Sams Teach Yourself UNIX in 24 Hours, Third Edition is designed to take users from a novice to an accomplished user in just 24 one-hour sessions. Written by an expert in the field, the book starts off with an introduction to UNIX, then covers file handling, pipes and filters, the vi and emacs text editors, shells, job control, permissions, printing, and connecting to remote computers via the Internet. The book also discusses UNIX programming and includes a special appendix on working with the Apache Server.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. Does Each Chapter Take an Hour? What If I Take Longer Than 24 Hours? How to Use This Book. Main Section. Tasks. Workshops. Hour 1. What Is This Unix Stuff? Goals for This Hour. What Is Unix? A Brief History of Unix. The C Programming Language. Unix Becomes Popular. What's All This About Multiuser Systems? Cracking Open the Shell. Getting Help. Task 1.1: Man Pages, Unix Online Reference. Task 1.2: Other Ways to Find Help in Unix. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 2. Getting onto the System and Using the Command Line. Goals for This Hour. Beginning Your Session. Task 2.1: Logging In and Out of the System. Task 2.2: Changing Passwords with passwd. Task 2.3: Picking a Secure Password. Seeing What's Going On Around You. Task 2.4: Who Are You? Task 2.5: Finding Out What Other Users Are Logged In to the System. Task 2.6: What Is Everyone Doing on the Computer? Task 2.7: Checking the Current Date and Time. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 3. Moving About the File System. Goals for This Hour. What a Hierarchical File System Is All About. Task 3.1: The Unix File System Organization. The bin Directory. The dev Directory. The etc Directory. The lib Directory. The lost+found Directory. The mnt and sys Directories. The tmp Directory. The usr Directory. Other Miscellaneous Stuff at the Top Level. Directory Separator Characters. The Difference Between Relative and Absolute Filenames. Task 3.2: Hidden Files in Unix. Task 3.3: The Special Directories. and... Task 3.4: The env Command. Task 3.5: PATH and HOME. Task 3.6: Find Where You Are with pwd. Task 3.7: Moving to Another Location with cd. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 4. Listing Files and Managing Disk Usage. Goals for This Hour. The ls Command. Task 4.1: All About the ls Command. Task 4.2: Having ls Tell You More. Task 4.3: Combining Flags. Task 4.4: Listing Other Directories Without Changing Location. Special ls Command Flags. Task 4.5: Changing the Sort Order in ls. Task 4.6: Listing Directory Trees Recursively in ls. Task 4.7: Long Listing Format in ls. Permissions Strings. Task 4.8: Long Listing Format for Directories in ls. Task 4.9: Creating Files with the touch Command. Task 4.10: Checking Disk Space Usage with du. Task 4.11: Checking Available Disk Space with df. Task 4.12: Shrinking Big Files with the compress Program. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 5. Ownership and Permissions. Goals for This Hour. Working with File Permissions. Task 5.1: Understanding File Permissions Settings. Task 5.2: Directory Permissions Settings. Task 5.3: Modifying File and Directory Permissions with chmod. Task 5.4: Setting New File Permissions with chmod. Task 5.5: Calculating Numeric Permissions Strings. Task 5.6: Establishing Default File and Directory Permissions with. the umask Command. Task 5.7: Identifying Owner and Group for Any File or Directory. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 6. Creating, Moving, Renaming, and Deleting Files and Directories. Goals for This Hour. Manipulating the Unix File System. Task 6.1: Creating New Directories Using mkdir. Task 6.2: Copying Files to New Locations Using cp. Task 6.3: Moving Files to New Locations Using mv. Task 6.4: Renaming Files with mv. Task 6.5: Removing Directories with rmdir. Task 6.6: Removing Files Using rm. Task 6.7: Minimizing the Danger of the rm Command. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 7. Looking into Files. Goals for This Hour. Looking Inside Files. Task 7.1: Using file to Identify File Types. Task 7.2: Exploring Unix Directories with file. Task 7.3: Peeking at the First Few Lines with head. Task 7.4: Viewing the Last Few Lines with tail. Task 7.5: Viewing the Contents of Files with cat. Task 7.6: Viewing Larger Files with more. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 8. Filters and Piping. Goals for This Hour. Maximizing the Command Line. Task 8.1: The Secrets of File Redirection. Task 8.2: Counting Words and Lines Using wc. Task 8.3: Removing Extraneous Lines Using uniq. Task 8.4: Sorting Information in a File Using sort. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 9. Wildcards and Regular Expressions. Goals for This Hour. Finding Needles in Haystacks. Task 9.1: Filename Wildcards. Task 9.2: Advanced Filename Wildcards. Task 9.3: Searching Files Using grep. Task 9.4: Creating Sophisticated Regular Expressions. Task 9.5: For Complex Expressions, Try egrep. Task 9.6: Searching for Multiple Patterns at Once with fgrep. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 10. An Introduction to the vi Editor. Goals for This Hour. Editing the Unix Way. Task 10.1: How to Start and Quit vi. Task 10.2: Simple Cursor Motion in vi. Task 10.3: Moving by Words and Pages. Task 10.4: Inserting Text into the File Using i, a, o, and O. Task 10.5: Deleting Text. