Book Image

Linux Utilities Cookbook

By : James Kent Lewis
Book Image

Linux Utilities Cookbook

By: James Kent Lewis

Overview of this book

<p>Linux is a stable, reliable and extremely powerful operating system. It has been around for many years, however, most people still don't know what it can do and the ways it is superior to other operating systems. Many people want to get started with Linux for greater control and security, but getting started can be time consuming and complicated. <br /><br />A practical, hands-on guide that provides you with a number of clear step-by-step examples to help you solve many of the questions that crop up when using an operating system you may not be familiar with.</p> <p>Presenting solutions to the most common Linux problems in a clear and concise way, this helpful guide starts with spicing up the terminal sessions by command retrieval and line editing, and shell prompt variables. We will then get to know the different desktops (GUIs) available for Linux systems and which is the best fit for you. We will then explore the world of managing files and directories, connectivity, and what to do when it goes wrong. We will also learn a range of skills, from creating and managing user accounts to securing your system, managing and limiting processes, and letting information flow from one process to another using pipes. Later, we will master disk management, working with scripts and automating tasks quickly, and finally, understand the need for a custom kernel and tips on how to build one.</p> <p><br />Based on the author's extensive experience, there is a section on best practices that every Linux user should be familiar with.</p>
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Linux Utilities Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Verifying archive files and using checksums


One thing that comes up a lot is mistakes that go unnoticed in the creation of tar or zip archives that are going to be sent to another person or site.

The following are the steps that should be followed:

  1. Copy the files to an appropriate directory (make sure it really is a directory first).

  2. Use zip or tar to compress and create the archive.

  3. Use the tell or list option to be sure it looks correct. For TAR it's tar -tvzf filename.gz and for ZIP it's unzip -l filename.zip.

  4. Run the sum command against your file, and then send the file to where it needs to go.

  5. If using scp, use ssh to run the sum command on the file on the remote system like the following:

    ssh <user@remote-host> /usr/bin/sum filename.gz
    
  6. The two sum values should match.

  7. If using e-mail, run sum on your end, and send the result along with the e-mail.

A piece of advise for developers; suppose you are creating an archive of a programming project. To make absolutely sure you have copied every file it needs, create the archive and then copy it to another machine. Un-compress and build it as you normally would. An error will occur if a needed file is missing.