Home Cloud & Networking Mastering Linux Shell Scripting

Mastering Linux Shell Scripting

By Andrew Mallett
books-svg-icon Book
eBook $29.99 $20.98
Print $38.99
Subscription $15.99 $10 p/m for three months
$10 p/m for first 3 months. $15.99 p/m after that. Cancel Anytime!
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 7000+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook + Subscription?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats, plus a monthly download credit
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better reading experience
What do you get with video?
Download this video in MP4 format
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Watch whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better learning experience
What do you get with video?
Stream this video
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Watch whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better learning experience
What do you get with Audiobook?
Download a zip folder consisting of audio files (in MP3 Format) along with supplementary PDF
What do you get with Exam Trainer?
Flashcards, Mock exams, Exam Tips, Practice Questions
Access these resources with our interactive certification platform
Mobile compatible-Practice whenever, wherever, however you want
BUY NOW $10 p/m for first 3 months. $15.99 p/m after that. Cancel Anytime!
eBook $29.99 $20.98
Print $38.99
Subscription $15.99 $10 p/m for three months
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 7000+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook + Subscription?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats, plus a monthly download credit
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better reading experience
What do you get with video?
Download this video in MP4 format
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Watch whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better learning experience
What do you get with video?
Stream this video
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Watch whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better learning experience
What do you get with Audiobook?
Download a zip folder consisting of audio files (in MP3 Format) along with supplementary PDF
What do you get with Exam Trainer?
Flashcards, Mock exams, Exam Tips, Practice Questions
Access these resources with our interactive certification platform
Mobile compatible-Practice whenever, wherever, however you want
  1. Free Chapter
    What and Why of Scripting with Bash
About this book
Shell scripting is a quick method to prototype a complex application or a problem by automating tasks when working on Linux-based systems. Using both simple one-line commands and command sequences complex problems can be solved with ease, from text processing to backing up sysadmin tools. In this book, you’ll discover everything you need to know to master shell scripting and make informed choices about the elements you employ. Get to grips with the fundamentals of creating and running a script in normal mode, and in debug mode. Learn about various conditional statements' code snippets, and realize the power of repetition and loops in your shell script. Implement functions and edit files using the Stream Editor, script in Perl, program in Python – as well as complete coverage of other scripting languages to ensure you can choose the best tool for your project.
Publication date:
December 2015
Publisher
Packt
Pages
198
ISBN
9781784396978

 

Chapter 1. What and Why of Scripting with Bash

Welcome to the what and why of bash scripting. My name is Andrew Mallett and I am a bash scripting junkie or perhaps more accurately: a scripting junkie. As an administrator, I fail to see the need to do repetitive tasks manually. We get time for more interesting things when we choose scripts to carry out the laborious tasks that we don't like. In this chapter, we will introduce you to the what and why of bash scripting. If you are new, it will help you become familiar with scripts and also provide some great insights for those with more experience and who want to improve their skills. As we make our way through the chapter, each element is designed to be added to your knowledge to help you achieve your goals. While doing so, we will be covering the following topics:

  • Bash vulnerabilities

  • The bash command hierarchy

  • Preparing text editors for scripting

  • Creating and executing scripts

  • Debugging your scripts

 

Bash vulnerabilities


For this book, I will be working entirely on a Raspberry Pi 2 running Raspbian, a Linux distribution similar to Debian, and Ubuntu; although for you, the operating system you choose to work with is immaterial, in reality, as is the version of bash. The bash version I am using is 4.2.37(1). If you are using the OS X operating system, the default command line environment is bash.

To return the operating system being used, type the following command if it is installed:

$ lsb_release -a

The output from my system is shown in the following screenshot:

The easiest way to determine the version of bash that you are using is to print the value of a variable. The following command will display your bash version:

$ echo $BASH_VERSION

The following screenshot displays the output from my system:

In 2014, there was a well-publicized bug within bash that had been there for many years—the shell-shock bug. If your system is kept up-to-date, then it is not likely to be an issue but it is worth checking. The bug allows malicious code to be executed from within a malformed function. As a standard user, you can run the following code to test for the vulnerabilities on your system. This code comes from Red Hat and is not malicious but if you are unsure then please seek advice.

