Praise for Mark Sobell’s Books “I keep searching for books that collect everything you want to know about a subject in one place, and keep getting disappointed. Usually the books leave out some important topic, while others go too deep in some areas and must skim lightly over the others. A Practical Guide to Red Hat® Linux® is one of those rare books that actually pulls it off. Mark G. Sobell has created a single reference for Red Hat Linux that cannot be beat! This marvelous text (with a 4-CD set of Linux Fedora Core 2 included) is well worth the price. This is as close to an `everything you ever needed to know’ book that I’ve seen. It’s just that good and rates 5 out of 5.” —Ray Lodato, Slashdot contributor“Mark Sobell has written a book as approachable as it is authoritative.” —Jeffrey Bianchine, Advocate, Author, Journalist“Excellent reference book, well suited for the sysadmin of a linux cluster, or the owner of a PC contemplating installing a recent stable linux. Don’t be put off by the daunting heft of the book. Sobell has striven to be as inclusive as possible, in trying to anticipate your system administration needs.” —Wes Boudville, Inventor“A Practical Guide to Red Hat® Linux® is a brilliant book. Thank you Mark Sobell.” —C. Pozrikidis, University of California at San Diego“This book presents the best overview of the Linux operating system that I have found. . . . It should be very helpful and understandable no matter what the reader’s background is: traditional UNIX user, new Linux devotee, or even Windows user. Each topic is presented in a clear, complete fashion and very few assumptions are made about what the reader knows. . . . The book is extremely useful as a reference, as it contains a 70-page glossary of terms and is very well indexed. It is organized in such a way that the reader can focus on simple tasks without having to wade through more advanced topics until they are ready.” —Cam Marshall, Marshall Information Service LLC, Member of Front Range UNIX Users Group FRUUG, Boulder, Colorado“Conclusively, this is THE book to get if you are a new Linux user and you just got into RH/Fedora world. There’s no other book that discusses so many different topics and in such depth.” —Eugenia Loli-Queru, Editor in Chief, OSNews.comThe Most Useful Linux Tutorial and Reference Ever, with Hundreds of High-Quality Examples Covering Every Linux Distribution!To be truly productive with Linux, you need to thoroughly master the 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. Worse, most Linux references offer little more than prettied-up man pages. 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 on any Linux system, now and for years to come. What’s more, it’s packed with hundreds of high-quality examples: better examples than you’ll find in any other Linux guidebook. This is 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. And when you need instant answers, you’ll constantly turn to Sobell’s comprehensive command reference section—organized and tabbed for easy, fast access! Don’t settle for yesterday’s Linux guidebook. Get the one book that meets today’s challenges—and tomorrow’s! A Practical Guide to Linux® Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming is the most useful, most comprehensive Linux tutorial and reference you can find. It’s 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 nook and cranny More practical explanations of more than eighty core utilities, from aspell to xargs Techniques for implementing secure communications using ssh and scp—plus dozens of tips for making your system more secure A superior introduction to the Linux programming environment, including make, gcc, gdb, CVS, and much more Expert guidance on basic and advanced shell programming using bash and tcsh Tips and tricks for customizing the shell and using it interactively from the command line Thorough guides to vim and emacs, designed to help you get productive fast and maximize your editing efficiency Dozens of exercises to help you practice and gain confidence Instructions for using Apt, yum, and BitTorrent for keeping your system up to date automatically And much more, including coverage of gawk, sed, find, sort, bzip2, and regular expressions

Table of Contents:
Preface xxviiChapter 1: Welcome to Linux 1The GNU-Linux Connection 2 The Heritage of Linux: UNIX 5 What Is So Good About Linux? 6 Overview of Linux 10 Additional Features of Linux 15 Chapter Summary 16 Exercises 17 Part I: The Linux Operating System 19Chapter 2: Getting Started 21Conventions Used in This Book 22 Logging In 24 Working with the Shell 25 Curbing Your Power: Superuser Access 28 Getting the Facts: Where to Find Documentation 29 More About Logging In 35 Chapter Summary 38 Exercises 39 Advanced Exercises 39 Chapter 3: Command Line Utilities 41Special Characters 42 Basic Utilities 43 Working with Files 45 | (Pipe): Communicates Between Processes 52 Four More Utilities 53 Compressing and Archiving Files 56 Locating Commands 61 Obtaining User and System Information 63 Communicating with Other Users 67 Email 69 Chapter Summary 69 Exercises 72 Advanced Exercises 73 Chapter 4: The Linux Filesystem 75The Hierarchical Filesystem 76 Directory and Ordinary Files 77 Working with Directories 88 Access Permissions 91 Links 96 Chapter Summary 102 Exercises 103 Advanced Exercises 105 Chapter 5: The Shell 107The Command Line 108 Standard Input and Standard Output 113 Running a Program in the Background 125 Filename Generation/Pathname Expansion 127 Builtins 132 Chapter Summary 133 Exercises 134 Advanced Exercises 136 Part II: The Editors 137Chapter 6: The vim Editor 139History 140 Tutorial: Creating and Editing a File with vim 141 The compatible Parameter 148 Introduction to vim Features 148 Command Mode: Moving the Cursor 154 Input Mode 158 Command Mode: Deleting and Changing Text 160 Searching and Substituting 164 Miscellaneous Commands 170 Yank, Put, and Delete Commands 171 Reading and Writing Files 174 Setting Parameters 175 Advanced Editing Techniques 180 Units of Measure 184 Chapter Summary 188 Exercises 193 Advanced