Community UNIX

Preface

What follows is a very brief tutorial on how you can use UNIX to be a part of a community. With the exception of the indented examples, it is entirely of my own writing. Community UNIX is a free document; you may reproduce and/or modify it under the terms of version 2 (or, at your option, any later version) of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. For any questions, ask me.

Thanks,
Hunter Blanks, hblanks@artifex.org

Table of Contents


Introduction

Once upon a time, in the days when there were no Macintoshes and giants walked the earth, a new operating system was born. UNIX, as its creators soon dubbed it, was a large hairy beast that scared small children into submission and commanded the worship of countless programmers, system administrators, and particularly, users. In those days, UNIX was an operating system to get things done, and the idea of using UNIX to communicate was almost unheard of.

Today, however, due to the development of the global network, UNIX has become a highly feasible means of communicating with other people. What follows is a brief tutorial on how you, as a user of a UNIX server, can be a part of an online UNIX community.


Fundamental Concepts: Life, the Internet, servers, and telnet
Before diving into the nature of a UNIX shell and its various commands, a few fundamental concepts ought to be laid down for those who are somewhat lost. Skip ahead if you know how to telnet into a server. Otherwise, read on.

the Internet
Quite simply the internet is just a global computer network. The actual implementation is complex, but if you just take it for granted that your data will go to the right part of the network, usually there isn't too much to worry about. Whenever your computer connects to the internet, your computer becomes another node on the global network, with its own unique address. From that point you can connect to other addresses on the network just as if it were a local network.

servers
Servers are just computers which are expected to remain on the global network all the time. They can do a variety of things depending on what software they run, but for the time being, this is not all that important. Nor is the actual location of the server all that important, since all servers are represented with an address, either a name, such as earth.artifex.org, or a number, such as 38.234.38.70.

telnet
Telnet is one of the services that an internet server can provide. In principle it is very much the same as any other communication channel you might use on the net, such as the web, or ftp. However, telnet is different in that it allows a direct interaction with the server--using a telnet connection, one can use any of a number of programs installed on the server. Telnet's great advantage is its extremely high portability--since telnet clients exist for just about every computer, you can run the same server programs, through telnet, from any internet-connected computer.

For your convenience, a few telnet clients have been listed below. Further information on how to use each telnet program can be obtained from the links below, and will be provided in a future help file, "Guerilla Unix." Windows 95 also ships with a telnet program, which can be accessed by choosing "Run..." from the start menu and typing 'telnet':

modems
After all of this talk about global networks and telnet, it would seem that a discussion on modems would be rather late in coming. This document can in no means discuss the many different ways of actually connecting your own computer to the internet (some of which involve a modem). We take it for granted that you most likely already have a connection to the internet. However, even if you do not have a connection to the internet, you can still be a part of a UNIX community if you have access to a modem server. If this is the case, you can use a modem to dial into a modem server and open a connection that is very much like a telnet connection. The programs that do this, called serial capable terminal emulators, also exist for just about every computer.

For your convenience, two terminal emulators are listed below:


Logging In
If your computer is connected to the internet, logging in only requires a telnet program and the name of the server you wish to connect to. Lots of different telnet programs have different connection boxes to type the server name into, but so long as you type the right address and the terminal emulation specified is vt followed by a number that is 100 or greater, you should be ok. Open up a connection to your server (e.g. earth.artifex.org or just plain artifex.org--they're the same right now), and you should get the following sort of prompt:

artifex.org
login:

At which point, you type your username, press return, type your password, press return, and you're logged in.

