Tom Kelliher, CS 318
Jan. 25, 2002
The purpose of this document is to get you up to speed quickly on the basics of Unix --- enough to get started. Becoming a Unix guru requires years of devotion to the ``one true way.'' For more information, refer to the plethora of links on the class home page. I can also give recommendations for Unix books to those interested.
On the lab machines, look under the Programs menu for the Telnet category and choose Secure Telnet (which is really TTSSH). In the new connection dialog box, set host to phoenix.goucher.edu and choose the SSH service. Within the following dialog box, enter your username and phoenix password.
To access phoenix from your own computer, you'll need to install an SSH client. Follow the SSH link on my home page for the TTSSH client and instructions.
The password I've given you is one only a computer could love. Well, it
was generated by a computer, so what do you expect? You'll probably want
to change it. Use this command from a command prompt: passwd. (Uh,
that period ends the sentence, it's not a part of the command. Watch out
for this in the following examples, too. OK?)
Three editors are available: pico, vi, and emacs. Pico is the easiest to use. It will remind you of wordpad. It's the least powerful of the three, meaning you'll quickly outgrow it and you will then curse it the rest of your miserable days. Discriminating users use either vi or emacs. The enlightened use emacs.
.login in your home directory (for instance,
type pico .login). Find the line setenv PRINTER pclab and
change pclab to black. Save the file and exit the editor.
Files you print will now be printed to the printer in the X Lab.
.cshrc in your home directory. Start pico with
the -w switch to disable line wrapping (pico -w .cshrc). Find
the line which begins set path and add /usr/local/pgsql/bin
immediately after /usr/local/bin to the list of directories. Make
sure this line remains a single line! Once you make this change you'll be
able to access various PostgreSQL utilities.
logout command.
You always start out in your home directory when you log in. The command
ls is used to list the files in your current directory.
ls -l will give you details. The cd command is used to
change your current directory. For instance, the web server looks in your
public_html directory for web-related files. To enter that
directory, type cd public_html. System configuration files are in
/etc. To go there just type cd /etc. To go back home from
anywhere (yes, you can go home again) just type cd.
If you create a web-related file and the web server gives you ``Permission
denied'' errors, you'll need to change the access permissions on the file
using chmod: chmod go+r <file> (where <file> is
replaced with the actual file name, but you already knew that).
To create a new directory, use mkdir <directory_name> Use
chmod go+rx <directory_name> to allow others access to a directory
you just created. Use rmdir <directory_name> to delete a
directory.
Use rm <file> to delete a file. Once a file is deleted, it can't be
brought back again, so be careful!
Type lpr <file>, then run to the printer in the X Lab. If you want
to print to your own printer from phoenix first install Linux and then come
see me.
If your PHP script isn't getting along with the web server you can run your
script from the command line: php -q <script>. Any error messages
will be displayed for your viewing pleasure and debugging nightmare. If
you care to see the error messages produced by the web server, use the
less command: less /var/log/httpd/error_log. Type G
to get to the end of the file once less is running.
Write a pair of web pages with embedded PHP scripts. The first PHP script should generate a form which allows the user to input 10 numbers. When the form's submit button is pressed, the 10 numbers should be sent to the second PHP script as an array. The second script should display the largest number in the array and the average of the 10 numbers.