Exercises 194 Chapter 7: The emacs Editor 195History 196 Tutorial: Getting Started with emacs 198 Basic Editing Commands 204 Online Help 209 Advanced Editing 212 Language-Sensitive Editing 225 Customizing emacs 235 More Information 240 Chapter Summary 241 Exercises 248 Advanced Exercises 250 Part III: The Shells 253Chapter 8: The Bourne Again Shell 255Background 256 Shell Basics 257 Parameters and Variables 277 Processes 292 History 295 Aliases 312 Functions 315 Controlling bash Features and Options 318 Processing the Command Line 322 Chapter Summary 332 Exercises 334 Advanced Exercises 336 Chapter 9: The TC Shell 339Shell Scripts 340 Entering and Leaving the TC Shell 341 Features Common to the Bourne Again and TC Shells 343 Redirecting Standard Error 349 Working with the Command Line 350 Variables 355 Control Structures 368 Builtins 377 Chapter Summary 381 Exercises 382 Advanced Exercises 384 Part IV: Programming Tools 385Chapter 10: Programming Tools 387Programming in C 388 Using Shared Libraries 396 make: Keeps a Set of Programs Current 399 Debugging C Programs 407 Threads 417 System Calls 417 Source Code Management 420 Chapter Summary 430 Exercises 431 Advanced Exercises 432 Chapter 11: Programming the Bourne Again Shell 435Control Structures 436 File Descriptors 470 Parameters and Variables 474 Builtin Commands 487 Expressions 501 Shell Programs 510 Chapter Summary 520 Exercises 522 Advanced Exercises 524 Chapter 12: The gawk Pattern Processing Language 527Syntax 528 Arguments 528 Options 529 Notes 529 Language Basics 530 Examples 537 Advanced gawk Programming 554 Error Messages 559 Chapter Summary 560 Exercises 561 Advanced Exercises 561 Chapter 13: The sed Editor 563Syntax 564 Arguments 564 Options 564 Editor Basics 565 Examples 568 Chapter Summary 578 Exercises 579 Part V: Command Reference 581Standard Multiplicative Suffixes 586 Common Options 587 The sample Utility 587 sample: Very brief description of what the utility does 588 aspell: Checks a file for spelling errors 589 at: Executes commands at a specified time 593 bzip2: Compresses or decompresses files 596 cal: Displays a calendar 598 cat: Joins and displays files 599 cd: Changes to another working directory 601 chgrp: Changes the group associated with a file 603 chmod: Changes the access mode (permissions) of a file 604 chown: Changes the owner of a file and/or the group the file is associated with 608 cmp: Compares two files 610 comm: Compares sorted files 612 configure: Configures source code automatically 614 cp: Copies files 616 cpio: Creates an archive or restores files from an archive 619 crontab: Maintains crontab files 624 cut: Selects characters or fields from input lines 627 date: Displays or sets the system time and date 630 dd: Converts and copies a file 633 df: Displays disk space usage 636 diff: Displays the differences between two files 638 du: Displays information on disk usage by file 644 echo: Displays a message 647 expr: Evaluates an expression 649 file: Displays the classification of a file 653 find: Finds files based on criteria 655 finger: Displays information about users 661 fmt: Formats text very simply 664 fsck: Checks and repairs a filesystem 666 ftp: Transfers files over a network 671 gcc: Compiles C and C++ programs 678 grep: Searches for a pattern in files 683 gzip: Compresses or decompresses files 688 head: Displays the beginning of a file 691 kill: Terminates a process by PID 693 killall: Terminates a process by name 695 less: Displays text files, one screen at a time 697 ln: Makes a link to a file 702 lpr: Sends files to printers 705 ls: Displays information about one or more files 708 make: Keeps a set of programs current 715 man: Displays documentation for commands 721 mkdir: Creates a directory 724 mkfs: Creates a filesystem on a device 725 Mtools: Uses DOS-style commands on files and directories 728 mv: Renames or moves a file 732 nice: Changes the priority of a command 734 nohup: Runs a command that keeps running after you log out 736 od: Dumps the contents of a file 737 paste: Joins corresponding lines from files 742 pr: Paginates files for printing 744 ps: Displays process status 746 rcp: Copies one or more files to or from a remote system 750 rlogin: Logs in on a remote system 752 rm: Removes a file (deletes a link) 753 rmdir: Removes a directory 755 rsh: Executes commands on a remote system 756 scp: Securely copies one or more files to or from a remote system 758 sleep: Creates a process that sleeps for a specified interval 760 sort: Sorts and/or merges files 762 split: Divides a file in into sections 771 ssh: Securely executes commands on a remote system 773 strings: Displays strings of printable characters 777 stty: Displays or sets terminal parameters 778 tail: Displays the last part (tail) of a file 783 tar: Stores or retrieves files to/from an archive file 786 tee: Copies standard input to standard output and one or more files 791 telnet: Connects to a remote system over a network 792 test: Evaluates an expression 794 top: Dynamically displays process status 798 touch: Changes a file's access and/or modification time 801 tr: Replaces specified characters 804 tty: Displays the terminal pathname 807 tune2fs: Changes parameters on an ext2 or ext3 filesystem 808 umask: Establishes the file-creation permissions mask 810 uniq: Displays unique lines 812 w: Displays information about system users 814 wc: Displays the number of lines, words, and bytes 816 which: Shows where in PATH a command is located 817 who: Displays information about logged-in users 819 xargs: Converts standard input into command lines 821 Part VI: Appendixes 825Appendix A: Regular Expressions 827Characters 828 Delimiters 828 Simple Strings 828 Special Characters 828 Rules 831 Bracketing Expressions 832 The Replacement String 833 Extended Regular Expressions 834 Appendix Summary 835 Appendix B: Help 837Solving a Problem 838 Finding Linux-Related Information 839 Specifying a Terminal 844 Appendix C: Keeping the System Up-to-Date 847yum: Updates and Installs Packages 848 Apt: An Alternative to yum 850 BitTorrent 855 Glossary 859Index 913