7)

Booting Linux
GRUB stands for Grand Unified Bootloader.
If we have multiple kernel images installed on system, we can choose which one to be
executed.
GRUB displays a splash screen, waits for few seconds, if we dont enter anything, it
loads the default kernel image as specified in the grub configuration file.
GRUB has the knowledge of the filesystem (the older Linux loader LILO didnt
understand filesystem).
Maintaining User Accounts
Managing user accounts and groups is an essential part of system administration
within an organization. But to do this effectively, a good system administrator must first
understand what user accounts and groups are and how they work.
User accounts are the method by which an individual is identified and authenticated to
the system. User accounts have several different components to them. First, there is the
username. The password is next, followed by the access control information.
The Username
From the system's standpoint, the username is the answer to the question, "who are
you?" As such, usernames have one major requirement: they must be unique. In other words,
each user must have a username that is different from all other usernames on that system.
Because of this requirement, it is vital to determine (in advance) how usernames are to be
created.
Passwords
If the username provides an answer to the question, "who are you?", the password is
the response to the demand that inevitably follows:
"Prove it!"
In more formal terms, a password provides a means of proving the authenticity of a
person's claim to be the user indicated by the username. The effectiveness of a passwordbased authentication scheme relies heavily on several aspects of the password:

The secrecy of the password

The resistance of the password to guessing

The resistance of the password to a brute-force attack

Creating folders, renaming folders and files

Open a terminal and use the mkdir command to create empty directories. The
following command would create a directory called "Games":
$ mkdir games
To list directories, enter:
$ ls
$ ls l
Rename a Folder of file
To rename a file or folder type this in Terminal:
mv old_name new_name
with space between the old and new names.
Copying Files
A basic example of the cp command to copy files (keep the original file and make a duplicate
of it) might look like:
cp expenses cashflow
In this example, we copy the expenses file to the cashflow directory, which (because we
havent specified anything else) is in our login directory.
Deleting Files
File deletion is done using the rm (remove) command.
rm joe_expenses
This will delete the expenses file forever.

Moving (and Renaming) Files

The mv command lets move a file from one directory location to another. Lets start with the
basic format:
mv expenses expenses1
Passwd Command
The passwd command changes passwords for user accounts. A normal user may only change
the password for his or her own account, while the superuser may change the password for
any account. passwd also changes the account or associated password validity period.
passwd [options] [LOGIN]
who Command
who : Print information about users who are currently logged in.
who
root

tty1

2014-08-25 14:01 (:0)

root

pts/0

2014-09-05 10:22 (:0.0)

root

pts/3

2014-09-19 10:08 (xxx.xxx.edu)

whoami Command
whoami : Print effective username of being ran whoami.
Kill Command
kill is used to send a signal to a process.
kill [-s] [-l] %pid
write sends a message to another user.
write user [tty]
The write utility allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from your
terminal to theirs.