The following is the code from Red Hat to test for the vulnerability:

$ env 'x=() { :;}; echo vulnerable''BASH_FUNC_x()=() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo test"

If your system is free from this first vulnerability the output should be as shown in the following screenshot:

To test for the last vulnerability from this bug, we can use the following test, which is again from Red Hat:

cd /tmp; rm -f /tmp/echo; env 'x=() { (a)=>\' bash -c "echo date"; cat /tmp/echo

The output from a patched version of bash should look like the following screenshot:

If the output from either of these command lines is different, then your system may be vulnerable to shell-shock and I would update bash or at least take further advice from a security professional.

 

The bash command hierarchy


When working on at the bash shell and when you are sitting comfortably at your prompt eagerly waiting to type a command, you will most likely feel that it is a simple matter of typing and hitting the Enter key. You should know better than to think that things are never quite as simple as we imagine.

Command type

For example, if we type and enter ls to list files, it will be reasonable to think that we were running the command. It is possible, but we will be running an alias often. Aliases exist in memory as a shortcut to commands or commands with options; these aliases are used before we even check for the file. The bash shell built-in command type can come to our aid here. The type command will display the type of command for a given word entered at the command line. The types of command is listed as follows:

  • Alias

  • Function

  • Shell built in

  • Keyword

  • File

This list is also a representative of the order in which they are searched. As we can see, it is not until the very end where we search for the executable file ls.

The following command demonstrates the simple use type:

$ type ls
ls is aliased to `ls --color=auto'

We can extend this further to display all the matches for the given command:

$ type -a ls
ls is aliased to `ls --color=auto'
ls is /bin/ls

If we need to just type in the output, we can use the -t option. This is useful when we need to test the command type from within a script and only need the type to be returned. This excludes the superfluous information; thus, making it easier for us humans to read. Consider the following command and output:

$ type -t ls
alias

The output is clear and simple and just what a computer or script requires.

The built-in type can also be used to identify shell keywords such as if, case, function, and so on. The following command shows type being used against multiple arguments and types:

$ type ls quote pwd do id

The output of the command is shown in the following screenshot:

You can also see that the function definition is printed when we stumble across a function when using type.

Command PATH

Linux will check for executables in the PATH environment only when the full or relative path to the program is supplied. In general, the current directory is not searched unless it is in the PATH. It is possible to include our current directory within the PATH by adding the directory to the PATH variable. This is shown in the following code example:

$ export PATH=$PATH:.

This appends the current directory to the value of the PATH variable each item the PATH is separated using the colon. Now, your PATH is updated to include the current working directory and each time you change directories, the scripts can be executed easily. In general, organizing scripts into a structured directory hierarchy is probably a great idea. Consider creating a subdirectory called bin within your home directory and add the scripts into that folder. Adding $HOME/bin to your PATH variable will enable you to find the scripts by name and without the file path.

The following command-line list will only create the directory, if it does not already exist:

$ test -d $HOME/bin || mkdir $HOME/bin

Although the above command-line list is not strictly necessary, it does show that scripting in bash is not limited to the actual script and we can use conditional statements and other syntax directly at the command line. From our viewpoint, we know that the preceding command will work whether you have the bin directory or not. The use of the $HOME variable ensures that the command will work without considering your current file system context.

As we work through the book, we will add scripts into the $HOME/bin directory so that they can be executed regardless of our working directory.

 

Preparing text editors for scripting


Throughout the book, I will be working on the command line of Raspberry Pi and this will include the creation and editing of the scripts. You, of course, can choose the way you wish to edit your script and may prefer to make use of a graphical editor and I will show some settings in gedit. I will make one excursion to a Red Hat system to show screenshots of gedit in this chapter.

To help make the command line editor easier to use, we can enable options and we can persist with these options through hidden configuration files. The gedit and other GUI editors and their menus will provide similar functionality.

Configuring vim

Editing the command line is often a must and is a part of my everyday life. Setting up common options that make life easier in the editor give us the reliability and consistency you need, a little like scripting itself. We will set some useful options in the vi or vim editor file, $HOME/.vimrc.

