RED HAT SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION I

3.9. Lab: Viewing and Printing Help

Documentation
Document Version: 2015-12-28

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3.9. Lab: Viewing and Printing Help Documentation

Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3
Outcomes ............................................................................................................................ 3
Lab Topology ....................................................................................................................... 4
Lab Settings ......................................................................................................................... 5
1 Performance Checklist ................................................................................................ 6

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3.9. Lab: Viewing and Printing Help Documentation

Introduction

In this lab, you will practice research methods typically used by system administrators to
learn how to perform necessary tasks.

Outcomes

 Accomplish a given task; practice locating relevant commands by searching man

pages and pinfo nodes.
 Learn new options for commonly used documentation commands.
 Recognize various document file formats; use appropriate tools to view and print
documentation and other non-text formatted files.

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3.9. Lab: Viewing and Printing Help Documentation

Lab Topology

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3.9. Lab: Viewing and Printing Help Documentation

Lab Settings

The information in the table below will be needed in order to complete the lab. The
task sections below provide details on the use of this information.

Virtual Machine IP Address Account Password

(if needed) (if needed)

Server1 Machine 172.25.1.11 student student

Desktop1 Machine 172.25.1.10 student student

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1 Performance Checklist

Before you begin...

Access the graphical login screen of the Server1 virtual machine.

The topology includes two virtual machines that are accessible to users. Take care to
perform the tasks as instructed, including using the appropriate virtual machine as
directed.

1. Log in as student using the password student.

2. Open a terminal window that will provide a bash prompt.

Select Applications → Utilities → Terminal.

3. Research man(1) to determine how to prepare a man page for printing. What
format or rendering language is commonly used?

[student@server1 ~]$ man man

man uses -t to prepare a man page for printing, using PostScript.

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4. Create a formatted output file of the passwd man page. Determine the file
content format.

[student@server1 ~]$ man –t passwd > passwd.ps

[student@server1 ~]$ file passwd.ps
[student@server1 ~]$ less passwd.ps

The file is in PostScript format, learned using the file command and confirmed
by viewing the file contents. Notice the header lines of PostScript information.

5. Research using man to learn the command(s) used for viewing or printing
PostScript files.

[student@server1 ~]$ man –k postscript viewer

Using multiple words with the -k option finds man pages matching either word;
those with "postscript" or "viewer" in their descriptions. Notice the evince(1) and
ghostscript(1) (or gs(1)) commands in the output.

6. Research evince(1) using man to learn how to use the viewer in preview mode.
Also, determine how to open a document starting on a specific page.

[student@server1 ~]$ man evince

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7. View your PostScript file using the various evince options you researched. Close
your document file when you are finished.

[student@server1 ~]$ evince passwd.ps

[student@server1 ~]$ evince -w passwd.ps

[student@server1 ~]$ evince –i 3 passwd.ps

While normal evince mode allows full-screen and presentation-style viewing,

the evince preview mode is useful for quick browsing and printing. Notice the
print icon at the top.

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8. Using man, research lp(1) to determine how to print any document starting on a
specific page. Without actually entering any commands (since there are no
printers), what would be the syntax, on one command line, to print only pages 2
and 3 of your PostScript file?

[student@server1 ~]$ man lp

One answer is lp passwd.ps -P 2-3.

a. From lp(1), learn that the -P option specifies pages. The lp command
spools to the default printer, sending only the page range starting on 2
and ending on 3.

There are currently no printers configured in the classroom. However, you may practice
later using printer models configured in your own environment. Familiarity with these
commands is often useful.

9. Using pinfo, look for GNU info about the evince viewer.

[student@server1 ~]$ pinfo evince

Notice that the evince(1) man page displays instead. The pinfo document
viewer looks for the relevant man page when no appropriate GNU
documentation node exists for the requested topic.

a. Press q to close pinfo.

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10. As an opportunity to observe the abundance of GNU fundamental utilities, use

pinfo to locate and browse all document nodes for the coreutils commands and
programs.

[student@server1 ~]$ pinfo

a. From the directory node, press DownArrow until the link is selected for
Coreutils: Core GNU (file, text, shell) utilities. Press Enter
to follow the link to GNU Coreutils. Notice the long menu listing, with
Introduction currently selected.
b. Press Enter. At the top of the screen, pay attention to the header, which
displays the previous, current, and next nodes. Browse the information,
press n for the next node, and repeat. Browse each screen, simply
noticing the commands and their descriptions. Continue until node 29
Opening the Software Toolbox is reached. Read this chapter in its
entirety using the navigation you have learned. When finished, return the
way you came by using only LeftArrow until the top directory node is
finally reached.
c. Press q to close pinfo.

11. Using firefox, open the system's package documentation directory and browse
into the man-db package subdirectory. View the provided manual(s).

[student@server1 ~]$ firefox /usr/share/doc

a. After browsing to the man-db directory, click to open and view the text
version of the manual, then close it.
b. Click to open the PostScript version. As observed earlier, evince is the
system's default viewer for PostScript and PDF documents. You may wish
to return to these documents later to become more knowledgeable
about man.
c. When finished, close the evince viewer.

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12. Using the open Firefox browser, locate and browse into the initscripts
package subdirectory. View the sysconfig.txt file, which describes important
system configuration options stored in the /etc/sysconfig directory.

Notice how useful a browser is for locating and viewing local system documentation.

13. Close Firefox and any remaining open windows.

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