A Practical Guide to UNIX for Mac OS X Users - Softcover

Seebach, Peter; Sobell, Mark G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0131863339 ISBN 13: 9780131863330

Publisher: Pearson P T R, 2005

Synopsis

The Most Useful UNIX Guide for Mac OS X Users Ever, with Hundreds of High-Quality Examples!

Beneath Mac OS® X's stunning graphical user interface (GUI) is the most powerful operating system ever created: UNIX®. With unmatched clarity and insight, this book explains UNIX for the Mac OS X user—giving you total control over your system, so you can get more done, faster. Building on Mark Sobell's highly praised A Practical Guide to the UNIX System, it delivers comprehensive guidance on the UNIX command line tools every user, administrator, and developer needs to master–together with the world's best day-to-day UNIX reference.

This book is packed with hundreds of high-quality examples. From networking and system utilities to shells and programming, this is UNIX from the ground up—both the "whys" and the "hows"—for every Mac user. You'll understand the relationships between GUI tools and their command line counterparts. Need instant answers? Don't bother with confusing online "manual pages": rely on this book's example-rich, quick-access, 236-page command reference!

Don't settle for just any UNIX guidebook. Get one focused on your specific needs as a Mac user!

A Practical Guide to UNIX® for Mac OS® X Users is the most useful, comprehensive UNIX tutorial and reference for Mac OS X and is the only book that delivers

• Better, more realistic examples covering tasks you'll actually need to perform
• Deeper insight, based on the authors' immense knowledge of every UNIX and OS X nook and cranny
• Practical guidance for experienced UNIX users moving to Mac OS X
• Exclusive discussions of Mac-only utilities, including plutil, ditto, nidump, otool, launchctl, diskutil, GetFileInfo, and SetFile
• Techniques for implementing secure communications with ssh and scp—plus dozens of tips for making your OS X system more secure
• Expert guidance on basic and advanced shell programming with bash and tcsh
• Tips and tricks for using the shell interactively from the command line
• Thorough guides to vi and emacs designed to help you get productive fast, and maximize your editing efficiency
• In-depth coverage of the Mac OS X filesystem and access permissions, including extended attributes and Access Control Lists (ACLs)
• A comprehensive UNIX glossary
• Dozens of exercises to help you practice and gain confidence
• And much more, including a superior introduction to UNIX programming tools such as awk, sed, otool, make, gcc, gdb, and CVS

About this title

About the Author

Mark G. Sobell is president of Sobell Associates Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in UNIX/Linux training, support, and custom software development. He is the author of many best-selling UNIX and Linux books and has more than twenty-five years of experience working with UNIX and Linux.

Peter Seebach, a freelance writer specializing in UNIX development, has published dozens of technical articles for IBM developerWorks.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A Practical Guide to UNIX® for Mac OS® X Users explains how to work with the UNIX operating system that is the foundation of Mac OS X. This book looks “under the hood,” past the traditional graphical user interface (GUI) that most people think of as a Macintosh, and explains how to use the powerful command line interface (CLI) that connects you directly to UNIX.

Command line interface (CLI). In the beginning UNIX had a command line (textual) interface. There was no mouse to point or icons to drag and drop. Some programs, such as emacs, implemented rudimentary windows using the very minimal graphics available in the ASCII character set. In addition, reverse video helped separate areas of the screen. UNIX was born and raised in this environment.

Naturally all of the original UNIX tools were invoked from the command line. The real power of UNIX, and of Mac OS X, lies in this environment, which explains why many UNIX professionals work exclusively from the command line.

Using clear descriptions and lots of examples, this book shows you how to get the most out of your UNIX-based Mac OS X system using the command line interface. The first few chapters quickly bring readers with little computer experience up to speed. The rest of the book is appropriate for more experienced computer users.

Audience. This book is designed for a wide range of readers. It does not require programming experience, but assumes a basic familiarity with the Macintosh GUI. It is appropriate for the following readers:

• Beginning Macintosh users who want to know what UNIX is, why everyone keeps saying that it is important, and how to take advantage of it
• Experienced Macintosh users who want to know how to take advantage of the power of UNIX that underlies Mac OS X
• Students taking a class in which they use Mac OS X
• Power users who want to explore the power of Mac OS X from the command line
• Professionals who use Mac OS X at work
• UNIX users who want to adapt their UNIX skills to the Mac OS X environment
• Computer science students who are studying the Mac OS X operating system
• Programmers who need to understand the Mac OS X programming environment
• Technical executives who want to get a grounding in Mac OS X

Benefits. A Practical Guide to UNIX® for Mac OS® X Users gives you an in-depth understanding of how to use the UNIX operating system that is the foundation for Mac OS X.