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 11. Advanced vi Tricks, Tools, and Techniques. Goals for This Hour. Advanced Editing with vi. Task 11.1: Searching Within a File. Task 11.2: The Colon Commands in vi. Task 11.3: How to Start vi Correctly. Task 11.4: Search and Replace. Task 11.5: The Change and Replace Commands. Task 11.6: Accessing Unix with !. Summary of vi Commands. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 12. An Overview of the emacs Editor. Goals for This Hour. The Other Popular Editor: emacs. Task 12.1: Launching emacs and Inserting Text. Task 12.2: How to Move Around in a File. Task 12.3: How to Delete Characters and Words. Task 12.4: Search and Replace in emacs. Task 12.5: Using the emacs Tutorial and Help System. Task 12.6: Working with Other Files. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 13. Introduction to Command Shells. Goals for This Hour. The (Command) Shell Game. Task 13.1: What Shells Are Available? Task 13.2: Identifying Your Shell. Task 13.3: How to Choose a New Shell. Task 13.4: Learning the Shell Environment. Task 13.5: Exploring bash Configuration Files. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 14. Advanced Shell Interaction. Goals for This Hour. Which Shell Is Which? Task 14.1: The Shell History Mechanisms. Task 14.2: Using History to Cut Down on Typing. Task 14.3: Command Aliases. Task 14.4: Some Power Aliases. Task 14.5: Setting Custom Prompts. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 15. Shell Programming Overview. Goals for This Hour. Build Your Own Commands. Task 15.1: Shell Variables. Task 15.2: Shell Arithmetic. Task 15.3: Comparison Functions. Task 15.4: Conditional Expressions. Task 15.5: Looping Expressions. Task 15.6: bash Functions. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 16. slicing and Dicing Command-Pipe Data. Goals for This Hour. The awk Programming System. Task 16.1: Learning to Use awk. How to Use cut in Pipes. Action 16.2: Slicing and Dicing with cut. Inline Editing with sed and tr. Action 16.3: Inline Editing with sed and tr. Summary. Workshop. Exercises. Next Lesson. Hour 17. Job Control. Goals for This Hour. Wrestling with Your Jobs. Task 17.1: Job Control in the Shell: Stopping Jobs. Task 17.2: Foreground/Background and Unix Programs. Task 17.3: Finding Out What Tasks Are Running. Task 17.4: Terminating Processes with kill. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 18. Printing in the Unix Environment. Goals for This Hour. Making a Printed Copy. Task 18.1: Find Local Printers with printers. Task 18.2: Printing Files with lpr or lp. Task 18.3: Formatting Print Jobs with pr and col. Task 18.4: Working with the Print Queue. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 19. Searching for Information and Files. Goals for This Hour. Finding What's Where. Task 19.1: The find Command and Its Weird Options. Task 19.2: Using find with xargs. Summary. Workshop. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 20. Archives and Backups. Goals for This Hour. The tar Tape Archive Utility. Task 20.1: Learning to use tar. Shrinking Your Files with compress. Action 20.2: Shrinking Large Files on Unix. Exploring the Unix Tape Command: cpio. Action 20.3: A Quick Exploration of cpio. Personal Backup Solutions. Action 20.4: A Personal Backup Scheme. Summary. Workshop. Exercises. Next Lesson. Hour 21. Communicating with E-mail. Goals for This Hour. Interacting with the World. Task 21.1: Enabling Messages Using mesg. Task 21.2: Writing to Other Users . Task 21.3: Reading Electronic Mail with mailx. Task 21.4: Sending Mail with mailx. Task 21.5: Internet E-mail Addresses. Task 21.6: The Smarter Electronic Mail Alternative, elm. Task 21.7: A Glimpse of Pine. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 22. Using telnet, SSH, and ftp. Goals for This Hour. Stepping Beyond Your Own System. Task 22.1: Connecting to Remote Internet Sites. Task 22.2: Telnet from Windows and Macs. Task 22.3: Secure Connections with SSH. Task 22.4: Copying Files from Other Internet Sites. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 23. C Programming in Unix. Goals for This Hour. Extending and Expanding Unix with Your Own Programs. Task 23.1: fget, a Smarter FTP Client. Task 23.2: Compiling the Program with cc, the C Compiler. Task 23.3: The Invaluable make Utility. Task 23.4: Additional Useful C Tools. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Preview of the Next Hour. Hour 24. Perl Programming in Unix. Goals for This Hour. Flexible and Powerful: Perl. Task 24.1: Exchange, a Demonstration Currency Translator Written in Perl. Task 24.2: Checking Code Quality with -w. Task 24.3: Online Perl Documentation and Information. Task 24.4: Other Useful Perl Commands. Summary. Congratulations! Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Appendix. Appendix A. Working with the Apache Server. Goals for This Hour. Working with a Unix Web Server. Task A.1: Exploring Apache Configuration Files. Task A.2: Creating a Simple CGI Program. Task A.3: A Server-Side Include Program. Task A.4: Understanding Apache Log Files. Summary. Workshop. Key Terms. Exercises. Index.