", ...}) = 0 brk(0) = 0x804f5e4 ...

This is the Linux equivalent of the Solaris truss command.

ltrace

Library trace: diagnostic and debugging tool that traces library calls invoked by a given command.

bash$ ltrace df __libc_start_main(0x804a910, 1, 0xbfb589a4, 0x804fb70, 0x804fb68 <unfinished ...>: setlocale(6, "") = "en_US.UTF-8" bindtextdomain("coreutils", "/usr/share/locale") = "/usr/share/locale" textdomain("coreutils") = "coreutils" __cxa_atexit(0x804b650, 0, 0, 0x8052bf0, 0xbfb58908) = 0 getenv("DF_BLOCK_SIZE") = NULL ...

nc

The nc (netcat) utility is a complete toolkit for connecting to and listening to TCP and UDP ports. It is useful as a diagnostic and testing tool and as a component in simple script-based HTTP clients and servers.

bash$ nc localhost.localdomain 25 220 localhost.localdomain ESMTP Sendmail 8.13.1/8.13.1; Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:41:35 -0700

A real-life usage example.

Example 17-5. Checking a remote server for identd

#! /bin/sh
## Duplicate DaveG's ident-scan thingie using netcat. Oooh, he'll be p*ssed.
## Args: target port [port port port ...]
## Hose stdout _and_ stderr together.
##
##  Advantages: runs slower than ident-scan, giving remote inetd less cause
##+ for alarm, and only hits the few known daemon ports you specify.
##  Disadvantages: requires numeric-only port args, the output sleazitude,
##+ and won't work for r-services when coming from high source ports.
# Script author: Hobbit <hobbit@avian.org>
# Used in ABS Guide with permission.

# ---------------------------------------------------
E_BADARGS=65       # Need at least two args.
TWO_WINKS=2        # How long to sleep.
THREE_WINKS=3
IDPORT=113         # Authentication "tap ident" port.
RAND1=999
RAND2=31337
TIMEOUT0=9
TIMEOUT1=8
TIMEOUT2=4
# ---------------------------------------------------

case "${2}" in
  "" ) echo "Need HOST and at least one PORT." ; exit $E_BADARGS ;;
esac

# Ping 'em once and see if they *are* running identd.
nc -z -w $TIMEOUT0 "$1" $IDPORT || \
{ echo "Oops, $1 isn't running identd." ; exit 0 ; }
#  -z scans for listening daemons.
#     -w $TIMEOUT = How long to try to connect.

# Generate a randomish base port.
RP=`expr $$ % $RAND1 + $RAND2`

TRG="$1"
shift

while test "$1" ; do
  nc -v -w $TIMEOUT1 -p ${RP} "$TRG" ${1} < /dev/null > /dev/null &
  PROC=$!
  sleep $THREE_WINKS
  echo "${1},${RP}" | nc -w $TIMEOUT2 -r "$TRG" $IDPORT 2>&1
  sleep $TWO_WINKS

# Does this look like a lamer script or what . . . ?
# ABS Guide author comments: "Ain't really all that bad . . .
#+                            kinda clever, actually."

  kill -HUP $PROC
  RP=`expr ${RP} + 1`
  shift
done

exit $?

#  Notes:
#  -----

#  Try commenting out line 30 and running this script
#+ with "localhost.localdomain 25" as arguments.

#  For more of Hobbit's 'nc' example scripts,
#+ look in the documentation:
#+ the /usr/share/doc/nc-X.XX/scripts directory.

And, of course, there's Dr. Andrew Tridgell's notorious one-line script in the BitKeeper Affair:
echo clone | nc thunk.org 5000 > e2fsprogs.dat

free

Shows memory and cache usage in tabular form. The output of this command lends itself to parsing, using grep, awk or Perl. The procinfo command shows all the information that free does, and much more.

bash$ free
                total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
   Mem:         30504      28624       1880      15820       1608       16376
   -/+ buffers/cache:      10640      19864
   Swap:        68540       3128      65412

To show unused RAM memory:

bash$ free | grep Mem | awk '{ print $4 }'
1880

procinfo

Extract and list information and statistics from the /proc pseudo-filesystem. This gives a very extensive and detailed listing.

bash$ procinfo | grep Bootup
Bootup: Wed Mar 21 15:15:50 2001    Load average: 0.04 0.21 0.34 3/47 6829

lsdev

List devices, that is, show installed hardware.

