Advanced Linux administration using Fedora v.

Chapter 3
Writing and Executing a shell script

Lecturer: Mr. Kao Sereyrath, MScIT (SMU, India) Director of Technology and Consulting Service (DCD Organization) ICT Manager (CHC Microfinance Limited)

Contents
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2 3 4

Advantage of using shell script

Creating and executing shell script Learn about variable Learn about operator if and case statement for, while and until statement Create function in shell script

5 6
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Advantage of using shell script

Hundreds of commands included with Fedora are actually
shell scripts. For example startx command.

Shell script can save your time and typing, if you routinely
use the same command lines multiple times every day.

A shell program can be smaller in size than a compiled

program.

The process of creating and testing shell scripts is also

generally simpler and faster than the development process.

YoucanlearnmorewithSamsTeachYourselfShell
Programming in 24 Hours

Creating and Executing shell script

To create shell script :
You can use vi command. Because it won't wrap text. Or you can use nano -w to disable line wrap For example, to create myenv file
vi /etc/myenv

To execute shell script :

First you need to set file permission
chmod +x myenv

Creating and Executing shell script (Cont.)

To execute myenv file in /etc directory
./myenv

To enable shell script as your Linux command, first you

need to create bin directory in user home directory. Then put shell script file into that directory.
mkdir bin mv /etc/myenv bin myenv

Learn about variable

There are 3 types of variable:
Environment variables: Part of the system environment, you can use and modify them in your shell program. For example PATH variable. Built-in variables: Unlike environment variables, you cannot modify them. For example $#, $0 User variable: Defined by you when you write a shell script.

Learn about variable (Cont.)

Positional parameter
if [ $# -eq 0 ] then echo "Tell me your name please" else echo "Welcome "$1 fi

$# is a positional parameter and $1 is to get first

parameter. You can use $2 to get second parameter.

Learn about variable (Cont.)

Using single quote to escape variable
var="Welcome to Linux" echo 'The value of $var is '$var

The output is:

The value of $var is Welcome to Linux

Learn about variable (Cont.)

Using backtick ( ` ) to execute Linux command
ls -l >> myfile.txt mycount=`wc -l myfile.txt` echo "File size: "$mycount

The output is:

File size: 33 myfile.txt

Learn about Operator

Comparison operator
= To compare whether two strings are equal != To compare whether two strings are not equal -n To evaluate whether the string length is greater than zero -z To evaluate whether the string length is equal to zero
#String comparison string1="abc" string2="Abc" if [ $string1 = $string2 ] then echo "string1 equal to string2" else echo "string1 not equal to string2" fi

Learn about Operator (Cont.)

#String comparison
string1="abc" string2="Abc" if [ $string1 != $string2 ]; then

echo "string1 not equal to string2"

else echo "string1 equal to string2" fi if [ $string1 ]; then echo string1 is not empty else echo string1 is empty fi

Learn about Operator (Cont.)

if [ -n $string2 ]; then
echo string2 has a length greater than zero else echo string2 has length equal to zero

fi
if [ -z $string1 ]; then echo string1 has a length equal to zero

else
echo string1 has a length greater than zero fi

Learn about Operator (Cont.)

Number comparison
-eq To compare Equal -ge To compare Greater than or equal to -le To compare Less than or equal to -ne To compare Not equal -gt To compare Greater than -lt To compare Less than if [ $number1 -gt $number2 ]; then echo number1 is greater than number2 else echo number1 is not greater than number2 fi

Learn about Operator (Cont.)

File operator
-d Check if it is a directory

-f Check if it is a file
-r Check if the file has Read permission -w Check if the file has Write permission -x Check if the file has Execute permission -s Check if file exist and has length greater than zero

Learn about Operator (Cont.)

filename="/root/bin/myfile.txt" if [ -f $filename ]; then echo "Yes $filename is a file" else echo "No $filename is not a file" fi if [ -x $filename ]; then echo "$filename has Execute permission" else echo "$filename has no Execute permission" fi if [ -d "/root/bin/dir1" ]; then echo "It is a directory" else echo "No it is not a directory" fi

Learn about Operator (Cont.)

Logical operator
! To negate logical expression -a Logical AND -o Logical OR
if [ -x $filename1 -a -x $filename2 ]; then echo "$filename1 and $filename2 is executable" else echo "$filename1 and $filename2 is not executable" fi if [ ! -w $file1 ]; then echo $file1 is not writable else echo $file1 is writable fi

if and case statement

if statement syntax
if [ expression ]; then Statements elif [ expression ]; then Statements else Statements fi

Example:
if [ $var = Yes ]; then echo Value is Yes elif [ $var = No ]; then echo Value is No else echo Invalid value fi

if and case statement (Cont.)

case statement syntax
case str in str1 | str2) Statements;; str3 | str4) Statements;; *) Statements;; esac

Example:
case $1 001 |01 02 | 2) 3) echo *) echo esac in | 1) echo "January";; echo "February";; "March";; "Incorrect supplied value";;

for, while and until statement

Example1: for statement
for filename in * do cp $filename backup/$filename if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then echo copy for $filename failed fi done

Above example is used to copy all files from current directory to backup directory. if [ $? -ne 0 ] statement is used to check status of execution.

for, while and until statement (Cont.)

Example2: for statement
echo "You have passed following parameter:" i=1 for parlist in $@ do echo $i" "$parlist i=`expr $i + 1` done
If you type myenv domain1 domain2. The result is: You have passed following parameter: 1 domain1 2 domain2

for, while and until statement (Cont.)

Example: while statement
loopcount=0 while [ $loopcount -le 4 ] do useradd "user"$loopcount loopcount=`expr $loopcount + 1` done
Above statement is used to create user0, user1, user2, user3,

user4.

for, while and until statement (Cont.)

Example: until statement
loopcount=0 until [ $loopcount -ge 4 ] do echo $loopcount loopcount=`expr $loopcount + 1` done
Above statement is used to output 0, 1, 2, 3 to display.

Create function in shell script

You can create function by using below example.
myfunc() { case $1 in 1) echo "January";; 2) echo "February";; 3) echo "March";; 4) echo "April";; 5) echo "May";; 6) echo "June";; 7) echo "July";; 8) echo "August";; 9) echo "September";; 10) echo "October";; 11) echo "November";; 12) echo "December";; *) echo "Invalid input";; esac }

Calling function
myfunc 3

Output is
March