Linux 11 - Basic File Management

• copy, move, delete
• wildcards
• find files based on type, size & date
• tar, cpio, dd
• bzip2, gunzip

copy

- cp

- cp -R; -r; --recursive

example:

- cp 123.txt 234.txt

- cp -R folder1/ folder2/

move

- mv

example:

- mv folder1/ folder2/

- mv folder1/789.txt ./

delete / remove

- rm

- rm -f

- rm -rf

example:

- rm file.abc

- rm -i file.abc

- rm folder/

- rm -r; -R; --recursive

- rm -rf /

rename
– mv
example:
– mv file1 file2

touch
– creates an empty file
– updates timestamp
example:
– touch file

mkdir
– creates directory
example:
– mkdir folder

rmdir
– remove empty directory by default

file
–tells you information about files
example:

root@debian:~# file *
1.txt: ASCII text
2.txt: ASCII text
backup.mbr: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x83, active, starthead 32, startsector 2048, 15986688 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x5, starthead 96, startsector 15990782, 784386 sectors, code offset 0x63
blackbox: ASCII text
dayoff.zip: Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract
Desktop: directory
Documents: directory
Downloads: directory
hello2.txt: ASCII text
hello.txt: ASCII text
Music: directory
Pictures: directory
Public: directory
Templates: directory
Videos: directory
VMWARE: directory
wc: empty
root@debian:~#

wildcards (globbing)

• * - anything
• ? - any single character
• ! - not(stuff)
• [ac] – a,c
• [a-c] – a,b,c

root@debian:~/test# ls
bag.txt bat.txt cat.txt sat.txt
root@debian:~/test# ls *
bag.txt bat.txt cat.txt sat.txt
root@debian:~/test# ls ???.???
bag.txt bat.txt sat.txt
root@debian:~/test# ls *.???
bag.txt bat.txt sat.txt
root@debian:~/test# ls [ab]* 
bag.txt bat.txt
root@debian:~/test# ls [bc]* 
bag.txt bat.txt cat.txt
root@debian:~/test# ls [an]*
bag.txt bat.txt cat.txt
root@debian:~/test# ls [!an]*
sat.txt
root@debian:~/test#

find

• - type
• - timestamp
• - size
• - name

root@debian:~/test# ls l
total 6100
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 25 15:07 file.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 25 15:10 folder
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6228730 Feb 25 15:11 images.zip
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Feb 25 15:07 symlink.lnk > file.txt
root@debian:~/test# find . name "fo*"
./folder

root@debian:~/test# find . name "[az]*.*"
./file.txt
./symlink.lnk
./images.zip

root@debian:~/test# find . size +5M
./images.zip
root@debian:~/test# find . size -5M
.
./file.txt
./symlink.lnk
./folder
root@debian:~/test# cp images.zip folder/otherimages.zip
root@debian:~/test# ls -l
total 6100
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 25 15:07 file.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 25 15:16 folder
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6228730 Feb 25 15:11 images.zip
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Feb 25 15:07 symlink.lnk > file.txt
root@debian:~/test# ls folder/
otherimages.zip

root@debian:~/test# find . size +5M
./folder/otherimages.zip
./images.zip
root@debian:~/test# find . size +5M name "images.*"
./images.zip
root@debian:~/test#

Search items

• - block device
• - character
• - directory
• - named pipe
• - symbolic link

root@debian:~/test# find . type l
./symlink.lnk

root@debian:~/test# find . type f
./file.txt
./folder/otherimages.zip
./images.zip
root@debian:~/test# find . type d
.
./folder

root@debian:~/test# find . type f size +5M
./folder/otherimages.zip
./images.zip
root@debian:~/test#

find . atime +5 File was last accessed n*24 hours ago
find . ctime +5 File's status was last changed n*24 hours ago.
find . mtime +5 File's data was last modified n*24 hours ago

tar, cpiop, dd

• - tar ( uses gzip or bzip2 )
• - cpio ( uses gzip or bzip2 )
• - dd
• - gzip
• - bzip2

cpio
copy files to and from archives

cpio -o, --create

cpio -i, --extract

cpio -d

ls | cpio o > ../ls_archive.cpio
creates an archive one level up from the current directory based on the output from ls

dd
convert and copy a file

dd if=/dev/sdb of=keydrive.img

gzip
gzip nameoffile.xxx
– will erase original file
– adds gz extension
gunzip nameoffile.xxx.gz

bzip2
 – erases original file
– adds bz

tar
– tar cvf archive.tar files/
– tar cvzf archive.tar.gz→ gzip
– tar cvjf → bzip2
– tar xjvf → extract bzip2, verbose, file
– tar -cxvf → gzip, extract, verbose, file

• -c create the file
• -v verbose
• -z use gzip compression
• -j use bzip2 compression
• -x extract
• -t list contents of archive
• -r append files to end of archive

 

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