bash$ lsdev Device DMA IRQ I/O Ports ------------------------------------------------ cascade 4 2 dma 0080-008f dma1 0000-001f dma2 00c0-00df fpu 00f0-00ff ide0 14 01f0-01f7 03f6-03f6 ...

du

Show (disk) file usage, recursively. Defaults to current working directory, unless otherwise specified.

bash$ du -ach
1.0k    ./wi.sh
 1.0k    ./tst.sh
 1.0k    ./random.file
 6.0k    .
 6.0k    total

df

Shows filesystem usage in tabular form.

bash$ df
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
 /dev/hda5               273262     92607    166547  36% /
 /dev/hda8               222525    123951     87085  59% /home
 /dev/hda7              1408796   1075744    261488  80% /usr

dmesg

Lists all system bootup messages to stdout. Handy for debugging and ascertaining which device drivers were installed and which system interrupts in use. The output of dmesg may, of course, be parsed with grep, sed, or awk from within a script.

bash$ dmesg | grep hda Kernel command line: ro root=/dev/hda2 hda: IBM-DLGA-23080, ATA DISK drive hda: 6015744 sectors (3080 MB) w/96KiB Cache, CHS=746/128/63 hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 < hda5 hda6 hda7 > hda4

stat

Gives detailed and verbose statistics on a given file (even a directory or device file) or set of files.

bash$ stat test.cru File: "test.cru" Size: 49970 Allocated Blocks: 100 Filetype: Regular File Mode: (0664/-rw-rw-r--) Uid: ( 501/ bozo) Gid: ( 501/ bozo) Device: 3,8 Inode: 18185 Links: 1 Access: Sat Jun 2 16:40:24 2001 Modify: Sat Jun 2 16:40:24 2001 Change: Sat Jun 2 16:40:24 2001

If the target file does not exist, stat returns an error message.

bash$ stat nonexistent-file nonexistent-file: No such file or directory

In a script, you can use stat to extract information about files (and filesystems) and set variables accordingly.

#!/bin/bash # fileinfo2.sh # Per suggestion of Jo�l Bourquard and . . . # http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=410766 FILENAME=testfile.txt file_name=$(stat -c%n "$FILENAME") # Same as "$FILENAME" of course. file_owner=$(stat -c%U "$FILENAME") file_size=$(stat -c%s "$FILENAME") # Certainly easier than using "ls -l $FILENAME" #+ and then parsing with sed. file_inode=$(stat -c%i "$FILENAME") file_type=$(stat -c%F "$FILENAME") file_access_rights=$(stat -c%A "$FILENAME") echo "File name: $file_name" echo "File owner: $file_owner" echo "File size: $file_size" echo "File inode: $file_inode" echo "File type: $file_type" echo "File access rights: $file_access_rights" exit 0 sh fileinfo2.sh File name: testfile.txt File owner: bozo File size: 418 File inode: 1730378 File type: regular file File access rights: -rw-rw-r--

vmstat

Display virtual memory statistics.

bash$ vmstat procs memory swap io system cpu r b w swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id 0 0 0 0 11040 2636 38952 0 0 33 7 271 88 8 3 89

uptime

Shows how long the system has been running, along with associated statistics.

bash$ uptime 10:28pm up 1:57, 3 users, load average: 0.17, 0.34, 0.27

A load average of 1 or less indicates that the system handles processes immediately. A load average greater than 1 means that processes are being queued. When the load average gets above 3 (on a single-core processor), then system performance is significantly degraded.

hostname

Lists the system's host name. This command sets the host name in an /etc/rc.d setup script (/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit or similar). It is equivalent to uname -n, and a counterpart to the $HOSTNAME internal variable.

bash$ hostname
localhost.localdomain

bash$ echo $HOSTNAME
localhost.localdomain

Similar to the hostname command are the domainname, dnsdomainname, nisdomainname, and ypdomainname commands. Use these to display or set the system DNS or NIS/YP domain name. Various options to hostname also perform these functions.

hostid

Echo a 32-bit hexadecimal numerical identifier for the host machine.

bash$ hostid 7f0100

This command allegedly fetches a "unique" serial number for a particular system. Certain product registration procedures use this number to brand a particular user license. Unfortunately, hostid only returns the machine network address in hexadecimal, with pairs of bytes transposed.

