bash-primer

A Lab to prime your skills in using the Linux/mac OSX command line (bash)

Getting Started

An Azure RM template is included in infrastructure/ to create the environment:

Using Azure PowerShell, do the following to provision the resources:

.\startup.ps1

Alternatively, you can perform a one-click deploy with the following button:

Following Along

1. Assign the my_path variable a value of /home:

   my_path=/home

2. Print the value stored in my_path:

   echo $my_path

3. List the contents of /home using the my_path variable:

   ls $my_path

4. Assign the value of / (root directory) to my_path:

   my_path=/

5. List the contents of the directory stored in my_path:

   ls $my_path

6. Type echo $ then press tab twice to list all the currently defined variables.

7. Type y to confirm that you want to see all the possible completions:

   Some worth knowing are

   • $HOME: Home directory path
   • $HOSTNAME: Name of the Linux host/machine
   • $PATH: A list of paths that are separated by colons. Whenever you enter a command these paths are automatically searched to find the corresponding command binary to run. Without the $PATH variable, you would need to give complete paths instead of just the name of the command. For example, rather than /bin/ls, you can enter ls because /bin is in your $PATH.
   • $SHELL: Path to the shell binary of your current shell (/bin/bash in the case of this Lab)
   • $USER: Name of the logged in user

8. Store the the date in a variable called current_date:

   current_date=$(date)

9. Output the value of the current_date variable:

   echo $current_date

Tearing Down

When finished, remove the Azure resources with:

.\teardown.ps1