If your computer is not connected to the internet and you are dialing into the UNIX server using a modem, it is not too much more difficult. Lots of different terminal programs have different boxes to aid in dialing a phone number, and if you want to learn how to use them, you certainly can. However, the following sequence should work with just about any modem and just about any terminal program, once you make sure that the program is actually accessing the modem, and that terminal emulation specified is vt followed by a number that is 100 or greater:

type ATDT followed by the phone number you wish to dial. If you have to dial 9 first, put '9,' before the phone number. (If you're spiffy you can do credit card calling using commas to make pauses, I guess.) Then press return. The modem should dial, and hopefully the other end will pick up. Your total session should look like this:

ATDT 9,2706127

CONNECT14400

login:
At which point, you type your username, press return, type your password, press return, and you're logged in. You should get something like this:

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$

In UNIX country, we call this a shell prompt, or just a shell. It lets you type all sorts of fun commands of which a small handful we will discuss in this document.

When you are ready to leave your UNIX session, you need to log out. To log out of the system, you can either type 'exit', 'logout', or control-D.


Changing passwords
Regardless of the fact that it's good practice to change your password every so often, chances are sometime you'll accidentally type it in some place people can see it--such as typing your password into the shell prompt and pressing return. To change your password, type 'passwd' and press return, and follow the prompts. It should go like this:

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ passwd
Changing password for hblanks
(current) UNIX password:
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully
[hblanks@earth hblanks]$

If you try to enter the password you already have, passwd (the program) will complain and ask for another one. passwd will also complain if your password is too close to a dictionary word. Make sure your password is not simply one or two common words--this is bad security practice and makes the sysadmins nervous. Good passwords have some crazy characters and numbers in them. Passwords are also case sensitive, so remember which letters are capital and which aren't.


Members of the UNIX community
Up til now we've only talked about UNIX in terms of you having a single connection to a server. However, the great thing about UNIX is that many people can connect to the same server at the same time. In fact, just about every UNIX system has a number of people with accounts--all these people share the same server and have different responsibilities and jobs on it. See--isn't this a community?

Sermons aside, at any one time, a number of people can be logged onto a UNIX server. There are a number of ways to find out who's online, who's been online, or who's been busy.

last -10
last -10 is my personal favorite. It lists the last 10 logins onto the system, including when the person logged in, from where the person logged in, and when the person logged out. For instance:

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ last -10
hblanks  ttyp4        209-30-240-17.fl Sat Mar 20 18:13   still logged in
srench   ttyp4        pm1-28.cowtown.n Sat Mar 20 18:00 - 18:01  (00:00)
paul     ttyp4        ip157.houston13. Sat Mar 20 17:56 - 17:57  (00:01)
paul     ttyp5        ip157.houston13. Sat Mar 20 17:55 - 17:55  (00:00)
srench   ttyp4        pm1-28.cowtown.n Sat Mar 20 17:51 - 17:55  (00:03)
hblanks  ttyp8        209-30-242-247.f Sat Mar 20 17:45   still logged in
hblanks  ttyp7        209-30-242-247.f Sat Mar 20 17:44   still logged in
antinats ttyp5        island.smhall.or Sat Mar 20 17:26 - 17:54  (00:27)
hblanks  ttyp4        209-30-242-17.fl Sat Mar 20 17:24 - 17:45  (00:20)
paul     ttyp4        ip157.houston13. Sat Mar 20 17:14 - 17:14  (00:00)

wtmp begins Thu Mar 18 14:23:40 1999
[hblanks@earth hblanks]$

Which says that hblanks (me) is logged in three times at the present moment, from internet addresses that start with 209-30-242-247.f and so forth. Not only can many different people connect to a UNIX server at one time, but each person can furthermore connect to the same server many times. This may not seem useful but it does make me feel important to have lots of windows open.

w
w, or who, is a simple little program that lists which people are currently online. 