The network address of a typical non-networked Linux machine, is found in /etc/hosts.

bash$ cat /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

As it happens, transposing the bytes of 127.0.0.1, we get 0.127.1.0, which translates in hex to 007f0100, the exact equivalent of what hostid returns, above. There exist only a few million other Linux machines with this identical hostid.

sar

Invoking sar (System Activity Reporter) gives a very detailed rundown on system statistics. The Santa Cruz Operation ("Old" SCO) released sar as Open Source in June, 1999.

This command is not part of the base Linux distribution, but may be obtained as part of the sysstat utilities package, written by Sebastien Godard.

bash$ sar
Linux 2.4.9 (brooks.seringas.fr) 	09/26/03

10:30:00          CPU     %user     %nice   %system   %iowait     %idle
10:40:00          all      2.21     10.90     65.48      0.00     21.41
10:50:00          all      3.36      0.00     72.36      0.00     24.28
11:00:00          all      1.12      0.00     80.77      0.00     18.11
Average:          all      2.23      3.63     72.87      0.00     21.27

14:32:30          LINUX RESTART

15:00:00          CPU     %user     %nice   %system   %iowait     %idle
15:10:00          all      8.59      2.40     17.47      0.00     71.54
15:20:00          all      4.07      1.00     11.95      0.00     82.98
15:30:00          all      0.79      2.94      7.56      0.00     88.71
Average:          all      6.33      1.70     14.71      0.00     77.26

readelf

Show information and statistics about a designated elf binary. This is part of the binutils package.

bash$ readelf -h /bin/bash
ELF Header:
   Magic:   7f 45 4c 46 01 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 
   Class:                             ELF32
   Data:                              2's complement, little endian
   Version:                           1 (current)
   OS/ABI:                            UNIX - System V
   ABI Version:                       0
   Type:                              EXEC (Executable file)
   . . .

size

The size [/path/to/binary] command gives the segment sizes of a binary executable or archive file. This is mainly of use to programmers.

bash$ size /bin/bash text data bss dec hex filename 495971 22496 17392 535859 82d33 /bin/bash

System Logs

logger

Appends a user-generated message to the system log (/var/log/messages). You do not have to be root to invoke logger.

logger Experiencing instability in network connection at 23:10, 05/21. # Now, do a 'tail /var/log/messages'.

By embedding a logger command in a script, it is possible to write debugging information to /var/log/messages.

logger -t $0 -i Logging at line "$LINENO". # The "-t" option specifies the tag for the logger entry. # The "-i" option records the process ID. # tail /var/log/message # ... # Jul 7 20:48:58 localhost ./test.sh[1712]: Logging at line 3.

logrotate

This utility manages the system log files, rotating, compressing, deleting, and/or e-mailing them, as appropriate. This keeps the /var/log from getting cluttered with old log files. Usually cron runs logrotate on a daily basis.

Adding an appropriate entry to /etc/logrotate.conf makes it possible to manage personal log files, as well as system-wide ones.

Stefano Falsetto has created rottlog, which he considers to be an improved version of logrotate.

Job Control

ps

Process Statistics: lists currently executing processes by owner and PID (process ID). This is usually invoked with ax or aux options, and may be piped to grep or sed to search for a specific process (see Example 15-14 and Example 29-3).

bash$  ps ax | grep sendmail
295 ?	   S	  0:00 sendmail: accepting connections on port 25

To display system processes in graphical "tree" format: ps afjx or ps ax --forest.

pgrep, pkill

Combining the ps command with grep or kill.

bash$ ps a | grep mingetty 2212 tty2 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty2 2213 tty3 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty3 2214 tty4 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty4 2215 tty5 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty5 2216 tty6 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty6 4849 pts/2 S+ 0:00 grep mingetty bash$ pgrep mingetty 2212 mingetty 2213 mingetty 2214 mingetty 2215 mingetty 2216 mingetty

Compare the action of pkill with killall.

pstree

Lists currently executing processes in "tree" format. The -p option shows the PIDs, as well as the process names.

top

Continuously updated display of most cpu-intensive processes. The -b option displays in text mode, so that the output may be parsed or accessed from a script.

