If you're not yet comfortable with writing scripts on Unix and Linux systems, this post might get you off to a healthy start. Creating a script on a Unix or Linux system can be dead easy or ...

Simply put, a Shell Script is a program that is run by a UNIX/Linux shell. It is a file that contains a series of commands which are executed sequentially as if they were entered on the command line ...

Skip one-click backup apps. This rsync script gives you full control over what gets saved and when, plus logs and a few hard-won lessons.

There I was, trying to come up with a topic for this column, when I did what I usually do when stumped: I sent a question out to my Twitter followers. This time, I got a great answer, from John ...

You need to package up a bunch of files, send them somewhere, and do something with them at the destination. It isn’t an uncommon scenario. The obvious answer is to create an archive — a zip or tar ...

It is easy to dismiss bash — the typical Linux shell program — as just a command prompt that allows scripting. Bash, however, is a full-blown programming language. I wouldn’t presume to tell you that ...

This course provides an overview of System Programming for the Linux operating system, or software which is interfacing directly with the Linux Kernel and C library. The basic components of a Linux ...

The printf command offers well-defined behavior following the POSIX standard, which means it works the same way across shells and systems. Where echo often fails with escape sequences, printf handles ...