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ w
  6:18pm  up 96 days,  3:13,  3 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU  WHAT
ppp      ttyS0                      3:11pm 25.00s  0.18s  0.14s  login ppp
beloy    ttyp3    38.234.38.71      3:33pm  1:35   0.20s  0.10s  -bash
hblanks  ttyp4    209-30-240-17.fl  6:13pm  0.00s  0.26s  0.05s  w
[hblanks@earth hblanks]$

Right now Ben is running bash (the Bourne Again Shell--that's a shell prompt), I am running w, and ppp is running a program called login ppp. (PPP is one of those means of connecting to the internet that isn't covered in this document). Ben has been idle for 1 minute and 35 s, and has been logged in since 3:33pm. He is coming from the internet address of 38.234.38.71.

finger [user ...] [user@host ...]
Finger, by itself, is pretty much like w.

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ finger
Login     Name           Tty  Idle  Login Time   Office     Office Phone
beloy     Ben Eloy        p3     4  Mar 20 15:33 (38.234.38.71)
hblanks   Hunter Blanks   p4        Mar 20 18:13 (209-30-240-17.flash.net)
ppp       PPP User       *S0        Mar 20 15:11
srench    Stuart Rench   *p6        Mar 20 18:22 (pm3-27.cowtown.net)
[hblanks@earth hblanks]$

Instead of listing what the user is up to though, it gives the user's name. The great thing about finger, however, is that it takes parameters (just think of UNIX commands as being verbs that take prepositions and direct objects) so that you can check out one particular user.

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ finger jarusl
Login: jarusl                           Name: Jack Lange
Directory: /home/nemus/jarusl           Shell: /bin/bash
Last login Sat Mar 20 16:08 (CST) on ttyp6 from ip75.gw0.Houston.iapc.net
No mail.
Plan:
You know, context is so important.
If in doubt, mumble.
root, god; is no difference.    (Seen on a name plate at Rice University)
[hblanks@earth hblanks]$

This tells us quite some interesting things about Jack, including his name, the location of his home directory, when and where he last logged in, and also the contents of his .plan file. (Files will be covered in another document--this one is already getting long). As the syntax up above shows ( [user ...] [user@host ...]), you can finger multiple users at once by just typing their user names after finger, or you can finger users on other UNIX servers using the @ command, such as 'finger hblanks@anji.smhall.org' .


Having conversations
So, what would a community be if you couldn't talk to people? UNIX provides many different ways of talking to people, some of which are listed here.

One important reminder:just as in any other community, a certain amount of politeness is valuable and oftentimes necessary in talking with other people. So try not to nag people by blasting at their terminal large numbers of times, not to shout at people using all caps, and so forth. UNIX does not easily allow for shrugs of reconciliation or different tones of voice, so it's usually best to fall on the friendly side of things.

talk user
Talk is a happy little program that allows you to have a one-on-one conversation with another person who is online at the same time. When you type talk followed by a username, the other person's terminal (that is, the window where the other person's shell prompt is) beeps and displays a request to talk. That person must then respond by typing talk, followed by your username. It works as follows.

on root's shell:

[root@earth /root]# talk hblanks

Root's terminal then clears and says this at the top of it:

[Waiting for your party to respond]

Then on hblanks' shell:

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$

Message from Talk_Daemon@earth.artifex.org at 19:33 ...
talk: connection requested by root@earth.artifex.org.
talk: respond with:  talk root@earth.artifex.org

at which point I press return and enter the following command:

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ talk root

[Note that I could have been explicit and typed 'talk root@earth.artifex.org'. However, this is unnecessary since earth.artifex.org is the local system, and talk takes it for granted you want to talk to 'root' on the local system.]

Then a happy screen like this pulls up for both people:


[Connection established]











|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Your words go on the top; the other person's words go on the bottom. To leave a talk session, you must press the control-C (i.e. ^C) key combination. As a special note, control-C will kill a number of programs that you might get stuck in--it's kinda like the escape key in something like Windows.

ytalk user ...
Ytalk is exactly like talk but it allows multiple people to talk to each other at the same time. All users have to respond using ytalk instead of talk in order to get a screen like below, but aside from typing ytalk instead of talk, the syntax is entirely the same.