bash$ top -b 8:30pm up 3 min, 3 users, load average: 0.49, 0.32, 0.13 45 processes: 44 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped CPU states: 13.6% user, 7.3% system, 0.0% nice, 78.9% idle Mem: 78396K av, 65468K used, 12928K free, 0K shrd, 2352K buff Swap: 157208K av, 0K used, 157208K free 37244K cached PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND 848 bozo 17 0 996 996 800 R 5.6 1.2 0:00 top 1 root 8 0 512 512 444 S 0.0 0.6 0:04 init 2 root 9 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 keventd ...

nice

Run a background job with an altered priority. Priorities run from 19 (lowest) to -20 (highest). Only root may set the negative (higher) priorities. Related commands are renice and snice, which change the priority of a running process or processes, and skill, which sends a kill signal to a process or processes.

nohup

Keeps a command running even after user logs off. The command will run as a foreground process unless followed by &. If you use nohup within a script, consider coupling it with a wait to avoid creating an orphan or zombie process.

pidof

Identifies process ID (PID) of a running job. Since job control commands, such as kill and renice act on the PID of a process (not its name), it is sometimes necessary to identify that PID. The pidof command is the approximate counterpart to the $PPID internal variable.

bash$ pidof xclock 880

Example 17-6. pidof helps kill a process

#!/bin/bash
# kill-process.sh

NOPROCESS=2

process=xxxyyyzzz  # Use nonexistent process.
# For demo purposes only...
# ... don't want to actually kill any actual process with this script.
#
# If, for example, you wanted to use this script to logoff the Internet,
#     process=pppd

t=`pidof $process`       # Find pid (process id) of $process.
# The pid is needed by 'kill' (can't 'kill' by program name).

if [ -z "$t" ]           # If process not present, 'pidof' returns null.
then
  echo "Process $process was not running."
  echo "Nothing killed."
  exit $NOPROCESS
fi  

kill $t                  # May need 'kill -9' for stubborn process.

# Need a check here to see if process allowed itself to be killed.
# Perhaps another " t=`pidof $process` " or ...


# This entire script could be replaced by
#        kill $(pidof -x process_name)
# or
#        killall process_name
# but it would not be as instructive.

exit 0

fuser

Identifies the processes (by PID) that are accessing a given file, set of files, or directory. May also be invoked with the -k option, which kills those processes. This has interesting implications for system security, especially in scripts preventing unauthorized users from accessing system services.

bash$ fuser -u /usr/bin/vim /usr/bin/vim: 3207e(bozo) bash$ fuser -u /dev/null /dev/null: 3009(bozo) 3010(bozo) 3197(bozo) 3199(bozo)

One important application for fuser is when physically inserting or removing storage media, such as CD ROM disks or USB flash drives. Sometimes trying a umount fails with a device is busy error message. This means that some user(s) and/or process(es) are accessing the device. An fuser -um /dev/device_name will clear up the mystery, so you can kill any relevant processes.

bash$ umount /mnt/usbdrive umount: /mnt/usbdrive: device is busy bash$ fuser -um /dev/usbdrive /mnt/usbdrive: 1772c(bozo) bash$ kill -9 1772 bash$ umount /mnt/usbdrive

The fuser command, invoked with the -n option identifies the processes accessing a port. This is especially useful in combination with nmap.

root# nmap localhost.localdomain PORT STATE SERVICE 25/tcp open smtp root# fuser -un tcp 25 25/tcp: 2095(root) root# ps ax | grep 2095 | grep -v grep 2095 ? Ss 0:00 sendmail: accepting connections

cron

Administrative program scheduler, performing such duties as cleaning up and deleting system log files and updating the slocate database. This is the superuser version of at (although each user may have their own crontab file which can be changed with the crontab command). It runs as a daemon and executes scheduled entries from /etc/crontab.

Some flavors of Linux run crond, Matthew Dillon's version of cron.

Process Control and Booting

init

The init command is the parent of all processes. Called in the final step of a bootup, init determines the runlevel of the system from /etc/inittab. Invoked by its alias telinit, and by root only.

telinit

Symlinked to init, this is a means of changing the system runlevel, usually done for system maintenance or emergency filesystem repairs. Invoked only by root. This command can be dangerous -- be certain you understand it well before using!

runlevel

Shows the current and last runlevel, that is, whether the system is halted (runlevel 0), in single-user mode (1), in multi-user mode (2 or 3), in X Windows (5), or rebooting (6). This command accesses the /var/run/utmp file.

halt, shutdown, reboot

Command set to shut the system down, usually just prior to a power down.

