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Chapter 4. Basic System Management
In order to maintain your system effectively, it's necessary to learn some basic system management skills. This chapter covers these essential skills.
With a small investment in time, you'll be able to adjust your system configuration, keep the filesystem under control, disable unused services, and identify and stop rogue processes. I'll cover the basics of performing these operations using both graphical and command-line tools, both locally and remotely.
4.1. Using the Command Line
Many system management tasks can be performed using either of the graphical user interfaces provided with Fedora (i.e., GNOME or KDE). However, most power users prefer the command line for system management work because they find it faster, more consistent between different versions of Linux, and easier to access remotely. The command line is also called a
4.1.1. How Do I Do That?
If you are logged in to the system through the graphical user interface, access the command line through the terminal program. Select the menu option Applications>Accessories>Terminal (System>Terminal in KDE), or right-click on the desktop background and select Konsole under KDE.
If you find yourself using the terminal frequently, you can make it easier to launch: right-click on the Terminal option in the application menu and select 'Add this launcher to panel.' A new panel icon will appear that will launch a new terminal when clicked.
If you have logged in to the system through a character-mode login screen or an SSH login, you will automatically be presented with a command line.
4.1.1.1. Understanding the shell prompt
The standard shell prompt looks like this:
[chris@concord2 ~]$
This message is an invitation to enter a command. It shows the name of the user ( chris ), the computer being used ( concord2 ), and the current working directory within the filesystem ( ~ , meaning the user's home directory). The last character of the prompt, $ , indicates that this is a normal user's prompt, as opposed to the system administrator's prompt, which ends with # .
4.1.1.2. Entering commands
To enter a command, simply type it, and then press Enter to execute it. The output from the command will appear after the command (scrolling the screen if necessary), and when the command is done a new prompt will be printed.
To edit a command line, use the left and right arrow keys to position within the line, and the Backspace and Delete keys to delete characters to the left or right of the cursor, respectively. To insert text, simply type it. You can press Enter with the cursor located anywhere on the line to execute the command. Other editing keys are available; Table 4-1 shows the most useful ones.
Table 4-1. Useful editing keys
| Key or key sequence | Description |
|---|---|
| Left arrow | Move left one character. |
| Right arrow | Move right one character. |
| Backspace | Delete the character to the left of the cursor. |
| Delete | Delete the character under/to the right of the cursor. |
| Ctrl-U | Delete to the start of the line. |
| Ctrl-left arrow | Move one word to the left. |
| Ctrl-right arrow |
