Workshop

The Workshop summarizes the key terms you learned and poses some questions about the topics presented in this chapter. It also provides you with a preview of what you will learn in the next hour.

Key Terms

account name This is the official one-word name by which the UNIX system knows you: mine is taylor. (See also account in Hour 1, “What Is This UNIX Stuff?”)

domain name UNIX systems on the Internet, or any other network, are assigned a domain within which they exist. This is typically the company (for example, sun.com for Sun Microsystems) or institution (for example, lsu.edu for Louisiana State University). The domain name is always the entire host address, except the hostname itself. (See also hostname.)

flags Arguments given to a UNIX command that are intended to alter its behavior are called flags. They're always prefaced by a single dash. As an example, the command line ls -l /tmp has ls as the command itself, -l as the flag to the command, and /tmp as the argument.

heuristic A set of well-defined steps or a procedure for accomplishing a specific task.

hostname UNIX computers all have unique names assigned by the local administration team. The computers I use are limbo, well, netcom, and mentor, for example. Enter hostname to see what your system is called.

login A synonym for account name, this also can refer to the actual process of connecting to the UNIX system and entering your account name and password to your account.

user ID A synonym for account name.

Exercises

1:Why can't you have the same account name as another user? How about user ID? Can you have the same uid as someone else on the system?
2:Which of the following are good passwords, based on the guidelines you've learned in this hour?
foobar4myMUMBlk&Blu
234334LaurieHi!
2cool.rolyatj j kim

3:Are the results of the two commands who am i and whoami different? If so, explain how. Which do you think you'd rather use when you're on a new computer?
4:List the three UNIX commands to find out who is logged on to the system. Talk about the differences between the commands.
5:One of the commands in the answer to question 4 indicates how long the system has been running (in the example, it'd been running for seven days). What value do you think there is for keeping track of this information?
6:If you can figure out what other people are doing on the computer, they can figure out what you're doing too. Does that bother you?

Preview of the Next Hour

The next hour focuses on the UNIX hierarchical file system. You learn about how the system is organized, how it differs from Macintosh and DOS hierarchical file systems, the difference between “relative” and “absolute” filenames, and what the mysterious “.” and “..” directories are. You also learn about the env, pwd, and cd commands, and the HOME and PATH environment variables.

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