Unix is a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system that was initially developed by Bell Labs in the 1970s. Various similar operating systems that are POSIX compliant (ie compatible with Unix) have since been developed (POSIX is an abbreviation for Portable Operating System Interface for UNIX). These include the following: the BSD family (OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS/X), Solaris, IRIX, AIX, SunOS, UnixWare, OpenServer and Linux.
Software written for POSIX compliant operating systems is generally able to be compiled for all POSIX platforms with little or no platform-specific changes. This makes the commands and utilities available for this extended family of operating systems very similar, and there are few differences between administering them.
The articles in this section are about useful command line utilities and commonly used application software on POSIX compliant operating systems. For Mac OSX specific articles see my OSX section.
In this tutorial, we’ll guide you through different ways to list users in Linux. Being able to list users in Linux primarily serves the purpose of helping you improve how to manage your administration system and create better security between users. Before we dive in, let’s take a look at the importance behind viewing a …
A tar file which is also referred to as a tarball, is a collection of files that provides easier storage. We can use the tar command to create archives along with extract files, list files, storage purposes, or update purposes. Using a tar.gz file is useful because it provides a better storage solution rather than …
The scp command is a command-line utility primarily used to securely copy directories or files between two hosts or locations. Before we dive into scp commands and how to use them, we’ll go over the basic syntax behind the scp command and a few pointers to take note of. Pointers to Take Note of Before …
Have you experienced working on a remote machine, only for your connection to suddenly drop, thus resulting in unsaved work and a fully terminated Secure Shell (SSH)? Are you about to create a new window, but worry about what might happen with the progress you’ve made on the previous session? Thankfully, ‘screen’ is here to …
It’s possible to change the contents and color of the BASH shell prompt. My SSH sessions use a white background and I find the default [chris@localhost ~] style a little boring. I also find it useful to have the prompt green for ordinary user sessions, and red for root sessions so it’s easy to see …
The RPMForge custom repository has a lot of useful software applications for CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux which aren’t included in the default repositories. This post looks at how to enable it. First of all go to http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/rpmforge-release/ to work out which package you need to install. It has RPM packages for Red Hat …