Basic Terminal and Navigating the File System

File system structure

• Explore navigation commands
  • cd, ls, pwd
  • Names are case sensitive!
• Explore file/dir create/read/write commands
  • mkdir, touch, echo, cat, rm, rmdir
• Relative vs. Absolute paths

Permissions

Permissions on POSIX systems are split into User, Group, and Other. The file’s owner usually has the most liberal permissions to do anything they like with the file while the group and others have less permissions.

Run ls -l to view a listing of files with permissions in the terminal. Permissions are listed like so:

--- --- ---

— — — in 3 stanzas. The first stanza is the owner then the group, then everyone else. Permissions are Read (r), Write (w), and Execute (w). Each stanza lists which of these actions each user type can perform.

Creating and Moving Files Using the Terminal

Learning Objectives

• Rename files and folders
• Move and copy files/folders
• Delete files and folders
• Create files in at least 2 ways

Create a File

• touch command: Creates a new empty file
• echo command: Outputs any string of text to the terminal, can be redirected into a new or existing file using > or >> operators

Moving Files and Folders

• Create a file, create a folder: touch and mkdir
• Change permission to a different user: chown

Deleting Data

Using the rm, rm -rf, and rmdir commands to...

• Delete Files
• Delete Folders
• Delete recusively (and with force)

Group Exercise

Create a folder called “Zoo” on your system. Within the zoo we’ll have cages (folders) for each animal (file). Create the following cages for these animals within the zoo folder:

• Zoo
  • Horses
    • Zebra
    • Horse
    • Giraffe
  • Big Cats
    • Puma
    • Leopard
    • Donkey

Individual Exercise: File System Zoo

Some of the animals are in cages they shouldn’t be in! Move the donkey where it’ll be safe. It’s your job to create a new cage for each animal in their group if needed.