[root@earth /root]# ytalk ptonkin hblanks

and then, once everyone has responded and been admitted:

---------------------------= YTalk version 3.0 (3) =----------------------------






-------------------------= ptonkin@earth.artifex.org =--------------------------






-------------------------= hblanks@earth.artifex.org =--------------------------

Ytalk also works just fine for person-to-person conversations, so don't worry about mixing the two up. Control-C also exits this one.

write user
Suppose you just want to send a brief message to someone but not actually talk to them. That's write. Type 'write' followed by the username, press return, and type your message. Once you're done, press control-C to get back to your shell. so antinats writes me:

[antinats@earth hblanks]$write hblanks
yo money.
^C

and I see this:

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$
Message from antinats@earth.artifex.org on ttyp5 at 21:44 ...
yo money.

Once I press return, I get my shell-prompt back. That's about all there is to the write command.

wall [message]
Every now and then you may have a desire to send a quick message to everyone who's on the UNIX system. The message can take up the rest of the command line, but if it contains quotes, semicolons, or a number of other funny characters, wall gets a bit confused. You can also wall by simply typing wall, pressing return, typing your message, and pressing control-D (^D). Thus the two walls below both work.

with a command-line instruction:

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ wall just testing the wall command
[hblanks@earth hblanks]$
Broadcast message from hblanks (ttyp4) Sat Mar 20 22:03:00 1999...

just testing the wall command

and without:

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ wall
this is the other way of sending walls
^D
[hblanks@earth hblanks]$
Broadcast message from hblanks (ttyp4) Sat Mar 20 22:03:47 1999...

this is the other way of sending walls

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$

Wall is sometimes considered rude, so it's usually a bad practice to wall masses of people you don't know for no good reason.

mesg [y|n]
Sometimes, you just don't want to talk. For times like that, there's the mesg command. Typing 'mesg n' disallows other people from writing, talking, ytalking, or walling you. 'mesg y' allows it. So, suppose I write to beloy, and his messages are turned off.

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ write beloy
write: beloy has messages disabled

Incidentally, just because someone has disabled their messages does not mean that they are being anti-social--many UNIX programs automatically turn messages off so that the person's terminal isn't mussed up by broadcasts sprawling over the screen. Also, one user, root, the administrator user, can write to everyone whether they like or not. It's one of the perks.


Writing letters (e-mail)
For times when conversations aren't enough, or aren't convenient, or have to involve people outside of the local UNIX community, there's e-mail. E-mail was invented on UNIX, so there are certainly a large number of programs, protocols, and tricks available when it comes to writing letters. This document will only discuss the two most prevalent ones (that is the two that I use :-).

Yet again, please remember to be polite. Just this year I accumulated some twenty messages or so, some more profane than others, all because one person had mailed an obnoxious list of jokes to some forty people I didn't know, and the offended persons had decided to reply in feeling to all the other recipients. That was when I blocked them from ever e-mailing me again.

pine
Pine is a self-contained e-mail program that will run right off of your shell prompt. This may seem rather trite when you think that you have a spiffy e-mail program like Claris E-mailer or Outlook Express on your home computer. However, pine's great advantage is that you can check your inbox, saved mail, and address books from any internet-capable computer (or any computer with a modem). So even if you just get halfway through that important message when it's time to go to work, you can come back to it when you get to another computer.

To run pine, just type 'pine' into the shell and press return. Voila. If your browser supports CSS (Netscape 4.0+, IE 4.0+), then the parts that are black on the terminal should be black on this page.

  PINE 4.05   MAIN MENU                            Folder: INBOX  26 Messages


          ?     HELP               -  Get help using Pine

          C     COMPOSE MESSAGE    -  Compose and send a message

          I     MESSAGE INDEX      -  View messages in current folder

          L     FOLDER LIST        -  Select a folder to view              

          A     ADDRESS BOOK       -  Update address book

          S     SETUP              -  Configure Pine Options

          Q     QUIT               -  Leave the Pine program




   Copyright 1989-1998.  PINE is a trademark of the University of Washington.
                    [Folder "INBOX" opened with 26 messages]
? Help                     P fontvCmd                 R RelNotes
O OTHER CMDS > [ListFldrs] N NextCmd                  K KBLock

Pine is a menu-driven program, so you pretty much just push the keys for the right commands and figure it as best you can. Supose I push 'C' to compose a message.

