Guide to Advanced Linux Command Mastery - Part 1

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Guide to Advanced Linux Command Mastery
by Arup Nanda
Published August 2006
In Sheryl Calish‘s excellent article“Guide to Linux File Command Mastery," you learned some routine Linux commands, which are especially valuable for Linux newbies. But now that you have mastered the basics, let’s move on to some more sophisticated commands that you will find extremely useful.
In this four-part series, you will learn some not-so-well-known tricks about various routine commands as well as variations in usage that make them more useful. As the series progresses, you will learn successively difficult commands to master.
Note that these commands may differ based on the specific version of Linux you use or which specific kernel is compiled, but if so, probably only slightly.
Painless Changes to Owner, Group, and Permissions
In Sheryl‘s article you learned how to use chown and chgrp commands to change ownership and group of the files. Say you have several files like this:
# ls -l total 8 -rw-r--r-- 1 ananda users 70 Aug 4 04:02 file1 -rwxr-xr-x 1 oracle dba 132 Aug 4 04:02 file2 -rwxr-xr-x 1 oracle dba 132 Aug 4 04:02 file3 -rwxr-xr-x 1 oracle dba 132 Aug 4 04:02 file4 -rwxr-xr-x 1 oracle dba 132 Aug 4 04:02 file5 -rwxr-xr-x 1 oracle dba 132 Aug 4 04:02 file6
and you need to change the permissions of all the files to match those of file1. Sure, you could issue chmod 644 * to make that change—but what if you are writing a script to do that, and you don’t know the permissions beforehand? Or, perhaps you are making several permission changes and based on many different files and you find it infeasible to go though the permissions of each of those and modify accordingly.
A better approach is to make the permissions similar to those of another file. This command makes the permissions of file2 the same as file1:
chmod --reference file1 file2
Now if you check:
# ls -l file[12] total 8 -rw-r--r-- 1 ananda users 70 Aug 4 04:02 file1 -rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 132 Aug 4 04:02 file2
The file2 permissions were changed exactly as in file1. You didn’t need to get the permissions of file1 first.
You can also use the same trick in group membership in files. To make the group of file2 the same as file1, you would issue:
# chgrp --reference file1 file2 # ls -l file[12] -rw-r--r-- 1 ananda users 70 Aug 4 04:02 file1 -rw-r--r-- 1 oracle users 132 Aug 4 04:02 file2
Of course, what works for changing groups will work for owner as well. Here is how you can use the same trick for an ownership change. If permissions are like this:
# ls -l file[12] -rw-r--r-- 1 ananda users 70 Aug 4 04:02 file1 -rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 132 Aug 4 04:02 file2
You can change the ownership like this:
# chown --reference file1 file2 # ls -l file[12] -rw-r--r-- 1 ananda users 70 Aug 4 04:02 file1 -rw-r--r-- 1 ananda users 132 Aug 4 04:02 file2
Note that the group as well as the owner have changed.
Tip for Oracle Users
This is a trick you can use to change ownership and permissions of Oracle executables in a directory based on some reference executable. This proves especially useful in migrations where you can (and probably should) install as a different user and later move them to your regular Oracle software owner.
More on Files
The ls command, with its many arguments, provides some very useful information on files. A different and less well known command – stat – offers even more useful information.
Here is how you can use it on the executable “oracle”, found under $ORACLE_HOME/bin.
# cd $ORACLE_HOME/bin # stat oracle File: `oracle‘ Size: 93300148 Blocks: 182424 IO Block: 4096 Regular File Device: 343h/835d Inode: 12009652 Links: 1 Access: (6751/-rwsr-s--x) Uid: ( 500/ oracle) Gid: ( 500/ dba) Access: 2006-08-04 04:30:52.000000000 -0400 Modify: 2005-11-02 11:49:47.000000000 -0500 Change: 2005-11-02 11:55:24.000000000 -0500
Note the information you got from this command: In addition to the usual filesize (which you can get from ls -l anyway), you got the number of blocks this file occupies. The typical Linux block size is 512 bytes, so a file of 93,300,148 bytes would occupy (93300148/512=) 182226.85 blocks. Since blocks are used in full, this file uses some whole number of blocks. Instead of making a guess, you can just get the exact blocks.
You also get from the output above the GID and UID of the ownership of the file and the octal representation of the permissions (6751). If you want to reinstate it back to the same permissions it has now, you could use chmod 6751 oracle instead of explicitly spelling out the permissions.
The most useful part of the above output is the file access timestamp information. It shows you that the file was accessed on 2006-08-04 04:30:52 (as shown next to “Access:”), or August 4, 2006 at 4:30:52 AM. This is when someone started to use the database. The file was modified on 2005-11-02 11:49:47 (as shown next to Modify:). Finally, the timestamp next to “Change:” shows when the status of the file was changed.
