Shell Scripting Interview Questions
1) What is Shell Scripting?
Shell scripting is used to program command line of an operating system. Shell Scripting is also used to program the shell which is the base for any operating system. Shell scripts often refer to programming UNIX. Shell scripting is mostly used to program operating systems of windows, UNIX, Apple, etc. Also this script is used by companies to develop their own operating system with their own features.
2) State the advantages of Shell scripting?
There are many advantages of shell scripting some of them are, one can develop their own operating system with relevant features best suited to their organization than to rely on costly operating systems. Software applications can be designed according to their platform.
3) What are the disadvantages of shell scripting?
There are many disadvantages of shell scripting they are
* Design flaws can destroy the entire process and could prove a costly error.
* Typing errors during the creation can delete the entire data as well as partition data.
* Initially process is slow but can be improved.
* Portbility between different operating system is a prime concern as it is very difficult to port scripts etc.
4) Explain about the slow execution speed of shells?
Major disadvantage of using shell scripting is slow execution of the scripts. This is because for every command a new process needs to be started. This slow down can be resolved by using pipeline and filter commands. A complex script takes much longer time than a normal script.
5) Give some situations where typing error can destroy a program?
There are many situations where typing errors can prove to be a real costly effort. For example a single extra space can convert the functionality of the program from deleting the sub directories to files deletion. cp, cn, cd all resemble the same but their actual functioning is different. Misdirected > can delete your data.
Coding Related Shell Scripting Interview Questions …
6) Explain about return code?
Return code is a common feature in shell programming. These return codes indicate whether a particular program or application has succeeded or failed during its process. && can be used in return code to indicate which application needs to be executed first.
7) What are the different variables present in Linux shell?
Variables can be defined by the programmer or developer they specify the location of a particular variable in the memory. There are two types of shells they are System variables and user defined variables. System variables are defined by the system and user defined variables are to be defined by the user (small letters).
8) Explain about GUI scripting?
Graphical user interface provided the much needed thrust for controlling a computer and its applications. This form of language simplified repetitive actions. Support for different applications mostly depends upon the operating system. These interact with menus, buttons, etc.
Shell Scripting Command Interview Questions …
9) Explain about echo command?
Echo command is used to display the value of a variable. There are many different options give different outputs such as usage \c suppress a trailing line, \r returns a carriage line, -e enables interpretation, \r returns the carriage.
10) Explain about Stdin, Stdout and Stderr?
These are known as standard input, output and error. These are categorized as 0, 1 and 2. Each of these functions has a particular role and should accordingly functions for efficient output. Any mismatch among these three could result in a major failure of the shell.
11) Explain about sourcing commands?
Sourcing commands help you to execute the scripts within the scripts. For example sh command makes your program to run as a separate shell. .command makes your program to run within the shell. This is an important command for beginners and for special purposes.
12) Explain about debugging?
Shell can make your debugging process easier because it has lots of commands to perform the function. For example sh –ncommand helps you to perform debugging. It helps you to read the shell but not to execute it during the course. Similarly sh –x command helps you by displaying the arguments and functions as they are executed.
13) Explain about Login shell?
Login shell is very useful as it creates an environment which is very useful to create the default parameters. It consists of two files they are profile files and shell rc files. These files initialize the login and non login files. Environment variables are created by Login shell.
14) Explain about non-login shell files?
The non login shell files are initialized at the start and they are made to run to set up variables. Parameters and path can be set etc are some important functions. These files can be changed and also your own environment can be set. These functions are present in the root. It runs the profile each time you start the process.
15) Explain about shebang?
Shebang is nothing but a # sign followed by an exclamation. This is visible at the top of the script and it is immediately followed by an exclamation. To avoid repetitive work each time developers use shebang. After assigning the shebang work we pass info to the interpreter.
16) Explain about the Exit command?
Every program whether on UNIX or Linux should end at a certain point of time and successful completion of a program is denoted by the output 0. If the program gives an output other than 0 it defines that there has been some problem with the execution or termination of the problem. Whenever you are calling other function, exit command gets displayed.
17) Explore about Environment variables?
Environment variables are set at the login time and every shell that starts from this shell gets a copy of the variable. When we export the variable it changes from an shell variable to an environment variable and these variables are initiated at the start of the shell.
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ls – Unix users and sysadmins cannot live without this two letter command. Whether you use it 10 times a day or 100 times a day, knowing the power of ls command can make your command line journey enjoyable.
1. Open Last Edited File Using ls -t
To open the last edited file in the current directory use the combination of ls, head and vi commands as shown below.
ls -t sorts the file by modification time, showing the last edited file first. head -1 picks up this first file.
$ vi first-long-file.txt
$ vi second-long-file.txt
$ vi `ls -t | head -1`
[Note: This will open the last file you edited (i.e second-long-file.txt)]
2. Display One File Per Line Using ls -1
To show single entry per line, use -1 option as shown below.
$ ls -1
bin
boot
cdrom
dev
etc
home
initrd
initrd.img
lib
3. Display All Information About Files/Directories Using ls -l
To show long listing information about the file/directory.
$ ls -l
-rw-r—– 1 ramesh team-dev 9275204 Jun 13 15:27 mthesaur.txt.gz
1st Character – File Type: First character specifies the type of the file.
In the example above the hyphen (-) in the 1st character indicates that this is a normal file. Following are the possible file type options in the 1st character of the ls -l output.
