AIX Basics Course

This course is designed for System Administrators and end-users that are new to the AIX Operating System. On this course delegates will learn how to accomplish basic tasks such as creating, organising and removing files, using electronic mail and text editors, printing and monitoring their processes. Delegates learn to accomplish these tasks through the command line interface.

For students studying towards IBM AIX certification, this introductory level course provides the pre-requisite knowledge for the AIX System and Network Administration courses.

Delegates should be familiar with basic information technology (IT) concepts and the role of an operating system. Experience of another operating system would also be beneficial.

Topics covered on the 3 day AIX Basics course

Introduction to AIX

• UNIX overview and history
• AIX and UNIX
• Major components of AIX
• The Kernel
• File Systems
• The Shell
• Text processing
• Programming Languages
• Programming Tools
• System Management
• On-line Documentation

Using the System

• Logging in and out
• Passwords
• Command Format
• The date, cal, who and finger commands
• Sending and receiving mail
• The write and wall commands
• Talk with another user
• Controlling access with mesg
• The clear, echo and banner commands
• The wc command
• Keyboard usage tips

AIX Documentation

• Getting help
• The man command
• InfoExplorer
• Using InfoExplorer
• Searching with InfoExplorer
• AIX v4.3 Web-based Documentation
• Searching the AIX Base Documentation database

Files and Directories

• File types
• I-nodes
• Filesystem structure
• Pathnames
• Where am I?
• Changing your Current Directory
• Creating and Removing Directories
• Multiple Directories
• Listing Directories
• Long Listing of files
• Displaying Directory information
• AIX Filenames
• The touch command

Using Files

• Copying Files
• Moving Files
• Renaming Files
• Linking Files
• Removing Files
• Listing File Contents
• Displaying File Contents
• Printing

File Permissions

• Overview
• File Permissions
• Changing Permissions using the Symbolic Notation
• Changing Permissions using the Octal Notation
• Default File Permissions and umask
• Write Permission on a Directory
• Common Commands and the Permissions required

The vi Editor

• Starting the vi Editor
• Adding text
• Exiting the Editor
• Cursor Movement
• Deleting text
• Searching for text pattern
• Changing and Moving text
• Executing AIX commands
• vi Options
• Command-line Editing
• Editors

Shell Basics

• The Shell
• Metacharacters and Wildcards
• Character Substitution in File Names
• The Standard Files
• File Descriptors
• Input and Output Redirection
• Creating a file with cat
• Error Redirection
• Combined Redirection
• Pipes
• Filters
• Split Outputs
• Command Grouping
• Line Continuation

Using Shell Variables

• Shell Variables
• Listing variable settings
• Setting and referencing Shell variables
• Shell variable examples
• Command Substitution
• Quoting Metacharacters
• Command line Parsing

Processes

• What is a Process?
• Login Process environment
• Parents and Children
• Variables and Processes
• Exporting Shell variables
• What is a Shell Script?
• Invoking Shell Scripts
• Return Codes from Commands

Controlling Processes

• Monitoring, Controlling and Terminating Processes
• Process Signals
• Running long Processes
• Job control in the Korn Shell
• Daemons

Customising the User Environment

• Shell Defaults
• The /etc/environment File
• The /etc/profile File
• Environment Variables
• The .profile File
• The .kshrc File
• Korn Shell Aliases
• Korn Shell History

AIX Utilities

• The find Command
• Using the find Command
• Executing Commands with find
• Interactive Command Execution
• Additional find Options
• The grep Command
• grep with Regular Expressions
• grep Options
• The sort Command
• The head and tail Commands
• Transferring DOS data files

AIX Utilities Part II

• The xargs Command
• Using xargs with find and grep
• Shell vs. find
• The -links option with find
• Using alias and find
• The which, whereis and whence Commands
• The file Command
• Comparing files using diff and cmp
• Comparing directories with dircmp
• File Compression Commands; compress, uncompress and zcat
• Displaying Non-Printable characters in Files and Directories
• Assigning Unique File Names

Additional Shell Features (Optional)

• Shell Variables
• Positional Parameters
• The expr Utility
• Conditional Execution
• The test Command
• The if Command
• The read Command
• Looping with for and while
• Command Search Order