NOTE: FrontPage users have limited access to their website directories. See our FrontPage page for more information.
Usage: The pwd command tells you what the current working directory you are in on your Virtual Server.
Example: Simply type "pwd" at a telnet command prompt and it will return something like "/usr/home/vserver/etc"
Usage: The ls command lists the files and subdirectories of the current directory you are in. You can also add some arguments to the ls command to make it more meaningful.
If you type "ls -F" it will append a forward slash to the subdirectory names so you can easily distinguish them from file names.
If you type "ls -a" it will show all hidden files such as .htaccess files.
If you type "ls -l" it will show detailed information about each file and directory, including permissions, owners, size, and when the file was last modified.
Example: Type "ls -al" at a telnet command prompt and it will return your file names including hidden files, and a forward slash will be inserted in front of subdirectories.
DOS Equivalent: dir
Usage: The mkdir command makes a new directory. Simply type "mkdir directory" at a telnet command prompt and replace directory with the name of the directory you want to create.
Example: Type "mkdir temp" at a telnet command prompt to create a new directory called temp.
DOS Equivalent: md, mkdir
Usage: The rmdir command deletes (removes) a directory. Simply type "rmdir directory" at a telnet command prompt and replace directory with the name of the directory you want to delete.
Example: Type "rmdir temp" at a telnet command prompt to remove a directory called temp.
DOS Equivalent: rd, rmdir
Usage: The cp command copies a file to a new location or filename. Simply type "cp filename copyname" at a telnet command prompt and replace filename with the name of the file you want to copy, and copyname with the name of the new copy.
You can also add a directory structure if you want to copy the file to a completely new location. Simply type "cp filename directory/copyname" and replace directory with the name of the directory in which you want the new copy placed.
Example: Type "cp home.htm index.html" at a telnet command prompt to copy a file called home.htm to a file called index.html
DOS Equivalent: copy
Usage: The mv command renames a file or moves it to a new location. Simply type "mv oldfile newfile" at a telnet command prompt and replace oldfile with the name of the file you want to rename or move, and newfile with the new name of the new file.
You can also add a directory structure if you want to move the file to a completely new location. Simply type "mv oldfile directory/newfile" and replace directory with the name of the directory in which you want the file moved.
Example: Type "mv test.conf test.old.conf" at a telnet command prompt to move a file called test.conf to a file called test.old.conf
DOS Equivalent: move, rename
Usage: The rm command deletes (removes) a file. Simply type "rm filename" at a telnet command prompt and replace filename with the name of the file you want to delete.
Example: Type "rm test.html" at a telnet command prompt to remove a file called test.html.
DOS Equivalent: del
Usage: The grep command finds lines in files that match specified text patterns. Simply type "grep "text" filenames" at a telnet command prompt and replace "text" with the word or phrase you want to search for, and replace filenames with the files you want to search in. To search all files in the current directory, simply replace filenames with * .
Example: Type "grep "for sale" *" at a telnet command prompt to find any files in the current directory that contain the text "for sale" in them.
Usage: The zip command compresses a file or list of files into a zip format archive file. This command is compatible with pkunzip on a pc. Simply type "zip zipfile file1 file2 file3" at a telnet command prompt and replace zipfile with the name you want to use for your compressed zip archive file, and replace fileX with the name of the file(s) you want to compress into the zip archive.
Example: Type "zip back.zip home.html index.html" at a telnet command prompt to compress and archive the files called home.html and index.html into the file called back.zip.
DOS Equivalent: pkzip
Usage: The unzip command extracts a zip format archive file. This command is compatible with pkzip files from a pc. Simply type "unzip zipfile" at a telnet command prompt and replace zipfile with the name of your zip format archive file.
Example: Type "unzip old.zip at a telnet command prompt to extract the archive called old.zip.
DOS Equivalent: pkunzip
Usage: The passwd command changes your Unix password. This affects your Unix e-mail account, and your FTP and Telnet access. If you have Web-mail, this will not affect your web-mail passwords. If you have a FrontPage account, this will not affect your FrontPage authoring.
To change your password, simply Telnet into your account, and type:
passwd
Example:
% passwd Changing local password for web8582e. Old password: New password (8 significant characters): Retype new password: passwd: updating passwd database passwd: done %
Notice your password is not echoed on the screen at all, not even with '*' asterisks.
Usage: The chmod command sets the permissions of a file or directory. In Unix files and directories have three sets of permissions: owner, group, and other (everybody else). You are the owner. Of course you want to be able to read your own files, make changes, and run scripts. The read, write, and execute permissions control this. The group and other permissions are next. Normally, you don't want anyone else to make changes to your website! By default, this is set to read-only. People can go into your directories, but cannot change anything, or upload files there.
The most frequent reason to use this command is to make cgi scripts executable. You do this by typing chmod 755 filename at the command line. The 7 means read, write, and execute for the owner (you), while the 5 means read and execute, but not write, for the group and other.
Usage: The du is used to check space used or available on your server. In telnet session, telnet to the website directory and type: du (the numbers are in KILOBYTES). The last number is the total space used. It should be less than 30000. Also type: du | tail if you just want the final number without viewing every subdirectory.
Example:
% cd website % du