On some Linux distros, the halt command has 755 permissions, so it can be invoked by a non-root user. A careless halt in a terminal or a script may shut down the system!

service

Starts or stops a system service. The startup scripts in /etc/init.d and /etc/rc.d use this command to start services at bootup.

root# /sbin/service iptables stop Flushing firewall rules: [ OK ] Setting chains to policy ACCEPT: filter [ OK ] Unloading iptables modules: [ OK ]

Network

nmap

Network mapper and port scanner. This command scans a server to locate open ports and the services associated with those ports. It can also report information about packet filters and firewalls. This is an important security tool for locking down a network against hacking attempts.

#!/bin/bash SERVER=$HOST # localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1). PORT_NUMBER=25 # SMTP port. nmap $SERVER | grep -w "$PORT_NUMBER" # Is that particular port open? # grep -w matches whole words only, #+ so this wouldn't match port 1025, for example. exit 0 # 25/tcp open smtp

ifconfig

Network interface configuration and tuning utility.

bash$ ifconfig -a
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
           inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
           UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
           RX packets:10 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:10 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
           RX bytes:700 (700.0 b)  TX bytes:700 (700.0 b)

The ifconfig command is most often used at bootup to set up the interfaces, or to shut them down when rebooting.

# Code snippets from /etc/rc.d/init.d/network # ... # Check that networking is up. [ ${NETWORKING} = "no" ] && exit 0 [ -x /sbin/ifconfig ] || exit 0 # ... for i in $interfaces ; do if ifconfig $i 2>/dev/null | grep -q "UP" >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then action "Shutting down interface $i: " ./ifdown $i boot fi # The GNU-specific "-q" option to "grep" means "quiet", i.e., #+ producing no output. # Redirecting output to /dev/null is therefore not strictly necessary. # ... echo "Currently active devices:" echo `/sbin/ifconfig | grep ^[a-z] | awk '{print $1}'` # ^^^^^ should be quoted to prevent globbing. # The following also work. # echo $(/sbin/ifconfig | awk '/^[a-z]/ { print $1 })' # echo $(/sbin/ifconfig | sed -e 's/ .*//') # Thanks, S.C., for additional comments.

See also Example 17-8 and Example 31-3.

mkdosfs

Create a DOS FAT filesystem.

tune2fs

Tune ext2 filesystem. May be used to change filesystem parameters, such as maximum mount count. This must be invoked as root.

This is an extremely dangerous command. Use it at your own risk, as you may inadvertently destroy your filesystem.

dumpe2fs

Dump (list to stdout) very verbose filesystem info. This must be invoked as root.

root# dumpe2fs /dev/hda7 | grep 'ount count'
dumpe2fs 1.19, 13-Jul-2000 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
 Mount count:              6
 Maximum mount count:      20

hdparm

List or change hard disk parameters. This command must be invoked as root, and it may be dangerous if misused.

fdisk

Create or change a partition table on a storage device, usually a hard drive. This command must be invoked as root.

Use this command with extreme caution. If something goes wrong, you may destroy an existing filesystem.

fsck, e2fsck, debugfs

Filesystem check, repair, and debug command set.

fsck: a front end for checking a UNIX filesystem (may invoke other utilities). The actual filesystem type generally defaults to ext2.

e2fsck: ext2 filesystem checker.

debugfs: ext2 filesystem debugger. One of the uses of this versatile, but dangerous command is to (attempt to) recover deleted files. For advanced users only!

All of these should be invoked as root, and they can damage or destroy a filesystem if misused.

badblocks

Checks for bad blocks (physical media flaws) on a storage device. This command finds use when formatting a newly installed hard drive or testing the integrity of backup media. [4] As an example, badblocks /dev/fd0 tests a floppy disk.

The badblocks command may be invoked destructively (overwrite all data) or in non-destructive read-only mode. If root user owns the device to be tested, as is generally the case, then root must invoke this command.

lsusb, usbmodules

The lsusb command lists all USB (Universal Serial Bus) buses and the devices hooked up to them.