The options we set are detailed in the following list:

  • showmode: Ensures we see when we are in insert mode

  • nohlsearch: Does not highlight the words that we have searched for

  • autoindent: We indent our code often; this allows us to return to the last indent level rather than the start of a new line on each carriage return

  • tabstop=4: Sets a tab to be four spaces

  • expandtab: Converts tabs to spaces, which is useful when the file moves to other systems

  • syntax on: Note that this does not use the set command and is used to turn on syntax highlighting

When these options are set, the $HOME/.vimrc file should look similar to this:

setshowmodenohlsearch
setautoindenttabstop=4
setexpandtab
syntax on

Configuring nano

The nano text edit is increasing in importance and it is the default editor in many systems. Personally, I don't like the navigation or the lack of navigation features that it has. It can be customized in the same way as vim. This time we will edit the $HOME/.nanorc file. Your edited file should look something like the following:

setautoindent
settabsize 4
include /usr/share/nano/sh.nanorc

The last line enables syntax highlighting for shell scripts.

Configuring gedit

Graphical editors, such as gedit, can be configured using the preferences menu and are pretty straight forward.

Enabling tab spacing to be set to 4 spaces and expanding tabs to spaces can be done using the Preference | Editor tab, as shown in the following screenshot:

Tip

Downloading the example code

You can download the example code files from your account at http://www.packtpub.com for all the Packt Publishing books you have purchased. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.

Another very useful feature is found on the Preferences | Plugins tab. Here, we can enable the Snippets plugin that can be used to insert code samples. This is shown in the following screenshot:

For the rest of the book, we will be working on the command line in and in vim; feel free to use the editor that you work with best. We have now laid the foundations to create good scripts and although whitespace, tabs, and spaces in bash scripts are not significant; a well laid out file with consistent spacing is easy to read. When we look at Python later in the book, you will realize that in some languages the whitespace is significant to the language and it is better to adopt the good habits early.

 

Creating and executing scripts


With our editors primed and ready, we can now move quickly to creating and executing our scripts. If you are reading this book with some prior experience, I will warn you that we are going to start with the basics but we will also include looking at positional parameters; feel free to move on at your own pace.

Hello World!

As you know, it is almost obligatory to begin with a hello world script and we will not disappoint as far as this is concerned. We will begin by creating a new script $HOME/bin/hello1.sh. The contents of the file should read as in the following screenshot:

I am hoping that you haven't struggled with this too much; it is just three lines after all. I encourage you to run through the examples as you read to really help you instill the information with a good hands-on practice.

  • #!/bin/bash: Normally, this is always the first line of the script and is known as the shebang. The shebang starts with a comment but the system still uses this line. A comment in a shell script has the # symbol. The shebang instructs the system to the interpreter to execute the script. We use bash for shell scripts and we may use PHP or Perl for other scripts, as required. If we do not add this line, then the commands will be run within the current shell; it may cause issues if we run another shell.

  • echo "Hello World": The echo command will be picked up in a built-in shell and can be used to write a standard output, STDOUT, this defaults to the screen. The information to print is enclosed in double-quotes, there will be more on quotes later.

  • exit 0: The exit command is a built in shell and is used to leave or exit the script. The exit code is supplied as an integer argument. A value of anything other than 0 will indicate some type of error in the script's execution.

Executing the script

With the script saved in our PATH environment, it still will not execute as a standalone script. We will have to assign and execute permissions for the file, as needed. For a simple test, we can run the file directly with bash. The following command shows you how to do this:

$ bash $HOME/bin/hello1.sh

We should be rewarded with the Hello World text being displayed back on our screens. This is not a long-term solution, as we need to have the script in the $HOME/bin directory, specifically, to make the running of the script easy from any location without typing the full path. We need to add in the execute permissions as shown in the following code:

$ chmod +x $HOME/bin/hello1.sh

We should now be able to run the script simply, as shown in the following screenshot:

Checking the exit status

This script is simple but we still have to know how to make use of the exit codes from scripts and other applications. The command-line list that we generated earlier while creating the $HOME/bin directory, is a good example of how we can use the exit code:

$ command1 || command 2

In the preceding example, command2 is executed only if command1 fails in some way. To be specific, command2 will run if command1 exits with a status code other than 0.