A large amount of free software has always been available for Macintosh systems. In addition, the Macintosh shareware community is very active. By introducing the UNIX aspects of Mac OS X, this book throws open to Macintosh users the vast store of free and low-cost software available for UNIX, Linux, and other UNIX-like systems.

Regardless of your background, this book offers the practical knowledge you need to get on with your work: You will come away from this book understanding how to use the UNIX operating system that underlies OS X, and this text will remain a valuable reference for years to come.

Features of This Book

This book is organized for ease of use in different situations. For example, you can read it from cover to cover to learn about the UNIX aspects of Mac OS X from the ground up. Alternatively, once you are comfortable using OS X, you can use this book as a reference: Look up a topic of interest in the table of contents or index and read about it. Or, refer to one of the utilities covered in Part VI, “Command Reference.” You can also think of this book as a catalog of Mac OS X topics: Flip through the pages until a topic catches your eye. If you are familiar with UNIX or a UNIX-like operating system such as Linux, refer to Appendix C, “Mac OS X for UNIX Users,” which lists some of the differences between Mac OS X and traditional UNIX systems. The book also includes many pointers to Web sites where you can get additional information: Consider the Web an extension of this book.

A Practical Guide to UNIX® for Mac OS® X Users offers these features:

• Optional sections allow you to read the book at different levels, returning to more difficult material when you are ready to tackle it.
• Caution boxes highlight procedures that can easily go wrong, giving you guidance before you run into trouble.
• Tip boxes highlight situations in which you can save time by doing something differently or when it may be useful or just interesting to have additional information.
• Security boxes point out ways that you can make a system more secure.
• The supporting Web site at www.sobell.com includes corrections to the book, downloadable examples from the book, pointers to useful Web sites, and answers to even-numbered exercises.
• Important command line utilities that were developed by Apple specifically for Mac OS X are covered in detail, including GetFileInfo, SetFile, nidump, otool, launchctl, diskutil, and plutil.
• Descriptions of Mac OS X extended attributes including file forks, file attributes, attribute flags, and access control lists (ACLs).
• The relationships between GUI tools and their CLI counterparts are discussed in depth.
• Information that will help you set up servers includes sections on property lists, the launchd superserver, and DHCP.
• A section on NetInfo discusses the NetInfo database and ways to work with it.
• Concepts are illustrated by practical examples found throughout the book.
• Many useful URLs (Internet addresses) identify Web sites where you can obtain software and information.
• Chapter summaries review the important points covered in each chapter.
• Review exercises are included at the end of each chapter allow readers to hone their skills. Answers to even-numbered exercises are available at www.sobell.com.
• Important GNU tools, including gcc, gdb, GNU Configure and Build System, make, gzip, and many others, are described in detail.
• Pointers throughout the book provide help in obtaining online documentation from many sources, including the local system and the Internet.

Contents

This section describes the information that each chapter covers and explains how that information can help you take advantage of the power of Mac OS X. You may want to review the table of contents for more detail.

Chapter 1: Welcome to Mac OS X

Presents background information on Mac OS X. This chapter covers the history of Mac OS X, explains the connection between OS X and open-source software including GNU and BSD software, and discusses some of OS X’s important features that distinguish it from other operating systems including other versions of UNIX.

Part I: The Mac OS X Operating System

Tip: Experienced users may want to skim Part I
If you have used a UNIX-like system before, you may want to skim or skip some or all of the chapters in Part I. All readers should take a look at “Conventions Used in This Book” (page 18), which explains the typographic conventions that this book uses, and “Getting the Facts: Where to Find Documentation” (page 27), which points you toward both local and remote sources of Mac OS X documentation.

Part I introduces UNIX on a Mac OS X system and gets you started using it from the command line.

Chapter 2: Getting Started

Explains the typographic conventions that this book uses to make explanations clearer and easier to read. This chapter provides basic information and explains how to log in, display a shell prompt, give OS X commands using the shell, and find system documentation.