The usbmodules command outputs information about the driver modules for connected USB devices.

bash$ lsusb Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 1.00 bDeviceClass 9 Hub bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 8 idVendor 0x0000 idProduct 0x0000 . . .

lspci

Lists pci busses present.

bash$ lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset Host Bridge (rev 04) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB (Hub #1) (rev 02) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB (Hub #2) (rev 02) 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB (Hub #3) (rev 02) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 42) . . .

mkbootdisk

Creates a boot floppy which can be used to bring up the system if, for example, the MBR (master boot record) becomes corrupted. Of special interest is the --iso option, which uses mkisofs to create a bootable ISO9660 filesystem image suitable for burning a bootable CDR.

The mkbootdisk command is actually a Bash script, written by Erik Troan, in the /sbin directory.

mkisofs

Creates an ISO9660 filesystem suitable for a CDR image.

chroot

CHange ROOT directory. Normally commands are fetched from $PATH, relative to /, the default root directory. This changes the root directory to a different one (and also changes the working directory to there). This is useful for security purposes, for instance when the system administrator wishes to restrict certain users, such as those telnetting in, to a secured portion of the filesystem (this is sometimes referred to as confining a guest user to a "chroot jail"). Note that after a chroot, the execution path for system binaries is no longer valid.

A chroot /opt would cause references to /usr/bin to be translated to /opt/usr/bin. Likewise, chroot /aaa/bbb /bin/ls would redirect future instances of ls to /aaa/bbb as the base directory, rather than / as is normally the case. An alias XX 'chroot /aaa/bbb ls' in a user's ~/.bashrc effectively restricts which portion of the filesystem she may run command "XX" on.

The chroot command is also handy when running from an emergency boot floppy (chroot to /dev/fd0), or as an option to lilo when recovering from a system crash. Other uses include installation from a different filesystem (an rpm option) or running a readonly filesystem from a CD ROM. Invoke only as root, and use with care.

It might be necessary to copy certain system files to a chrooted directory, since the normal $PATH can no longer be relied upon.

lockfile

This utility is part of the procmail package (www.procmail.org). It creates a lock file, a semaphore that controls access to a file, device, or resource.

The lock file serves as a flag that this particular file, device, or resource is in use by a process (and is therefore "busy"). The presence of a lock file permits only restricted access (or no access) to other processes.

lockfile /home/bozo/lockfiles/$0.lock # Creates a write-protected lockfile prefixed with the name of the script. lockfile /home/bozo/lockfiles/${0##*/}.lock # A safer version of the above, as pointed out by E. Choroba.

Lock files are used in such applications as protecting system mail folders from simultaneously being changed by multiple users, indicating that a modem port is being accessed, and showing that an instance of Firefox is using its cache. Scripts may check for the existence of a lock file created by a certain process to check if that process is running. Note that if a script attempts to create a lock file that already exists, the script will likely hang.

Normally, applications create and check for lock files in the /var/lock directory. [5] A script can test for the presence of a lock file by something like the following.
appname=xyzip # Application "xyzip" created lock file "/var/lock/xyzip.lock". if [ -e "/var/lock/$appname.lock" ] then #+ Prevent other programs & scripts # from accessing files/resources used by xyzip. ...

flock

Much less useful than the lockfile command is flock. It sets an "advisory" lock on a file and then executes a command while the lock is on. This is to prevent any other process from setting a lock on that file until completion of the specified command.

flock $0 cat $0 > lockfile__$0 # Set a lock on the script the above line appears in, #+ while listing the script to stdout.

Unlike lockfile, flock does not automatically create a lock file.

mknod

Creates block or character device files (may be necessary when installing new hardware on the system). The MAKEDEV utility has virtually all of the functionality of mknod, and is easier to use.

MAKEDEV

Utility for creating device files. It must be run as root, and in the /dev directory. It is a sort of advanced version of mknod.

tmpwatch

Automatically deletes files which have not been accessed within a specified period of time. Usually invoked by cron to remove stale log files.

Backup

dump, restore: The dump command is an elaborate filesystem backup utility, generally used on larger installations and networks. [6] It reads raw disk partitions and writes a backup file in a binary format. Files to be backed up may be saved to a variety of storage media, including disks and tape drives. The restore command restores backups made with dump.
fdformat: Perform a low-level format on a floppy disk (/dev/fd0*).

