A lot of information is available about individual files on a Unix system. For example, the ls -l command will display the permissions matrix and ls -i will display a file’s inode. But, if we want to ...

One of the files that the average Unix sysadmin rarely looks at, almost never changes and yet depends on every time he or she reboots a system is the /etc/inittab file. This modest little file ...

Last week’s column looked at how we can read from and write to files by associated the files with user-defined file descriptors. This week, we take this idea a bit further. Closing File Descriptors In ...

is the name of a UNIX command, executable program, or shell script to which you want to route output or from which you want to read input. The command(s) must be enclosed in either double or single ...

November 28, 2012 Add as a preferred source on Google Add as a preferred source on Google You are not alone. In fact, I was pretty confused by file permissions for a long time, but it’s actually very ...

GUIs are great—we wouldn’t want to live without them. But if you’re a Mac or Linux user and you want to get the most out of your operating system (and your keystrokes), you owe it to yourself to get ...

Not every Unix command sparks with novelty. After all, the OS has now been around for roughly forty years and the spark wears off. But there are some commands that pick up from where the basics run ...