-f, a modifier to the stat command, shows the information on the filesystem instead of the file:
# stat -f oracle File: "oracle" ID: 0 Namelen: 255 Type: ext2/ext3 Blocks: Total: 24033242 Free: 15419301 Available: 14198462 Size: 4096 Inodes: Total: 12222464 Free: 12093976
Another option, -t, gives exactly the same information but on one line:
# stat -t oracle oracle 93300148 182424 8de9 500 500 343 12009652 1 0 0 1154682061 1130950187 1130950524 4096
This is very useful in shell scripts where a simple cut command can be used to extract the values for further processing.
Tip for Oracle Users
When you relink Oracle (often done during patch installations), it moves the existing executables to a different name before creating the new one. For instance, you could relink all the utilities by
relink utilities
It recompiles, among other things, the sqlplus executable. It moves the exiting executable sqlplus to sqlplusO. If the recompilation fails for some reason, the relink process renames sqlplusO to sqlplus and the changes are undone. Similarly, if you discover a functionality problem after applying a patch, you can quickly undo the patch by renaming the file yourself.
Here is how you can use stat on these files:
# stat sqlplus* File: ‘sqlplus‘ Size: 9865 Blocks: 26 IO Block: 4096 Regular File Device: 343h/835d Inode: 9126079 Links: 1 Access: (0751/-rwxr-x--x) Uid: ( 500/ oracle) Gid: ( 500/ dba) Access: 2006-08-04 05:15:18.000000000 -0400 Modify: 2006-08-04 05:15:18.000000000 -0400 Change: 2006-08-04 05:15:18.000000000 -0400 File: ‘sqlplusO‘ Size: 8851 Blocks: 24 IO Block: 4096 Regular File Device: 343h/835d Inode: 9125991 Links: 1 Access: (0751/-rwxr-x--x) Uid: ( 500/ oracle) Gid: ( 500/ dba) Access: 2006-08-04 05:13:57.000000000 -0400 Modify: 2005-11-02 11:50:46.000000000 -0500 Change: 2005-11-02 11:55:24.000000000 -0500
It shows sqlplusO was modified on November 11, 2005, while sqlplus was modified on August 4, 2006, which also corresponds to the status change time of sqlplusO . It indicates that the original version of sqlplus was in effect from Nov 11, 2005 to Aug 4, 2006. If you want to diagnose some functionality issues, this is a great place to start. In addition to the file changes, as you know the permission‘s change time, you can correlate it with any perceived functionality issues.
Another important output is size of the file, which is different—9865 bytes for sqlplus as opposed to 8851 for sqlplusO—indicating that the versions are not mere recompiles; they actually changed with additional libraries (perhaps). This also indicates a potential cause of some problems.
File Types
When you see a file, how do you know what type of file it is? The command file tells you that. For instance:
# file alert_DBA102.log alert_DBA102.log: ASCII text
The file alert_DBA102.log is an ASCII text file. Let’s see some more examples:
# file initTESTAUX.ora.Z initTESTAUX.ora.Z: compress‘d data 16 bits
This tells you that the file is a compressed file, but how do you know the type of the file was compressed? One option is to uncompress it and run file against it; but that would make it virtually impossible. A cleaner option is to use the parameter -z:
# file -z initTESTAUX.ora.Z initTESTAUX.ora.Z: ASCII text (compress‘d data 16 bits)
Another quirk is the presence of symbolic links:
# file spfile+ASM.ora.ORIGINAL spfile+ASM.ora.ORIGINAL: symbolic link to /u02/app/oracle/admin/DBA102/pfile/spfile+ASM.ora.ORIGINAL
This is useful; but what type of file is that is being pointed to? Instead of running file again, you can use the option -l:
# file -L spfile+ASM.ora.ORIGINAL spfile+ASM.ora.ORIGINAL: data
This clearly shows that the file is a data file. Note that the spfile is a binary one, as opposed to init.ora; so the file shows up as data file.
Tip for Oracle Users
Suppose you are looking for a trace file in the user dump destination directory but are unsure if the file is located on another directory and merely exists here as a symbolic link, or if someone has compressed the file (or even renamed it). There is one thing you know: it’s definitely an ascii file. Here is what you can do:
file -Lz * | grep ASCII | cut -d":" -f1 | xargs ls -ltr
This command checks the ASCII files, even if they are compressed, and lists them in chronological order.
Comparing Files
How do you find out if two files—file1 and file2—are identical? There are several ways and each approach has its own appeal.
diff. The simplest command is diff, which shows the difference between two files. Here are the contents of two files:
# cat file1 In file1 only In file1 and file2 # cat file2 In file1 and file2 In file2 only
If you use the diff command, you will be able to see the difference between the files as shown below:
# diff file1 file2 1d0 < In file1 only 2a2 > In file2 only #
In the output, a "<" in the first column indicates that the line exists on the file mentioned first,—that is, file1. A ">" in that place indicates that the line exists on the second file (file2). The characters 1d0 in the first line of the output shows what must be done in sed to operate on the file file1 to make it same as file2.
