Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 4More Bash Shell Commands

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Managing processes
• Getting disk statistics
• Mounting new disks
• Sorting data
• Archiving data

Chapter 3, “Basic Bash Shell Commands,” covered the basics of rummaging through the Linux filesystem and working with the files and directories. File and directory management is a major feature of the Linux shell; however, we should look at some more things before we start our script programming. This chapter digs into the Linux system management commands, showing you how to peek inside your Linux system using command-line commands. After that, it shows you a few handy commands that you can use to work with data files on the system.

Monitoring Programs

One of the toughest jobs of being a Linux system administrator is keeping track of what's running on the system — especially now, when graphical desktops take a handful of programs just to produce a single desktop. There are always a lot of programs running on the system.

Fortunately, a few command-line tools are available that can help make life easier for you. This section covers a few of the basic tools you'll need to know to manage programs on your Linux system.

Peeking at the processes

When a program runs on the system, it's referred to as a process. To examine these processes, you must become familiar with the ps command, the Swiss Army knife of utilities. It can produce lots of information about all the programs running on your system.

Unfortunately, with this robustness ...