  PINE 4.05   COMPOSE MESSAGE                      Folder: INBOX  26 Messages

To      :  
Cc      :
Attchmnt:
Subject :
----- Message Text -----















^G Get Help  ^X Send      ^R Rich Hdr  ^Y PrvPg/Top ^K Cut Line  ^O Postpone
^C Cancel    ^D Del Char  ^J Attach    ^V NxtPg/End ^U UnDel Line^T To AddrBk

Notice the commands at the bottom all have ^'s in front of them. That means use the control key with that letter. Tabs and arrows keys move you around in pine like in any other program.

Now suppose I had pressed 'I' back at the main menu. I get my inbox.

  PINE 4.05   MESSAGE INDEX                Folder: INBOX  Message 15 of 15 ANS  

+     1 Mar  8 Jack Lange            (564) I'm Here!!
+     2 Mar  8 Ben Eloy            (1,058) Dell Bent on Protecting Coveted Turf
+ A   3 Mar 10 Ben Eloy              (905) Fwd: du -hs
+     4 Mar 10 Brad Wolfgang       (1,458) home directory, CGI, & other goings o
+     5 Mar 10 Jack Lange          (2,057) outrageous fortune
+     6 Mar 10 Sean Alexander      (1,146) Time sensitive material
+     7 Mar 11 Ben Eloy            (1,082) BBC News | Sci/Tech | Magnet theory t
+ A   8 Mar 11 Brad Wolfgang       (1,023) BitchX
+     9 Mar 13 Jack Lange            (835) New Message board
+ A  10 Mar 18 ptonkin             (1,056) Hi!
+    11 Mar 18 ptonkin             (1,423) Re: misplaced american centennial
+    12 Mar 18 ptonkin               (824) Sykes
+    13 Mar 19 Ben Eloy              (523) moo
+    14 Mar 20 Jack Lange            (951) Mac OS X
+ A  15 Mar 20 Brad Wolfgang         (964) BitchX/CGI                       





? Help       < FldrList   P PrevMsg       - PrevPage D Delete     R Reply
O OTHER CMDS > [ViewMsg]  N NextMsg     Spc NextPage U Undelete   F Forward

Pressing return pulls up the selected e-mail. To save the selected e-mail, I push S. Pine then asks me what folder I want to save it to. I can specify a folder by typing in its name, or just press return to save it to saved-messages. If the folder I specify does not exist, pine will ask me if I want to create it.

Finally, suppose I pushed 'L' back at the main menu. I get a list of all my folders.

  PINE 4.05   FOLDER LIST                          Folder: INBOX  15 Messages   

                             Local folders in mail/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INBOX               sent-mail           saved-messages      antinats
artifex             jarusl              sent-mail-jan-1999
















? Help       < Main Menu   P PrevFldr      - PrevPage A Add       R Rename
O OTHER CMDS > [View Fldr] N NextFldr    Spc NextPage U Delete    F WhereIs

I can select a different folder using the arrow keys or the keys P and N. To view a folder, I press return or >. Note that your sent mail is automatically saved to the folder sent-mail. You can move e-mails from folder to folder by opening up a folder, selecting an e-mail, and saving it to another folder.

And to quit, press Q, unless you are in a special sub-menu, when you'll have to look at the commands at the bottom to get out of it.

POP/IMAP
For those of you not charmed by text-only interfaces, most UNIX servers also support those spiffy programs on your home computer. I won't talk about those because too many people have different ones and because I don't use them usually. However, a few notes that you will need to know to get your e-mail.

