Efficient Linux at the Command Line: Boost Your Command-Line Skills

Description

Take your Linux skills to the next level! Whether you're a system administrator, software developer, site reliability engineer, or enthusiastic hobbyist, this practical, hands-on book will help you work faster, smarter, and more efficiently. You'll learn how to create and run complex commands that solve real business problems, process and retrieve information, and automate manual tasks. You'll also truly understand what happens behind the shell prompt, so no matter which commands you run, you can be more successful in everyday Linux use and more competitive on the job market. As you build intermediate to advanced command-line skills, you'll learn how to: • Choose or invent commands that get your work done quickly • Run commands efficiently and navigate the Linux filesystem with ease • Build powerful, complex commands out of simpler ones • Transform text files and query them like databases to achieve business goals • Control Linux point-and-click features from the command line Copyright Table of Contents Preface What You’ll Learn What This Book Is Not Audience and Prerequisites Your Shell Conventions Used in This Book Using Code Examples O’Reilly Online Learning How to Contact Us Acknowledgments Part I. Core Concepts Chapter 1. Combining Commands Input, Output, and Pipes Six Commands to Get You Started Command #1: wc Command #2: head Command #3: cut Command #4: grep Command #5: sort Command #6: uniq Detecting Duplicate Files Summary Chapter 2. Introducing the Shell Shell Vocabulary Pattern Matching for Filenames Evaluating Variables Where Variables Come From Variables and Superstition Patterns Versus Variables Shortening Commands with Aliases Redirecting Input and Output Disabling Evaluation with Quotes and Escapes Locating Programs to Be Run Environments and Initialization Files, the Short Version Summary Chapter 3. Rerunning Commands Viewing the Command History Recalling Commands from the History Cursoring Through History History Expansion Never Delete the Wrong File Again (Thanks to History Expansion) Incremental Search of Command History Command-Line Editing Cursoring Within a Command History Expansion with Carets Emacs- or Vim-Style Command-Line Editing Summary Chapter 4. Cruising the Filesystem Visiting Specific Directories Efficiently Jump to Your Home Directory Move Faster with Tab Completion Hop to Frequently Visited Directories Using Aliases or Variables Make a Big Filesystem Feel Smaller with CDPATH Organize Your Home Directory for Fast Navigation Returning to Directories Efficiently Toggle Between Two Directories with “cd -” Toggle Among Many Directories with pushd and popd Summary Part II. Next-Level Skills Chapter 5. Expanding Your Toolbox Producing Text The date Command The seq Command Brace Expansion (A Shell Feature) The find Command The yes Command Isolating Text grep: A Deeper Look The tail Command The awk {print} Command Combining Text The tac Command The paste Command The diff Command Transforming Text The tr Command The rev Command The awk and sed Commands Toward an Even Larger Toolbox Summary Chapter 6. Parents, Children, and Environments Shells Are Executable Files Parent and Child Processes Environment Variables Creating Environment Variables Superstition Alert: “Global” Variables Child Shells Versus Subshells Configuring Your Environment Rereading a Configuration File Traveling with Your Environment Summary Chapter 7. 11 More Ways to Run a Command List Techniques Technique #1: Conditional Lists Technique #2: Unconditional Lists Substitution Techniques Technique #3: Command Substitution Technique #4: Process Substitution Command-as-String Techniques Technique #5: Passing a Command as an Argument to bash Technique #6: Piping a Command to bash Technique #7: Executing a String Remotely with ssh Technique #8: Running a List of Commands with xargs Process-Control Techniques Technique #9: Backgrounding a Command Technique #10: Explicit Subshells Technique #11: Process Replacement Summary Chapter 8. Building a Brash One-Liner Get Ready to Be Brash Be Flexible Think About Where to Start Know Your Testing Tools Inserting a Filename into a Sequence Checking Matched Pairs of Files Generating a CDPATH from Your Home Directory Generating Test Files Generating Empty Files Summary Chapter 9. Leveraging Text Files A First Example: Finding Files Checking Domain Expiration Building an Area Code Database Building a Password Manager Summary Part III. Extra Goodies Chapter 10. Efficiency at the Keyboard Working with Windows Instant Shells and Browsers One-Shot Windows Browser Keyboard Shortcuts Switching Windows and Desktops Web Access from the Command Line Launching Browser Windows from the Command Line Retrieving HTML with curl and wget Processing HTML with HTML-XML-utils Retrieving Rendered Web Content with a Text-Based Browser Clipboard Control from the Command Line Connecting Selections to stdin and stdout Improving the Password Manager Summary Chapter 11. Final Time-Savers Quick Wins Jumping Into Your Editor from less Editing Files That Contain a Given String Embracing Typos Creating Empty Files Quickly Processing a File One Line at a Time Identifying Commands That Support Recursion Read a Manpage Longer Learning Read the bash Manpage Learn cron, crontab, and at Learn rsync Learn Another Scripting Language Use make for Nonprogramming Tasks Apply Version Control to Day-to-Day Files Farewell Appendix A. Linux Refresher Commands, Arguments, and Options The Filesystem, Directories, and Paths Directory Movement Creating and Editing Files File and Directory Handling File Viewing File Permissions Processes Viewing Documentation Shell Scripts Becoming the Superuser Further Reading Appendix B. If You Use a Different Shell Index About the Author Colophon