A Basic UNIX System

BySandy G

Introduction •One of the most common operating systems in

existence is Unix. •Unix exists in many different flavors, from

Berkeley BSD to AT&T System V to SunOS. •Basic working knowledge of Unix is almost

essential to a hacker, as it is the system a hacker is most likely to come across.

• If you intend to use the internet at all, or to do any serious exploration of Talent, the ability to navigate through Unix is a necessity.

UNIX Logins • Most Unix logins look essentially the same. A

general Unix login prompt looks something like this:

connected to five.finger.com login:

• That first line is the system identifier. Although it's not at all essential to what you are doing, it's good to know what system you are attempting to log on to.

• The second line is what typically identifies the system you are on as Unix. Almost all Unix systems greet a user with the same prompt:

login:.

Login process

connected to ren.stimpy.net login: root password: root invalid login login:

The other possible passwords for root include

'sysadmin', 'sys', 'admin'... etc

Other Default passwords

Sys sysBin binDaemon daemonrje rjesetup setupuucp uucp/nuucp/anonymousnuucp uucp/nuucp/anonymousmountfsys mountfsys

Commands •A good thing to remember about Unix is that

it's allot like DOS.•The basic Unix directory navigation command

is identical to DOS.•To change the directory command is 'chdir',

or 'cd'. ю cd / will take you to root. ю cd /*pathname* will take you to *pathname* ю cd home will take you to your home

directory.

Files

•Unix is a case-sensitive operating system. Thus, the files

ю Spleen ю spleen ю SPLEEN ю SpLeEn are all different. •Files are not subject to the normal DOS 8

character limit.

Copy

•% cat [dir]•Cat command is used to copy a file one

source to another source.•Another vastly important command is

'man'. In fact, man is probably one of the most important commands extant for a beginning user... it calls up the system's help files.

Thank you

Unix

Linux