Another option, -y, shows the same output, but side by side:
# diff -y file1 file2 -W 120 In file1 only < In file1 and file2 In file1 and file2 > In file2 only
The -W option is optional; it merely instructs the command to use a 120-character wide screen, useful for files with long lines.
If you just want to just know if the files differ, not necessarily how, you can use the -q option.
# diff -q file3 file4 # diff -q file3 file2 Files file3 and file2 differ
Files file3 and file4 are the same so there is no output; in the other case, the fact that the files differ is reported.
If you are writing a shell script, it might be useful to produce the output in such a manner that it can be parsed. The -u option does that:
# diff -u file1 file2 --- file1 2006-08-04 08:29:37.000000000 -0400 +++ file2 2006-08-04 08:29:42.000000000 -0400 @@ -1,2 +1,2 @@ -In file1 only In file1 and file2 +In file2 only
The output shows contents of both files but suppresses duplicates, the + and - signs in the first column indicates the lines in the files. No character in the first column indicates presence in both files.
The command considers whitespace into consideration. If you want to ignore whitespace, use the -b option. Use the -B option to ignore blank lines. Finally, use -i to ignore case.
The diff command can also be applied to directories. The command
diff dir1 dir2
shows the files present in either directories; whether files are present on one of the directories or both. If it finds a subdirectory in the same name, it does not go down to see if any individual files differ. Here is an example:
# diff DBA102 PROPRD Common subdirectories: DBA102/adump and PROPRD/adump Only in DBA102: afiedt.buf Only in PROPRD: archive Only in PROPRD: BACKUP Only in PROPRD: BACKUP1 Only in PROPRD: BACKUP2 Only in PROPRD: BACKUP3 Only in PROPRD: BACKUP4 Only in PROPRD: BACKUP5 Only in PROPRD: BACKUP6 Only in PROPRD: BACKUP7 Only in PROPRD: BACKUP8 Only in PROPRD: BACKUP9 Common subdirectories: DBA102/bdump and PROPRD/bdump Common subdirectories: DBA102/cdump and PROPRD/cdump Only in PROPRD: CreateDBCatalog.log Only in PROPRD: CreateDBCatalog.sql Only in PROPRD: CreateDBFiles.log Only in PROPRD: CreateDBFiles.sql Only in PROPRD: CreateDB.log Only in PROPRD: CreateDB.sql Only in DBA102: dpdump Only in PROPRD: emRepository.sql Only in PROPRD: init.ora Only in PROPRD: JServer.sql Only in PROPRD: log Only in DBA102: oradata Only in DBA102: pfile Only in PROPRD: postDBCreation.sql Only in PROPRD: RMANTEST.sh Only in PROPRD: RMANTEST.sql Common subdirectories: DBA102/scripts and PROPRD/scripts Only in PROPRD: sqlPlusHelp.log Common subdirectories: DBA102/udump and PROPRD/udump
Note that the common subdirectories are simply reported as such but no comparison is made. If you want to drill down even further and compare files under those subdirectories, you should use the following command:
diff -r dir1 dir2
This command recursively goes into each subdirectory to compare the files and reports the difference between the files of the same names.
Tip for Oracle Users
One common use of diff is to differentiate between different init.ora files. As a best practice, I always copy the file to a new name—e.g. initDBA102.ora to initDBA102.080306.ora (to indicate August 3,2006)—before making a change. A simple diff between all versions of the file tells quickly what changed and when.
This is a pretty powerful command to manage your Oracle home. As a best practice, I never update an Oracle Home when applying patches. For instance, suppose the current Oracle version is 10.2.0.1. The ORACLE_HOME could be /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2/db1. When the time comes to patch it to 10.2.0.2, I don’t patch this Oracle Home. Instead, I start a fresh installation on /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2/db2 and then patch that home. Once it’s ready, I use the following:
# sqlplus / as sysdba SQL> shutdown immediate SQL> exit # export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2/db2 # export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH # sqlplus / as sysdba SQL> @$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/catalog ...
and so on.
The purpose of this approach is that the original Oracle Home is not disturbed and I can easily fall back in case of problems. This also means the database is down and up again, pretty much immediately. If I installed the patch directly on the Oracle Home, I would have had to shut the database for a long time—for the entire duration of the patch application. In addition, if the patch application had failed due to any reason, I would not have a clean Oracle Home.
