In this chapter: • The Unix Filesystem • Looking Inside Files with less • Protecting and 3 Shar ing Files • Graphical Filesystem Browser s • Completing File and Using Your Director y Names • Chang ing Your Unix Account Password • Customizing Your Account Once you log in, you can use the many facilities that Unix provides. As an authorized system user, you have an account that gives you: • A place in the Unix filesystem where you can store your files. • A user name that identifies you, lets you control access to your files, and is an address for your email. • An envir onment you can customize. The Unix Filesystem A file is the unit of storage in Unix, as in most other systems. A file can hold anything: text (a report you’re writing, a to-do list), a program, digi- tally encoded pictures or sound, and so on. All of those are just sequences of raw data until they’re interpr eted by the right program. In Unix, files are organized into directories. A dir ectory is actually a spe- cial kind of file where the system stores information about other files. You can think of a directory as a place, so that files are said to be contained in dir ectories and you are said to work inside a dir ectory. (If you’ve used a Macintosh or Microsoft Windows computer, a Unix directory is similar to a folder.) This section introduces the Unix filesystem. Later sections in this chapter show how you can look in files and protect them. Chapter 4 has more infor mation. 42 7 January 2002 13:12 The Unix Filesystem 43 Your Home Director y When you log in to Unix, you’re placed in a directory called your home dir ectory. This directory, a unique place in the Unix filesystem, contains the files you use almost every time you log in. In your home directory, you can make your own files. As you’ll see in a minute, you can also store your own directories within your home directory. Like folders in a file cabinet, this is a good way to organize your files. Your Working Director y Your working directory (also called your current directory) is the directory you’r e curr ently working in. Every time you log in, your home directory is your working directory. You may change to another directory, in which case the directory you move to becomes your working directory. Unless you tell Unix otherwise, all commands that you enter apply to the files in your working directory. In the same way, when you create files, they’r e cr eated in your working directory unless you specify another direc- tory. For instance, if you type the command pico repor t, the Pico editor is started on a file named report in your working directory. But if you type a command such as pico /home/joan/repor t,areport file is edited in a dif- fer ent dir ectory—without changing your working directory. You’ll learn mor e about this when we cover pathnames later in this chapter. If you have more than one terminal window open, or you’re logged in on several terminals at the same time, each session has its own working dir ectory. Changing the working directory in one session doesn’t affect others. The Director y Tr ee All directories on a Unix system are organized into a hierarchical structure that you can imagine as a family tree. The parent directory of the tree (the dir ectory that contains all other directories) is known as the root directory and is written as a forward slash (/). The root contains several directories. Figure 3-1 shows a visual repr esenta- tion of the top of a Unix filesystem tree: the root directory and some dir ectories under the root. 7 January 2002 13:12 44 Chapter 3: Using Your Unix Account Root Directory / bin etc users tmp usr john carol work work play Figur e3-1. Example of a directory tree bin, etc, users, tmp, and usr ar e some of the subdir ectories (child directo- ries) of the root directory. These subdirectories are fairly standard directo- ries; they usually contain specific kinds of system files. For instance, bin contains many Unix programs. Not all systems have a directory named users. It may be called u or home, and/or it may be located in some other part of the filesystem. In our example, the parent directory of users (one level above) is the root dir ectory. It has two subdirectories (one level below), john and car ol.On a Unix system, each directory has only one parent directory, but it may have one or more subdir ectories.* A subdir ectory (such as car ol) can have its own subdirectories (such as work and play), up to a limitless depth for practical purposes. To specify a file or directory location, write its pathname. A pathname is like the address of the directory or file in the Unix filesystem. We look at pathnames in a moment. On a basic Unix system, all files in the filesystem are stor ed on disks con- nected to your computer. It isn’t always easy to use the files on someone else’s computer or for someone on another computer to use your files. Your system may have an easier way: a networked filesystem. Networked * On most Unix systems, the root directory, at the top of the tree, is its own par ent. Some systems have another directory above the root. 7 January 2002 13:12 The Unix Filesystem 45 filesystems make a remote computer’s files appear as if they’re part of your computer’s directory tree. For instance, a computer in Los Angeles might have a directory named boston with some of the directory tree from a company’s computer in Boston. Or individual users’ home directories may come from various computers, but all be available on your computer as if they were local files. The system staff can help you understand and configur e your computer’s filesystems to make your work easier. Absolute Pathnames As you saw earlier, the Unix filesystem organizes its files and directories in an inverted tree structure with the root directory at the top. An absolute pathname tells you the path of directories you must travel to get from the root to the directory or file you want. In a pathname, put slashes (/) between the directory names. For example, /users/john is an absolute pathname. It locates one (only one!) directory. Here’s how: • The root is the first “/” • The directory users (a subdirectory of root) • The directory john (a subdirectory of users) Be sure that you do not type spaces anywhere in the pathname. Figure 3-2 shows this structure. Root Directory / / bin etc users tmp usr users john carol /users/john john work work play Figur e3-2. Absolute path of directory john In Figure 3-2, you’ll see that the directory john has a subdirectory named work. Its absolute pathname is /users/john/work. 7 January 2002 13:12 46 Chapter 3: Using Your Unix Account The root is always indicated by the slash (/) at the start of the pathname. In other words, an absolute pathname always starts with a slash. Relative Pathnames You can also locate a file or directory with a relative pathname. A relative pathname gives the location relative to your working directory. Unless you use an absolute pathname (starting with a slash), Unix assumes that you’re using a relative pathname. Like absolute pathnames, relative pathnames can go through more than one directory level by nam- ing the directories along the path. For example, if you’re curr ently in the users dir ectory (see Figure 3-2), the relative pathname to the car ol dir ectory below is simply car ol. The rela- tive pathname to the play dir ectory below that is car ol/play. Notice that neither pathname in the previous paragraph starts with a slash. That’s what makes them relative pathnames! Relative pathnames start at the working directory, not the root directory. In other words, a relative pathname never starts with a slash. Pathname puzzle Her e’s a short but important question. The previous example explains the relative pathname car ol/play. What do you think Unix would say about the pathname /car ol/play ? (Look again at Figure 3-2.) Unix would say “No such file or directory.” Why? (Please think about that befor e you read more. It’s very important and it’s one of the most com- mon beginner’s mistakes.) Here’s the answer. Because it starts with a slash, the pathname /car ol/play is an absolute pathname that starts from the root. It says to look in the root directory for a subdirectory named car ol. But there is no subdir ectory named car ol one level directly below the root, so the pathname is wrong. The only absolute pathname to the play dir ectory is /users/car ol/play. Relative pathnames up You can go up the tree with the shorthand “..” (dot dot) for the parent dir ectory. As you saw earlier, you can also go down the tree by using sub- dir ectory names. In either case (up or down), separate each level by a slash (/). 7 January 2002 13:12 The Unix Filesystem 47 Figur e 3-3 shows part of Figure 3-1. If your working directory in the figure is work, then there are two pathnames for the play subdir ectory of car ol.