Chapter 3: The Mac OS X Utilities

Explains the command line interface (CLI) and briefly introduces more than 30 command line utilities. Working through this chapter gives you a feel for UNIX and introduces some of the tools you will use day in and day out. Chapter 3 also introduces pipes, which allow you to combine utilities on the command line. The utilities covered in this chapter include

• grep, which searches through files for strings of characters;
• ditto, which copies files and directories (folders);
• tar, which creates archive files that can hold many other files;
• bzip2 and gzip, which compress files so that they take up less space on disk and allow you to transfer them over a network more quickly; and
• diff, which displays the differences between two text files.

Chapter 4: The Mac OS X Filesystem

Discusses the OS X hierarchical filesystem from a UNIX perspective, covering files, filenames, pathnames, working with directories (folders), access permissions, and hard and symbolic links. This chapter also discusses extended attributes including file forks, attribute flags, type codes, creator codes, and Access Control Lists (ACLs). Understanding the filesystem allows you to organize your data so that you can find information quickly. It also enables you to share some of your files with other users while keeping other files private.

Chapter 5: The Shell

Explains how to use shell features to make your work faster and easier. All of the features covered in this chapter work with both the Bourne Again Shell (bash) and the TC Shell (tcsh). This chapter discusses

• Using command line options to modify the way a command works;
• How a minor change in a command line can redirect input to a command to come from a file instead of from the keyboard;
• How to redirect output from a command to go to a file instead of to the screen;
• Using pipes to send the output of one utility directly to another utility so that you can solve problems right on the command line;
• Running programs in the background so that you can work on one task while UNIX is working on a different one; and
• Using the shell to generate filenames to save you time spent on typing and help you when you do not recall the exact name of a file.

Part II: The Editors

Part II covers two classic, powerful UNIX command line text editors. Mac OS X includes the vimtext editor, an “improved” version of the widely used vi editor, as well as the popular GNU emacs editor. Text editors enable you to create and modify text files that can hold programs, shell scripts, memos, and input to text formatting programs.

Chapter 6: The vim Editor

Starts with a tutorial on vim and then explains how to use many of the advanced features of vim, including special characters in search strings, the General-Purpose and Named buffers, parameters, markers, and execution of commands from vim. The chapter concludes with a summary of vim commands.

Chapter 7: The emacs Editor

Opens with a tutorial and then explains many of the features of the emacs editor as well as how to use the META, ALT, and ESCAPE keys. The chapter also covers key bindings, buffers, and incremental and complete searching for both character strings and regular expressions. In addition, it details the relationship between Point, the cursor, Mark, and Region. It also explains how to take advantage of the extensive online help facilities available from emacs. Other topics covered include cutting and pasting, using multiple windows and frames, and working with emacs modes—specifically C mode, which aids programmers in writing and debugging C code. Chapter 7 concludes with a summary of emacs commands.

Part III: The Shells

Part III goes into more detail about bashand introduces the TC Shell (tcsh).

Chapter 8: The Bourne Again Shell

Picks up where Chapter 5 leaves off, covering more advanced aspects of working with a shell. For examples it uses the Bourne Again Shell—bash, the shell used almost exclusively for system shell scripts. Chapter 8 describes how to

• Use shell startup (preference) files, shell options, and shell features to customize your shell;
• Use job control to stop jobs and move jobs from the foreground to the background, and vice versa;
• Modify and reexecute commands using the shell history list;
• Create aliases to customize commands;
• Work with user-created and keyword variables in shell scripts;
• Set up functions, which are similar to shell scripts but can execute more quickly;
• Write and execute simple shell scripts; and
• Redirect error messages so that they go to a file instead of the screen.

Chapter 9: The TC Shell

Describes tcsh and covers features that are common to and differ between bash and tcsh. This chapter explains how to

• Run tcsh and change your default shell to tcsh;
• Redirect error messages so that they go to files instead of to the screen;
• Use control structures to alter the flow of control within shell scripts;
• Work with tcsh array and numeric variables; and
• Use shell builtin commands.

Part IV: More About Mac OS X

Chapter 10: Networking

Discusses networks, network security, and the Internet. This chapter

• Covers types of networks, subnets, protocols, addresses, hostnames, and various network utilities;
• Discusses distributed computing including the client/server model; and
• Describes briefly some of the servers you can use on a network.

Chapter 11: System Maintenance

Discusses core system concepts including Superuser and the use of

Edition details

• Publisher: Pearson P T R
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0131863339
• ISBN 13: 9780131863330
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 999