  • email account (or POP account): your username followed by the name of the POP server (e.g. hblanks@mail.artifex.org)
  • email password: your password that you use to log in to the UNIX server
  • SMTP host: the name of SMTP server (e.g. mail.artifex.org)
  • e-mail address: your username followed by the domain name of your server (e.g. hblanks@artifex.org)
If you are really spiffy, you can use an IMAP client instead of a POP client. POP (Post Office Protocol) downloads all of your messages to the client computer and then deletes them all from the server. IMAP, instead, keeps the messages on the server. It even saves them in the same way that pine does, so that you can go back and forth between pine and any IMAP client. IMAP uses an IMAP server (e.g. mail.artifex.org) and a special IMAP client. All other configuration is just like the items listed above. To find an IMAP client for your OS, go to www.imap.org.


the Internet Community
The last truly informative section of this document deals with the fact that your UNIX community is almost inevitably part of a much larger confluence that some would call the internet community. There are many different things you can do on the internet from a UNIX server. This document will only cover telnet, ssh, web, and irc (Internet Relay Chat) access.

telnet host
Just as you have telnetted or dialed into your own UNIX server, you can connect to other servers using the same program from your shell. For example: 

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ telnet island.smhall.org
Trying 168.37.67.124...
Connected to island.smhall.org.
Escape character is '^]'.

island
login: hblanks
Password:
Last login: Sat Mar 20 23:48:53 from 18.sanantonio-01-02rs16rt.tx.dial-access.att.net

Welcome to island.smhall.org !!

You have mail.
[hblanks@island hblanks]$

Note that the phrase "escape character is '^]'" means that pusing control-] will escape that telnet session. This may not be important right now but it could be helpful in the future. To leave this UNIX server, just type 'exit' like on any other UNIX server.

ssh host [-l user]
Ssh is like telnet, in that it gives you a shell on another machine, except that ssh (Secure SHell) actually encrypts your connection so that other people can't listen in on it. For this reason ssh is usually a better means of connecting to UNIX servers, if the server you're connecting to supports ssh. Unless you specify a username using the -l username option (e.g. 'ssh anji.smhall.org -l homer'), ssh uses your current username.

[hblanks@island hblanks]$ ssh anji.smhall.org
hblanks's password:
Last login: Sun Mar 21 11:46:28 1999
one soujourner's mechanical perl server in the sky, at your service.

You have no mail.
[hblanks@anji hblanks]$

lynx website
Lynx is a text-only web browser that nearly all UNIX systems support. To run lynx, type 'lynx' into the shell. If you want to go to a specific web site, type 'lynx' followed by the website address.

[hblanks@anji hblanks]$ lynx www.artifex.org

Bells whistle, menus flash, and then the Artifex web page, in full vt100 glory, appears.

                                                          The Artifex (p1 of 3)

     _________________________________________________________________

                                  [INLINE]

   Notes from the scrapbox
   Sometimes, when I think of what that girl means to me, it's all I can
   do to keep from telling her. -Andy Capp

   About the Artifex
   The Artifex is an online community dedicated to free speech, the
   appreciation of literature and art, human progress, scientific and
   technological advancement, ethical behaviour, greater understanding of
   the universe and the construction of information systems to service
   the aforementioned goals. It's also the virtual home for a number of
   Artifexians and a testing ground for new projects and ideas. As such,
   the we are happy to provide email accounts, web space, secondary
   nameservice and other services for people and projects who share our
   goals.

-- press space for next page --
  Arrow keys: Up and Down to move. Right to follow a link; Left to go back.
 H)elp O)ptions P)rint G)o M)ain screen Q)uit /=search [delete]=history list

Isn't it charming how the Artifex main page always pulls up a different quote?

To move around in lynx, you use the tab, return, space, and arrow keys (in addition to the menu commands you can get off the bottom of the screen). Up and down select links, right or return clicks on a link, left goes back a link, and space scolls down one page. In addition, B scrolls back a page and delete pulls up a history of the places you've visisted that session. To quit, push Q, then Y.