System Resources

ulimit

Sets an upper limit on use of system resources. Usually invoked with the -f option, which sets a limit on file size (ulimit -f 1000 limits files to 1 meg maximum). [7] The -t option limits the coredump size (ulimit -c 0 eliminates coredumps). Normally, the value of ulimit would be set in /etc/profile and/or ~/.bash_profile (see Appendix H).

Judicious use of ulimit can protect a system against the dreaded fork bomb.

#!/bin/bash # This script is for illustrative purposes only. # Run it at your own peril -- it WILL freeze your system. while true # Endless loop. do $0 & # This script invokes itself . . . #+ forks an infinite number of times . . . #+ until the system freezes up because all resources exhausted. done # This is the notorious "sorcerer's appentice" scenario. exit 0 # Will not exit here, because this script will never terminate.

A ulimit -Hu XX (where XX is the user process limit) in /etc/profile would abort this script when it exceeded the preset limit.

quota

Display user or group disk quotas.

setquota

Set user or group disk quotas from the command-line.

umask

User file creation permissions mask. Limit the default file attributes for a particular user. All files created by that user take on the attributes specified by umask. The (octal) value passed to umask defines the file permissions disabled. For example, umask 022 ensures that new files will have at most 755 permissions (777 NAND 022). [8] Of course, the user may later change the attributes of particular files with chmod. The usual practice is to set the value of umask in /etc/profile and/or ~/.bash_profile (see Appendix H).

Example 17-10. Using umask to hide an output file from prying eyes

#!/bin/bash
# rot13a.sh: Same as "rot13.sh" script, but writes output to "secure" file.

# Usage: ./rot13a.sh filename
# or     ./rot13a.sh <filename
# or     ./rot13a.sh and supply keyboard input (stdin)

umask 177               #  File creation mask.
                        #  Files created by this script
                        #+ will have 600 permissions.

OUTFILE=decrypted.txt   #  Results output to file "decrypted.txt"
                        #+ which can only be read/written
                        #  by invoker of script (or root).

cat "$@" | tr 'a-zA-Z' 'n-za-mN-ZA-M' > $OUTFILE 
#    ^^ Input from stdin or a file.   ^^^^^^^^^^ Output redirected to file. 

exit 0

rdev

Get info about or make changes to root device, swap space, or video mode. The functionality of rdev has generally been taken over by lilo, but rdev remains useful for setting up a ram disk. This is a dangerous command, if misused.

Modules

lsmod

List installed kernel modules.

bash$ lsmod Module Size Used by autofs 9456 2 (autoclean) opl3 11376 0 serial_cs 5456 0 (unused) sb 34752 0 uart401 6384 0 [sb] sound 58368 0 [opl3 sb uart401] soundlow 464 0 [sound] soundcore 2800 6 [sb sound] ds 6448 2 [serial_cs] i82365 22928 2 pcmcia_core 45984 0 [serial_cs ds i82365]

Doing a cat /proc/modules gives the same information.

insmod

Force installation of a kernel module (use modprobe instead, when possible). Must be invoked as root.

rmmod

Force unloading of a kernel module. Must be invoked as root.

modprobe

Module loader that is normally invoked automatically in a startup script. Must be invoked as root.

depmod

Creates module dependency file. Usually invoked from a startup script.

modinfo

Output information about a loadable module.

bash$ modinfo hid
filename:    /lib/modules/2.4.20-6/kernel/drivers/usb/hid.o
 description: "USB HID support drivers"
 author:      "Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>"
 license:     "GPL"

Miscellaneous

env

Runs a program or script with certain environmental variables set or changed (without changing the overall system environment). The [varname=xxx] permits changing the environmental variable varname for the duration of the script. With no options specified, this command lists all the environmental variable settings. [9]

The first line of a script (the "sha-bang" line) may use env when the path to the shell or interpreter is unknown.

#! /usr/bin/env perl print "This Perl script will run,\n"; print "even when I don't know where to find Perl.\n"; # Good for portable cross-platform scripts, # where the Perl binaries may not be in the expected place. # Thanks, S.C.

Or even ...

#!/bin/env bash # Queries the $PATH enviromental variable for the location of bash. # Therefore ... # This script will run where Bash is not in its usual place, in /bin. ...

ldd

Show shared lib dependencies for an executable file.

bash$ ldd /bin/ls
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4000c000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x80000000)

watch

Run a command repeatedly, at specified time intervals.