Now that I have several Oracle Homes, how can I see what changed? It’s really simple; I can use:
diff -r /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2/db1 /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2/db2 | grep -v Common
This tells me the differences between the two Oracle Homes and the differences between the files of the same name. Some important files like tnsnames.ora, listener.ora, and sqlnet.ora should not show wide differences, but if they do, then I need to understand why.
cmp. The command cmp is similar to diff:
# cmp file1 file2 file1 file2 differ: byte 10, line 1
The output comes back as the first sign of difference. You can use this to identify where the files might be different. Like diff, cmp has a lot of options, the most important being the -s option, that merely returns a code:
0, if the files are identical 1, if they differ Some other non-zero number, if the comparison couldn’t be made
Here is an example:
# cmp -s file3 file4 # echo $? 0
The special variable $? indicates the return code from the last executed command. In this case it’s 0, meaning the files file1 and file2 are identical.
# cmp -s file1 file2 # echo $? 1
means file1 and file2 are not the same.
This property of cmp can prove very useful in shell scripting where you merely want to check if two files differ in any way, but not necessarily check what the difference is. Another important use of this command is to compare binary files, where diff may not be reliable.
Tip for Oracle Users
Recall from a previous tip that when you relink Oracle executables, the older version is kept prior to being overwritten. So, when you relink, the executable sqlplus is renamed to “sqlplusO” and the newly compiled sqlplus is placed in the $ORACLE_HOME/bin. So how do you ensure that the sqlplus that was just created is any different? Just use:
# cmp sqlplus sqlplusO sqlplus sqlplusO differ: byte 657, line 7
If you check the size:
# ls -l sqlplus* -rwxr-x--x 1 oracle dba 8851 Aug 4 05:15 sqlplus -rwxr-x--x 1 oracle dba 8851 Nov 2 2005 sqlplusO
Even though the size is the same in both cases, cmp proved that the two programs differ.
comm. The command comm is similar to the others but the output comes in three columns, separated by tabs. Here is an example:
# comm file1 file2 In file1 and file2 In file1 only In file1 and file2 In file2 only Summary of Commands in This Installment
Command Use
chmod
To change permissions of a file, using the - -reference parameter
chown
To change owner of a file, using the - -reference parameter
chgrp
To change group of a file, using the - -reference parameter
stat
To find out about the extended attributes of a file, such as date last accessed
file
To find out about the type of file, such ASCII, data, and so on
diff
To see the difference between two files
cmp
To compare two files
comm
To see what’s common between two files, with the output in three columns
md5sum
To calculate the MD5 hash value of files, used to determine if a file has changed
This command is useful when you may want to see the contents of a file not in the other, not just a difference—sort of a MINUS utility in SQL language. The option -1 suppresses the contents found in first file:
# comm -1 file1 file2 In file1 and file2 In file2 only
md5sum. This command generates a 32-bit MD5 hash value of the files:
# md5sum file1 ef929460b3731851259137194fe5ac47 file1
Two files with the same checksum can be considered identical. However, the usefulness of this command goes beyond just comparing files. It can also provide a mechanism to guarantee the integrity of the files.
Suppose you have two important files—file1 and file2—that you need to protect. You can use the --check option check to confirm the files haven‘t changed. First, create a checksum file for both these important files and keep it safe:
# md5sum file1 file2 > f1f2
Later, when you want to verify that the files are still untouched:
# md5sum --check f1f2 file1: OK file2: OK
This shows clearly that the files have not been modified. Now change one file and check the MD5:
# cp file2 file1 # md5sum --check f1f2 file1: FAILED file2: OK md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 2 computed checksums did NOT match
The output clearly shows that file1 has been modified.
Tip for Oracle Users
md5sum is an extremely powerful command for security implementations. Some of the configuration files you manage, such as listener.ora, tnsnames.ora, and init.ora, are extremely critical in a successful Oracle infrastructure and any modification may result in downtime. These are typically a part of your change control process. Instead of just relying on someone’s word that these files have not changed, enforce it using MD5 checksum. Create a checksum file and whenever you make a planned change, recreate this file. As a part of your compliance, check this file using the md5sum command. If someone inadvertently updated one of these key files, you would immediately catch the change.
In the same line, you can also create MD5 checksums for all executables in $ORACLE_HOME/bin and compare them from time to time for unauthorized modifications.
Conclusion
Thus far you have learned only some of the Linux commands you will find useful for performing your job effectively. In the next installment, I will describe some more sophisticated but useful commands, such as strace, whereis, renice, skill, and more.
Arup Nanda (arup@proligence.com ) has been an Oracle DBA for more than 12 years, handling all aspects of database administration—from performance tuning to security and disaster recovery. He is a coauthor of PL/SQL for DBAs (O‘Reilly Media, 2005), was Oracle Magazine‘s DBA of the Year in 2003, and is an Oracle ACE.




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