BitchX [nickname] [server ...]
Finally, there is IRC, or Internet Relay Chat. This is the most prevalent means of having chat rooms on the internet, and it is only fitting that it be explained here briefly. BitchX is one of a number of IRC clients that can be run off of UNIX systems, but since it is the I use, I will talk about it exclusively. If you want to get an IRC client for your home computer, I suggest you go to some place like www.download.com or www.tucows.com and search for IRC.

To run BitchX, you type 'BitchX' (the name is case sensitive, even if it isn't necessarily sensitive to your feelings about the use of profanity) followed by your nickname, followed by an irc server. So, for example: 

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ BitchX homer artifex.org

Then lots of colors, crazy characters, and other things appear. At the bottom, at the [0], is your command prompt.

      ޾                                   Ѓ        
                                                    о            
                                                   Ф                
                                                      

̘ BitchX: Auto Response is set to - homer
̘ Connecting to port 6667 of server artifex.org [refnum 0]
̘ BitchX: For more information about BitchX type /about
̘ Welcome to the Internet Relay Network homer!~hblanks@38.234.38.70 (from
          irc.artifex.org)
̘ Your host is irc.artifex.org, running version 2.9.5+Cr15+Fl4 (from
          irc.artifex.org)
̘ This server was created Tue Jul 28  at 21 29:40 1998 (from
          irc.artifex.org)
̘ irc.artifex.org 2.9.5+Cr15+Fl4 oirw abiklmnopqstv
̘ [total users on irc(0)]
̘ [unknown connections(1)]
̘ [total servers on irc(1)] (avg. 0 users per server)
̘ [total channels created(10)] (avg. 0 users per channel)
̘ Mode change [+i] for user homer
̘ Mode change [+w] for user homer
 [02:57pm][homer(+iw)][Mail: 18] []                                            
 [Lag ??]                                                                [::::]
[0]

The really important slash commands (they work in all IRC clients, including BitchX) are:

  • /join #channel name : joins a chatroom, or creates one if it doesn't exist. E.g. '/join #artifex' . Note that all channels' names start with '#'.
  • /who #channel name : lists the people in a chatroom
  • /leave #channel name : leaves a chatroom
  • /msg nick message : writes a message to only that other specified person. E.g. '/msg homer hey!' .
  • /away [message] : Announces that you are away, optionally followed by a message.
  • /back : Announces that you have returned.
  • /me [message] : Says something like 'homer/#artifex is taking a nap' when you type '/me is taking a nap' .
  • /nick nickname : Changes your nickname to a nickname you specify.
  • /server server : Connects you to another server that you specify.
  • /disc [server] : Disconnects you from that server or from your current server.
  • /quit [message] : Quits BitchX, with an optional message you specify.
And that, is a very brief course in going onto the internet from UNIX. It's a scary world out there, so be careful, and don't be afraid to ask a friend for help.

Getting further help
This tutorial in no way teaches about the many things one can do on UNIX that are not necessarily social and pertinent to a community. It probably doesn't even cover everything you ought to know to function as a community member in UNIX. For all of those failures, there is this section, which says where you can get further help.

some command --help | less
Sometimes you run across a command that you want to use but have no idea how to work it. Most UNIX commands spit out a file when '--help' is sent to them (the '| less' just pages out the help file page by page), so this is quite often helpful. Suppose you are working with files, and want to copy a folder.

[hblanks@earth hblanks]$ cp --help | less
Usage: cp [OPTION]... SOURCE DEST
  or:  cp [OPTION]... SOURCE... DIRECTORY
Copy SOURCE to DEST, or multiple SOURCE(s) to DIRECTORY.

