Commands and utilities.

One of the great strengths of the Unix system is the collection of utilities that have been created over the lifetime of Unix. Rather than using a large single multipurpose application, the Unix style of command usage is to create limited purpose commands and then string them together with pipes and redirection and/or invoke them from batch shell scripts to create the "tool" for the job at hand.

The following is a survey of some the more common commands available. This is not exhaustive, either in number of commands covered or the depth of coverage. Some commands will be explored in a little more detail. Some will only be briefly described. And some of these commands will be covered in more detail in other modules of this class. As always, feel free to read through the man and info pages. And email your instructor with any questions you have.

For commands that are primarily covered here, try the exercises presented.


File storage control and access

Process control and access

Editors

Time based commands

Information about users

File viewing commands

Reporting Storage usage and Printer Access

Communication commands

Connecting to/from other Systems

File archiving


There are many more commands available. Some we will explore when they contribute to a topic being covered. Others, deserve and will get their own modules.

Outline