Similarly, in the following extract:

$ command1 && command2

We will only execute command2 if command1 succeeds and issues an exit code of 0.

To read the exit code from our script explicitly, we can view the $?variable, as shown in the following example:

$ hello1.sh
$ echo $?

The expected output is 0, as this is what we have added to the last line of the file and there is precious little else that can go wrong causing us to fail in reaching that line.

Ensuring a unique name

We can now create and execute a simple script but we need to consider the name a little. In this case, hello1.sh is going to be good enough and is unlikely to clash with anything else on the system. We should avoid using names that may clash with existing aliases, functions, keywords, and building commands, as well as, avoid names of programs already in use.

Adding the sh suffix to the file does not guarantee the name to be unique but in Linux, where we do not file extensions, the suffix is a part of the file name. This helps you to provide a unique identity to your script. Additionally, the suffix is used by the editor to help you identify the file for syntax highlighting. If you recall, we specifically added the syntax highlighting file sh.nanorc to the nano text editor. Each of these files is specific to a suffix and subsequent language.

Referring back to the command hierarchy within this chapter, we can use a type to determine the location and type of file hello.sh is:

$ type hello1.sh  #To determine the type and path
$ type -a hello1.sh  #To print all commands found if the name is NOT unique
$ type -t hello1.sh ~To print the simple type of the command

These commands and output can be seen in the following screenshot:

Hello Dolly!

It is possible that we might need a little more substance in the script than a simple fixed message. Static message content does have its place but we can make this script much more useful by building some flexibility.

In this chapter, we will look at positional parameters or arguments that we can supply to the script and in the next chapter we will see how we can make the script interactive and also prompt the user for input at runtime.

Running the script with arguments

We can run the script with arguments, after all it's a free world and Linux promotes your freedom to do what you want to do with the code. However, if the script does not make use of the arguments, then they will be silently ignored. The following code shows the script running with a single argument:

$ hello1.shfred

The script will still run and will not produce an error. The output will not change either and will print hello world:

Argument Identifier

Description

$0

The name of the script itself and is often used in usage statements.

$1

Positional argument, the first argument passed to the script.

${10}

Where two or more digits are needed to represent the argument position. Brace brackets are used to delimit the variable name from any other content. Single value digits are expected.

$#

Argument count is especially useful when we need to set the amount of arguments needed for correct script execution.

$*

Refers to all arguments.

For the script to make use of the argument, we can change the script content a little. Let's first copy the script, add in the execute permissions, and then edit the new hello2.sh:

$ cp $HOME/bin/hello1.sh $HOME/bin/hello2.sh
$ chmod +x $HOME/bin/hello2.sh

We need to edit the hello2.sh file to make use of the argument as it is passed at the command line. The following screenshot shows the simplest use of command line arguments allowing us now to have a custom message.

Run the script now, we can provide an argument as shown in the following:

$ hello2.sh fred

The output should now say Hello fred. If we do not provide an argument then the variable will be empty and will just print Hello. You can refer to the following screenshot to see the execution argument and output:

If we adjust the script to use $*, all the arguments will print. We will see Hello and then a list of all the supplied arguments. If we edit the script and replace the echo line as follows:

echo "Hello $*"

Executing the script with the following arguments:

$ hello2.shfredwilma  betty barney

Will result in the output shown in the following screenshot:

If we want to print Hello <name>, each on separate lines, we will need to wait a little until we cover the looping structures. A for loop will work well to achieve this.

The importance of correct quotes

So far, we have used a simple double quoting mechanism to encase the strings that we want to use with echo.

In the first script, it does not matter if we use single or double quotes. The echo "Hello World" will be exactly the same as echo 'Hello World'.

However, this will not be the case in the second script so it is very important to understand the quoting mechanisms available in bash.

As we have seen, using the double quotes echo "Hello $1" will result in Hello fred or whatever the supplied value is. Whereas, if we use single quotes echo 'Hello $1' the printed output on the screen will be Hello $1, where we see the variable name and not its value.

