COMP 121-401: UNIX Programming

Files and File

Systems

Andrew Nashel

nashel@cs.unc.edu
Department of Computer Science

January 12, 2004

The UNIVERSITY of NORTH CAROLINA at CHAPEL HILL

Course topics
• What is UNIX?
• Using UNIX systems
• Programming in UNIX
• Files and file systems
• Shells and I/O
• Editors and Printing
• System tools

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Course topics
• Files and file systems
♦File system structure
♦Navigating, creating and deleting…
♦Unix permissions
♦AFS
♦Example: Creating a web page

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 Unix filesystem
structure
The filesystem is a heirarchical
structure resembling a tree,
anchored at the root (“/”):
/

bin usr etc users lib

bin local games include lib

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 Unix filesystem
structure
Every item in the filesystem is a
file or directory (or a link).

Directories can contain file and

other directories (children).

Each directory may have only one

parent.

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 Unix filesystem
structure
To describe an object in the file
system you specify a path.
Paths are either absolute, refering
to the root:
/usr/local/bin/howto
Or they are relative to the current
directory:
../stuff/morestuff/afile

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 Navigating…
cd <dir> change to <dir>
cd .. change to parent dir
pwd print current directory
ls list directory contents
ls -l long listing
ls -a list all files
ls -al long listing, all files

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 Creating and deleting…
cp copy file or
directory
mv move file or
directory
mkdir create a directory
rmdir delete a directory
rm delete a file
rm -r delete recursively
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 Unix permissions
Each file and directory has permissions that
support access control.

Permissions are defined as:

read (‘r’) – view contents
write (‘w’) – change contents
execute (‘x’) – run the file or change to the
directory

Permissions are defined in three sets, for the

owner, group, and all others. Directories must
be executable to be accessed.
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 Viewing permissions
$ ls –l /etc/passwd
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1369 Apr 30 2003 /etc/passwd
$ ls –l /bin/ls
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 46888 Jan 19 2003 /bin/ls*

owner group size creation date

permissions
1st character: type, ‘-’ for file, ‘d’ directory, ‘s’ special, ‘l’ link
Next three are read, write, execute for owner
Then, next three for group, and next three for all others.

Character means permission granted, ‘-’ means denied.

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 Examples – Files
-rw-------
Only owner can read and write

-rwxrwxrwx
Everyone can read, write and execute
(and delete) (not very common!)

-rw-r--r--
Everyone can read, but only owner can
write
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 Examples – Directories
drwx------
Only owner can view, cd into, and
delete

drwxrwx---
Owner and group can view, write, etc.

drwxr-xr-x
Everyone can cd into but only owner
can
modify The UNIVERSITY of NORTH CAROLINA at CHAPEL HILL
 Changing permissions
$ chmod [ugoa(+/-)rwx] <dir>

Where u = user, g = group, o = others, a

= all;
+ = add permission, - = remove

To make a directory readable by others:

$ chmod go+rx <dir>

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 Changing permissions
Permissions can also be expressed in
octal:
$ chmod ### <dir>
Where # is 0-7, and read = 4, write = 2,
execute = 1. Add the options together
to get the value. E.g. rwx = 7, rx = 5, rw
= 6.

To make a directory readable by all, and

writeable by owner only:
$ chmod 755 <dir>
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 A very common problem!
Make sure your executables have
the ‘x’ flag set for the owner!

If you compile yourself this should

already be the case, but many
copied files might night get correct
permissions copied.

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 More on permissions
chown – change ownership
chgrp – change group ownership

Type ‘info fileutils’ to learn about all

of the utilities.

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 But something’s wrong!
“So, I tried all of this on the
deparment systems and it didn’t
seem to have any effect on
directories!”

The department stores most things

(including user space) using the
Andrew File System.
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 Andrew File System
(AFS)
Developed at Carnegie-Mellon, named
after those Andrews.

AFS is a distributed file system using

storage servers and clients that provides
transparent access to local and remote
files.

Department specific information:

howto afs-intro
howto afs-security

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 Andrew File System
(AFS)
Everything in AFS (in the world!) is stored in
/afs, and UNC-CS files are in /afs/cs.unc.edu/

Differences between Unix and AFS include:

• AFS works only at the directory level.
• Users can create their own groups in AFS.
• Users must have a valid token in AFS.

Don’t sweat the details, I’m going to give you all

of the commands you’ll need.

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 Making a web page
Create the directory:
$ mkdir public_html

Set the Unix permissions:

$ chmod go+rx public_html

Set the AFS permissions:

$ fs sa public_html system:anyuser read

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 Making a web page, part
2
Create the index.html file:
$ cd ~/public_html
$ cp ~nashel/unix/index.html .

Feel free to edit or substitute your

own file(s).

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 Homework
Create a web page for yourself in
your directory, on the
departmental system.

Send me an email with your

username, by noon, Wed., Jan. 14,
so that I can enter:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~username
/
and see a web The
page.
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