Linux Basics for Hackers

2TEXT MANIPULATION

In Linux, nearly everything you deal with directly is a file, and most often these will be text files; for instance, all configuration files in Linux are text files. So to reconfigure an application, you simply open the configuration file, change the text, save the file, and then restart the application—your reconfiguration is complete.

With so many text files, manipulating text becomes crucial in managing Linux and Linux applications. In this chapter, you’ll use several commands and techniques for manipulating text in Linux.

For illustrative purposes, I’ll use files from the world’s best network intrusion detection system (NIDS), ...