Prerequisite: Basic computer skills
Recommendation Statement:
Student should have basic computer skills: able to use a computer monitor, keyboard and mouse.
Course Description:
This course teaches basic and advanced topics in AIX and is equivalent to the IBM AN100 course. The course starts at the beginner level and works into intermediate and advanced AIX commands and utilities. The student is introduced to the AIX korn shell, the command line and command syntax. Although you will be exposed to the various windowing platforms available in AIX, this course teaches AIX at “the command line level” to develop a thorough understanding of the AIX operating environment.
The student learns how to navigate the AIX file systems and how to work with files, directories and permissions. The student will learn how to use the AIX editors “ex” and “vi. “ Once the student is comfortable with basic AIX commands, they’ll move onto advanced power tools as well as how to customize the korn shell.
The classroom labs are run in a real-world Solaris environment where students have access to IBM Power servers running the AIX operating system. Lab exercises are structured to allow you to learn by doing and are developed to simulate “real world” situations. The hands-on labs progressively build your AIX knowledge and command skills in a clear and concise manner.
Working in a controlled AIX classroom environment with an expert instructor, you will learn AIX concepts and commands from both the desktop GUI environment and the command line. You will receive professional tips and techniques that will help you build your AIX confidence and skills.
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:
- Log in and log out of an AIX system
- Understand AIX Korn shell concepts
- Compose command-line strings to perform functions
- Use command-line features and help resources
- Navigate the directory tree
- Manipulate text files
- Create files and directories
- Archive and restore user files and directories
- Change permissions of files and directories
- Use the vi text editor
- Identify and modify shell initialization files
- Customize the Korn shell environment
- Employ shell features to streamline command execution
- Use basic network commands
- Use commands to search directories and files
- List active user processes and selectively kill user processes
- Create simple shell scripts
AIX Essentials
Detailed Course Outline
Introduction to the AIX Operating System
- Understand the evolution of the AIX OS
- Understand how to identify your AIX Distribution and OS release
- AIX standardization – an overview of standards in the AIX community
- Describe AIX shells (which shells are available, compare the common AIX shells, how to choose a shell)
- Describe the AIX kernel
Establishing Communication
- Log in and starting a shell session
- GUI desktop environments available to the AIX user
- Understanding the AIX command syntax
- Using emulation programs to access the system (ie. Putty / X-Windows / Telnet / CDE – Common Desktop)
- Setting your terminal environment (stty)
- Executing commands from the command line; AIX Command syntax
- Using the AIX “help” facility: manual pages
Introduction to the Filing System
- Examining UNIX files and directories
- Describe the UNIX file system and directory structure
- Moving through the file system
- Using full and relative paths
- Understanding the current and parent directories
- Understanding the differences between a Windows/DOS based filesystem and a UNIX JFS
- Differences between Windows (DOS) files and Unix files
- Describe links (hard links and symbolic links)
- Describe home directories
File Management
- Creating directories
- Copying files and directories
- Moving and renaming files and directories
- Removing files and directories
- Using shell metacharacters
- Locating files by name, owner, type and other parameters using the ‘find’ command
AIX Permissions
- Understanding permissions
- File permissions
- Directory permissions
- Change permissions with symbolic mode
- Change permissions with absolute (octal) mode
- Determine and set the umask value
User Administration
- Describe userid (UID) and groups (GID)
- Understanding your login and your rights and permissions
- Describe the root (administrator) login
- How to switch your user ID (and why)
- Changing your password
- Shell initialization files
- Shell environmental variables
- Redirection Filters and Pipes
- Exploring standard input, standard output, and standard error
- Using filters and pipes
Using the vi Editor
- Understand the AIX command line ASCII editors
- Understand the Vi modes
- Create/view/manipulate/save/delete files using the Vi editor
- Use a Vi initialization file
The Korn-shell and BASH User Environments
- .exrc and .profile files
- Modifying the PATH
Using Aliases and Functions
- Introducing the alias concept
- Making your aliases permanent
- Removing aliases
- When to use a function
- Create functions
Command Editing and Command History
- Enabling command editing
- Using history to recall commands
- Saving your command history to a file
- File name completion and shortcuts
System Status and Command Information
- Determining your system and user status
- Determining command locations
Multitasking Capabilities
- Introduction to multitasking
- Managing jobs and background processes
- Using the process table to monitor and manage processes
- Introducing delayed and detached jobs
- Display system processes
- Use processes and process identifiers (PIDs)
- Identify parent and child processes
- Terminate processes using the kill command
Advanced File Management
- Creating links
- Using “find” to locate files
- Using “grep” to search file contents
- Introducing the “egrep” command
- Processing files with “awk”, “tr”, and “sed”
Command Line Data Processing
- Using awk to display file contents
- Formatting files with the tr command
- Using sed to edit file contents
- Scripting your database reporting
- Editing the contents of a text file from the command line
- Send the results of command-line editing to standard output
- Use regular expression metacharacters to delete lines, add text to lines, or change characters with sed commands
- Use awk to scan text files or standard input to display specific data, change data format, and add text to existing data
Backing Up User Data
- Managing file space
- Archiving files and directories
- Compressing files
- Use the tar utility to store files
- Use the cpio utility to store files
