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Speaking UNIX: Man oh man
UNIX has hundreds if not thousands of commands, and it's impossible to
remember every option and nuance. But, happily, you don't have to: man, UNIX's built-in,
online reference system, is man's best friend.
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Articles |
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28 Jul 2009 |
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Using cron to automate maintenance
To leverage round-the-clock computing, tasks must run at all hours of the day. You could
punctuate your sleep with waking interludes to log in and run this command or that
command on
dozens of machines, or you can enjoy your forty winks and turn the work over to the
ubiquitous cron, a daemon, or perennial process, to execute commands on a schedule. From
very often to every so often, cron happily minds the clock and runs jobs day or night. Learn
how to configure and maintain cron, and discover just some of its many uses.
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Tutorials |
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07 Oct 2008 |
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Speaking UNIX: Peering into pipes
The pipe operator connects one UNIX command to another to create ad hoc programs
right on the command line. But a pipe is something of a black box, occluding the data
flowing from one utility to the next. Pipe Viewer provides a peek into the pipeline. Here's
how to use it in day-to-day tasks.
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Articles |
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03 Nov 2009 |
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Speaking UNIX: 10 great tools for any UNIX system
The universe of UNIX tools changes constantly. Here are 10 tools -- some
you may have overlooked and some new -- to tinker with.
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Articles |
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12 May 2009 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 1: Command the power of the command line
Learn the basics of the UNIX shell and discover how you can use the command line to combine the finite set of UNIX utilities into innumerable data transforms.
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Articles |
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07 Mar 2006 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 13: Ten more command-line concoctions
This month, discover ten more secrets of the UNIX command-line wizards.
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Articles |
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25 Sep 2007 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 12: Do-it-yourself projects
If your UNIX(R) system lacks a tool you need, chances are you can find an
apt solution in the enormous inventory of software available online. This month,
learn how to build software from source code.
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Articles |
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21 Aug 2007 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 11: Ramble around the UNIX file system
Many directories in the UNIX(R) file system serve a special purpose, and
certain directories are named per long-standing convention. In this installment of
the "Speaking UNIX" series, discover where UNIX stores important files.
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Articles |
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21 Jun 2007 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 10: Customize your shell
You can customize the UNIX(R) shell to save time, to save typing, and to adapt to your
style of work. Shell startup files capture your preferences and recreate your shell
environment session after session, even machine to machine.
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Articles |
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29 May 2007 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 8: UNIX processes
On UNIX(R) systems, each system and end-user task is contained within a
process. The system creates new processes all the time, and processes die when a task
finishes or something unexpected happens. Here, learn how to control processes and
use a number of commands to peer into your system.
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Articles |
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03 Apr 2007 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 7: Command-line locution
UNIX(R) has a dialect all its own, and its vocabulary of commands is quite large. But you don't have to learn everything all at once. Here, discover more command-line combinations and expand your mastery of the UNIX language.
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Articles |
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06 Feb 2007 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 6: Automate, automate, automate!
Discover how shell scripts can mechanize virtually any personal or system task. Scripts can monitor, archive, update, report, upload, and download. Indeed, no job is too small or too great for a script. Here's an introduction.
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Articles |
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03 Jan 2007 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 5: Data, data everywhere
Take a look at several techniques that illustrate how to move files among systems and how to keep such far-flung data in sync.
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Articles |
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28 Nov 2006 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 4: UNIX ownership and permissions provide for privacy and participation
Learn how to manipulate file permissions to protect your files, or share them with others.
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Articles |
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17 Oct 2006 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 3: Do everything right from the command line
Discover three essential UNIX(R) utilities that deliver the entire Internet to your command line.
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Articles |
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05 Sep 2006 |
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Speaking UNIX: Advanced applications of rsync
Keeping multiple machines synced can be challenging. Fortunately, a
powerful tool is available to make the task easier: rsync.
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Articles |
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22 Sep 2009 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 2: Working smarter, not harder
Learn how to leverage the many shortcuts that the UNIX(R) shell provides. With a little practice,
you'll work smarter, not harder.
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Articles |
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08 Aug 2006 |
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Speaking UNIX, Part 9: Regular expressions
Virtually all non-trivial problems require you to filter good data from bad.
Discover the many UNIX(R) command line utilities that use regular expressions to
discern the relevant from the irrelevant.
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Articles |
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17 Apr 2007 |
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Speaking UNIX: Stayin' alive with Screen
The command line is a powerful tool, but it has a fatal weakness: If the shell
perishes, so does your work. To keep your shell and your work alive -- even across
multiple sessions and dropped connections -- use GNU Screen, a windowing system
for your console.
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Articles |
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10 Feb 2009 |
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Speaking UNIX: Go fish!
The Friendly Interactive Shell, or fish, is a joy to use. Its syntax,
context-sensitive help, and color-coded command-line interface (CLI) greatly simplify the
use of UNIX and ease the burdens of scripting.
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Articles |
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25 Nov 2008 |
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Speaking UNIX: The Squirrel portable shell and scripting language
If you don't want to commit to the idiosyncrasies of a specific shell running on a particular
platform, try the Squirrel Shell. The Squirrel Shell provides an advanced, object-oriented
scripting language that works equally well on UNIX, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows systems.
Write a script once, and run it anywhere.
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Articles |
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17 Mar 2009 |
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10 tips for sensible systems administration
Benjamin Franklin: scientist, scholar, statesman, and . . . systems administrator?
Yes, 200 years or so before the birth of UNIX, Franklin scribed sage advice to keep
systems humming. Here are 10 of Franklin's more notable tips.
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Articles |
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10 Mar 2009 |
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Speaking UNIX: Opening Windows with Cygwin
Cygwin is a UNIX-like environment for the Microsoft Windows operating
system. It includes a real UNIX shell, a Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) emulation
library, and thousands of UNIX utilities ported to Windows.
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Articles |
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16 Dec 2008 |
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