The default is two-second intervals, but this may be changed with the -n option.

watch -n 5 tail /var/log/messages # Shows tail end of system log, /var/log/messages, every five seconds.

Unfortunately, piping the output of watch command to grep does not work.

strip

Remove the debugging symbolic references from an executable binary. This decreases its size, but makes debugging it impossible.

This command often occurs in a Makefile, but rarely in a shell script.

nm

List symbols in an unstripped compiled binary.

xrandr

Command-line tool for manipulating the root window of the screen.

Example 17-11. Backlight: changes the brightness of the (laptop) screen backlight

#!/bin/bash
# backlight.sh
# reldate 02dec2011

#  A bug in Fedora Core 16/17 messes up the keyboard backlight controls.
#  This script is a quick-n-dirty workaround, essentially a shell wrapper
#+ for xrandr. It gives more control than on-screen sliders and widgets.

OUTPUT=$(xrandr | grep LV | awk '{print $1}')   # Get display name!
INCR=.05      # For finer-grained control, set INCR to .03 or .02.

old_brightness=$(xrandr --verbose | grep rightness | awk '{ print $2 }')


if [ -z "$1" ]
then
  bright=1    # If no command-line arg, set brightness to 1.0 (default).

  else
    if [ "$1" = "+" ]
    then
      bright=$(echo "scale=2; $old_brightness + $INCR" | bc)   # +.05

  else
    if [ "$1" = "-" ]
    then
      bright=$(echo "scale=2; $old_brightness - $INCR" | bc)   # -.05

  else
    if [ "$1" = "#" ]   # Echoes current brightness; does not change it.
    then
      bright=$old_brightness

  else
    if [[ "$1" = "h" || "$1" = "H" ]]
    then
      echo
      echo "Usage:"
      echo "$0 [No args]    Sets/resets brightness to default (1.0)."
      echo "$0 +            Increments brightness by 0.5."
      echo "$0 -            Decrements brightness by 0.5."
      echo "$0 #            Echoes current brightness without changing it."
      echo "$0 N (number)   Sets brightness to N (useful range .7 - 1.2)."
      echo "$0 h [H]        Echoes this help message."
      echo "$0 any-other    Gives xrandr usage message."

      bright=$old_brightness

  else
    bright="$1"

      fi
     fi
    fi
  fi
fi


xrandr --output "$OUTPUT" --brightness "$bright"   # See xrandr manpage.
                                                   # As root!
E_CHANGE0=$?
echo "Current brightness = $bright"

exit $E_CHANGE0


# =========== Or, alternately . . . ==================== #

#!/bin/bash
# backlight2.sh
# reldate 20jun2012

#  A bug in Fedora Core 16/17 messes up the keyboard backlight controls.
#  This is a quick-n-dirty workaround, an alternate to backlight.sh.

target_dir=\
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0/backlight/acpi_video0
# Hardware directory.

actual_brightness=$(cat $target_dir/actual_brightness)
max_brightness=$(cat $target_dir/max_brightness)
Brightness=$target_dir/brightness

let "req_brightness = actual_brightness"   # Requested brightness.

if [ "$1" = "-" ]
then     # Decrement brightness 1 notch.
  let "req_brightness = $actual_brightness - 1"
else
  if [ "$1" = "+" ]
  then   # Increment brightness 1 notch.
    let "req_brightness = $actual_brightness + 1"
   fi
fi

if [ $req_brightness -gt $max_brightness ]
then
  req_brightness=$max_brightness
fi   # Do not exceed max. hardware design brightness.

echo

echo "Old brightness = $actual_brightness"
echo "Max brightness = $max_brightness"
echo "Requested brightness = $req_brightness"
echo

# =====================================
echo $req_brightness > $Brightness
# Must be root for this to take effect.
E_CHANGE1=$?   # Successful?
# =====================================

if [ "$?" -eq 0 ]
then
  echo "Changed brightness!"
else
  echo "Failed to change brightness!"
fi

act_brightness=$(cat $Brightness)
echo "Actual brightness = $act_brightness"

scale0=2
sf=100 # Scale factor.
pct=$(echo "scale=$scale0; $act_brightness / $max_brightness * $sf" | bc)
echo "Percentage brightness = $pct%"

exit $E_CHANGE1

rdist

Remote distribution client: synchronizes, clones, or backs up a file system on a remote server.

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