linuxexpert-practice-labs/labs/linux-terminal/1-1-files-and-directories/README.md

Using Linux Terminal 1.1: Files and directories

Making a directory tree in one command, copying with hidden files and dates kept, hard and symbolic links, and removing directories.

Before you start

The lab creates user student (password Lab-Pass-1). Work as student (sudo -iu student), so ~ is /home/student. The lab only checks that ~/lab doesn't exist yet; le-lab reset removes it.

Tasks

1. Create ~/lab/app/config, ~/lab/app/logs and ~/lab/app/data in one command, and copy /etc/skel to ~/lab/skel, keeping its hidden files and timestamps.
2. In ~/lab, create notes.txt containing the word hello, a hard link notes.hard and a symbolic link notes.link to it. Then rename notes.txt to notes.old, and see what cat makes of each link.
3. Remove ~/lab/app/logs with rmdir. Put a file in ~/lab/app/data, try rmdir on it, then remove that directory too. Only config is left in ~/lab/app.

Hints

• mkdir -p with a brace list: {config,logs,data}.
• cp -a; compare ls -la ~/lab/skel with ls -la /etc/skel.
• ln, ln -s, mv; ls -li shows inode numbers and stat -c %h the link count.
• rmdir only removes empty directories: "Directory not empty". rm -r.