  -a, --archive                same as -dpR
  -b, --backup                 make backup before removal
  -d, --no-dereference         preserve links
  -f, --force                  remove existing destinations, never prompt
  -i, --interactive            prompt before overwrite
  -l, --link                   link files instead of copying
  -p, --preserve               preserve file attributes if possible
  -P, --parents                append source path to DIRECTORY
  -r                           copy recursively, non-directories as files
      --sparse=WHEN            control creation of sparse files
  -R, --recursive              copy directories recursively
  -s, --symbolic-link          make symbolic links instead of copying
  -S, --suffix=SUFFIX          override the usual backup suffix
  -u, --update                 copy only when the SOURCE file is newer
                                 than the destination file or when the
                                 destination file is missing
  -v, --verbose                explain what is being done
  -V, --version-control=WORD   override the usual version control
  -x, --one-file-system        stay on this file system
:

From this you can see that to 'copy directories recursively,' you do cp -R SOURCE DEST. That means, for instance, that 'cp -R ./public_html ./private_html' would probably get my public_html folder copied to a private_html folder. To scroll down, press space or f. To get out of less (the paging program) press 'q'. Don't expect all this to make sense, files are going to be one of the next UNIX helpfile posted on the Artifex.

man some command
Sometimes the --help doesn't work, or isn't enough. That's when you try man. For instance, 'man cp' pulls up the following:

CP(1)                                                       CP(1)

NAME
       cp - copy files

SYNOPSIS
       cp [options] source dest
       cp [options] source... directory
       Options:
       [-abdfilprsuvxPR]  [-S backup-suffix] [-V {numbered,exist-
       ing,simple}]   [--backup]   [--no-dereference]   [--force]
       [--interactive] [--one-file-system] [--preserve] [--recur-
       sive]  [--update]   [--verbose]   [--suffix=backup-suffix]
       [--version-control={numbered,existing,simple}] [--archive]
       [--parents] [--link]  [--symbolic-link]  [--help]  [--ver-
       sion]

DESCRIPTION
       This  documentation  is no longer being maintained and may
       be inaccurate or incomplete.  The Texinfo documentation is
       now the authoritative source.

:

Man, by the way, also uses less, so you press q to leave, and so forth. Man pages typically fall into the category of "far more than anything you ever wanted to know" and usually do not offer much help with interactive programs like pine or lynx, since those have online help. However, they are a valuable tool for some users and every system administrator.

web sites
Without a doubt, some of the best UNIX guides are on the web. Finding them is another matter. Here are some good places to start:

  • metalab.unc.edu/LDP : the Linux Documentation Project--the largest collection of documentation on Linux (a popular free version of UNIX) in the world.
  • Linux Tutorial : a very good (if long) tutorial on the many ins and outs of using Linux. Part of a larger Linux Installation and Getting Started Guide.
  • www.linux.org : the official website for Linux. Many good resources are available under the support link.
  • your local linux user group : User groups are some of the best, most helpful communities around. Find one in your area by going tohttp://www.linux.org/users/.
  • www.artifex.org : That's the local community web site that's provided this little help file, and should be providing more in the future.
your system administrators
Like any community, each UNIX community has its leaders. In UNIX country these people are called system administrators, and they all have access to a special username called 'root.' These folks set up and maintain the computer that hosts the UNIX community, have full access to the computer system, and generally know a lot about what they're doing.

As a result sysadmins are some of the best people around to answer your questions. Don't hesitate to ask one of them questions--unless there is a specific tech support position in the community, helping other people is definitely one of a sysadmin's jobs. Sysadmins are usually friendly, helpful people who you can trust. Indeed, for your own protection, if you cannot trust a system administrator, then you should not trust any part of that server--because of how UNIX works, the root user can easily do anything from deleting the entire hard disk to pretending to be another user.

On the Artifex, the around-and-about sysadmins are:

Thanks for reading, and have a good time out there in UNIX country!

Created by Hunter Blanks, hblanks@artifex.org | The Artifex, www.artifex.org