It can be hard to remember all the commands and how to use them. The Unix operating system comes with a built-in manual (man pages) so that you can look up the details for how to use each command. Additional help facilities offered by Linux are the info command and the --help option.

This part of the lab is intended to give you practice using these commands. While it is possible to answer the below questions using Internet search engine, you are required to use only man pages, info command, and/or --help option.

For each question, you must give an answer as well as the source of your answer. For example, man page (or section) 2, info page, etc.

To answer the questions, follow the steps below:

Step 1 Log into the lab computer with your username and password

Step 2 Change your working directory to CST383s17

Step 3 Start capturing your session under filename lab1.script

Step 4 Create the file lab1.1 and type in your answers to the questions below. When this file is displayed with the cat command, the lines should be numbered, each number corresponding to the question number.

1. Use the manual pages to explain the use of the following man options: man –h; man –k; man –a; and man –f

2. The command passwd is documented in more than one man page or section. Find out those section numbers.

3. The default output from the man command is the first manual page found. How do you force man to display all the manual pages for a particular command?

4. How do you ask man to display the entry from a particular section; for example displaying the entry from section 3p for the command mkdir?

5. What should the command “cat lab1.1 – lab1.2” do? (Don't try to run it, just figure it out from the documentation. Assume lab1.1 and lab1.2 are existing files. Note the spaces and the dash in the command line.)

6. What three options to the date command can be used to display the current date and time in Coordinated Universal Time?

7. The command man usually contains far more information about a command than you need. The commands info, apropos, or --help could be more helpful. Which of these can give you a quick guide to printing the current month name (eg. January) using the date command?

8. Which man page section provides documentation for the command uname as used to obtain the “name and information about the current kernel” ?

Step 5 Terminate your session recording