The idea of the quotes is to protect the special character such as a space between the two words; both quotes protect the space from being interpreted. The space is normally read as a default field, separated by the shell. In other words, all characters are read by the shell as literals with no special meaning. This has the knock on effect of the $ symbol printing its literal format rather than allowing bash to expand its value. The bash shell is prevented from expanding the variable's value, as it is protected by the single quotes.

This is where the double quote comes to our rescue. The double quote will protect all the characters except the $, allowing bash to expand the stored value.

If we ever need to use a literal $ within the quoted string along with variables that need to be expanded; we can use double quotes but escape the desired $ with the backslash (\). For example, echo "$USER earns \$4" would print as Fred earns $4 if the current user was Fred.

Try the following examples at the command line using all quoting mechanisms. Feel free to up your hourly rate as required:

$ echo "$USER earns $4"
$ echo '$USER earns $4'
$ echo "$USER earns \$4"

The output is shown in the following screenshot:

Printing the script name

The $0 variable represents the script name and this is often used in usage statements. As we are not yet looking at conditional statements, we will have the script name printed above the displayed name.

Edit your script so that it reads as the following complete code block for $HOME/bin/hello2.sh:

#!/bin/bash
echo "You are using $0"
echo "Hello $*"
exit 0

The output from the command is shown in the following screenshot:

If we prefer not to print the path and only want the name of the script to show we can use the basename command, which extracts the name from the path. Adjusting the script so that the second line now reads is as follows:

echo "You are using $(basename $0)"

The $(….) syntax is used to evaluate the output of the inner command. We first run basename $0 and feed the result into an unnamed variable represented by the $.

The new output will appear as seen in the following screenshot:

It is possible to achieve the same results using back quotes, this is less easy to read but we have mentioned this as you might have to understand and modify the scripts that have been written by others. The alternative to the $(….) syntax is shown in the following example:

echo "You are using 'basename $0'"

Please note that the characters used are back quotes and NOT single quotes. On UK and US keyboards, these are found in the top-left section next to the number 1 key.

 

Debugging your scripts


With the scripts as simple as we have seen so far, there is little that can go wrong or debug. As the script grows and decision paths are included with conditional statements, we may need to use some level of debugging to analyze the scripts progress better.

Bash provides two options for us, -v and -x.

If we want to look at the verbose output from our script and the detailed information about the way the script is evaluated line by line, we can use the -v option. This can be within the shebang but it is often easier to run the script directly with bash:

$ bash -v $HOME/bin/hello2.sh fred

This is especially useful in this example as we can see how each element of the embedded basename command is processed. The first step is removing the quotes and then the parentheses. Take a look at the following output:

More commonly used is the -x option, which displays the commands as they get executed. Its useful to know the decision branch that has been chosen by the script. The following shows this in use:

$ bash -x $HOME/bin/hello2.sh fred

We again see that the basename is evaluated first, but we do not see the more detailed steps involved in running that command. The screenshot that follows captures the command and output:

 

Summary


This marks the end of the chapter and I am sure that you might have found this useful. Especially for those making a start with bash scripting, this chapter must have built a firm foundation on which you can build your knowledge.

We began by ensuring that bash is secure and not susceptible to embedded functions shell-shock. With bash secured, we considered the execution hierarchy where aliases, functions, and so on are checked before the command; knowing this can help us plan a good naming structure and a path to locate the scripts.

Soon we were writing simple scripts with static content but we saw how easy it was to add flexibility using arguments. The exit code from the script can be read with the $? variable and we can create a command line list using || and &&, which depends on the success or failure of the preceding command in the list.

Finally, we closed the chapter by looking at debugging the script. Its not really required when the script is trivial, but it will be useful later when complexity is added.

In the next chapter, we will be creating interactive scripts that read the user's input during script execution.

About the Author
  • Andrew Mallett

    Andrew Mallett has been working professionally with Linux since 1999; much of that time as an Instructor. He now runs his consultancy where he works with and writes about Linux. He is onto his 5th book with Packt and has 65,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel: theurbanpenguin. You can be assured that he masters Linux and is passionate to share his knowledge with you.

    Browse publications by this author
Latest Reviews (10 reviews total)
Mastering Linux Shell Scripting
Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days
Start now