Field Explanation
- normal file
d directory
s socket file
l link file
Field 1 – File Permissions: Next 9 character specifies the files permission. Each 3 characters refers to the read, write, execute permissions for user, group and world In this example, -rw-r—– indicates read-write permission for user, read permission for group, and no permission for others.
Field 2 – Number of links: Second field specifies the number of links for that file. In this example, 1 indicates only one link to this file.
Field 3 – Owner: Third field specifies owner of the file. In this example, this file is owned by username ‘ramesh’.
Field 4 – Group: Fourth field specifies the group of the file. In this example, this file belongs to ”team-dev’ group.
Field 5 – Size: Fifth field specifies the size of file. In this example, ’9275204′ indicates the file size.
Field 6 – Last modified date & time: Sixth field specifies the date and time of the last modification of the file. In this example, ‘Jun 13 15:27′ specifies the last modification time of the file.
Field 7 – File name: The last field is the name of the file. In this example, the file name is mthesaur.txt.gz.
4. Display File Size in Human Readable Format Using ls -lh
Use ls -lh (h stands for human readable form), to display file size in easy to read format. i.e M for MB, K for KB, G for GB.
$ ls -l
-rw-r—– 1 ramesh team-dev 9275204 Jun 12 15:27 arch-linux.txt.gz*
$ ls -lh
-rw-r—– 1 ramesh team-dev 8.9M Jun 12 15:27 arch-linux.txt.gz
5. Display Directory Information Using ls -ld
When you use “ls -l” you will get the details of directories content. But if you want the details of directory then you can use -d option as., For example, if you use ls -l /etc will display all the files under etc directory. But, if you want to display the information about the /etc/ directory, use -ld option as shown below.
$ ls -l /etc
total 3344
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 15276 Oct 5 2004 a2ps.cfg
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 2562 Oct 5 2004 a2ps-site.cfg
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Feb 2 2007 acpi
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 48 Feb 8 2008 adjtime
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Feb 2 2007 alchemist
$ ls -ld /etc
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 Jun 15 07:02 /etc
6. Order Files Based on Last Modified Time Using ls -lt
To sort the file names displayed in the order of last modification time use the -t option. You will be finding it handy to use it in combination with -l option.
$ ls -lt
total 76
drwxrwxrwt 14 root root 4096 Jun 22 07:36 tmp
drwxr-xr-x 121 root root 4096 Jun 22 07:05 etc
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 13780 Jun 22 07:04 dev
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 Jun 20 23:12 root
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Jun 18 08:31 home
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 17 21:21 sbin
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 May 17 20:29 cdrom -> media/cdrom
drwx—— 2 root root 16384 May 17 20:29 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 4096 Jul 2 2008 var
7. Order Files Based on Last Modified Time (In Reverse Order) Using ls -ltr
To sort the file names in the last modification time in reverse order. This will be showing the last edited file in the last line which will be handy when the listing goes beyond a page. This is my default ls usage. Anytime I do ls, I always use ls -ltr as I find this very convenient.
$ ls -ltr
total 76
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 4096 Jul 2 2008 var
drwx—— 2 root root 16384 May 17 20:29 lost+found
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 May 17 20:29 cdrom -> media/cdrom
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 17 21:21 sbin
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Jun 18 08:31 home
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 Jun 20 23:12 root
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 13780 Jun 22 07:04 dev
drwxr-xr-x 121 root root 4096 Jun 22 07:05 etc
drwxrwxrwt 14 root root 4096 Jun 22 07:36 tmp
8. Display Hidden Files Using ls -a (or) ls -A
To show all the hidden files in the directory, use ‘-a option’. Hidden files in Unix starts with ‘.’ in its file name.
$ ls -a
[rnatarajan@asp-dev ~]$ ls -a
. Debian-Info.txt
.. CentOS-Info.txt
.bash_history Fedora-Info.txt
.bash_logout .lftp
.bash_profile libiconv-1.11.tar.tar
.bashrc libssh2-0.12-1.2.el4.rf.i386.rpm
It will show all the files including the ‘.’ (current directory) and ‘..’ (parent directory). To show the hidden files, but not the ‘.’ (current directory) and ‘..’ (parent directory), use option -A.
$ ls -A
Debian-Info.txt Fedora-Info.txt
CentOS-Info.txt Red-Hat-Info.txt
.bash_history SUSE-Info.txt
.bash_logout .lftp
.bash_profile libiconv-1.11.tar.tar
.bashrc libssh2-0.12-1.2.el4.rf.i386.rpm
[Note: . and .. are not displayed here]
9. Display Files Recursively Using ls -R
$ ls /etc/sysconfig/networking
devices profiles
$ ls -R /etc/sysconfig/networking
/etc/sysconfig/networking:
devices profiles
/etc/sysconfig/networking/devices:
/etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles:
default
/etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/default:
To show all the files recursively, use -R option. When you do this from /, it shows all the unhidden files in the whole file system recursively.
10. Display File Inode Number Using ls -i
Sometimes you may want to know the inone number of a file for internal maintenance. Use -i option as shown below to display inone number. Using inode number you can remove files that has special characters in it’s name as explained in the example#6 of the find command article.
$ ls -i /etc/xinetd.d/
279694 chargen 279724 cups-lpd 279697 daytime-udp
279695 chargen-udp 279696 daytime 279698 echo
11. Hide Control Characters Using ls -q
To print question mark instead of the non graphics control characters use the -q option.
ls -q
12. Display File UID and GID Using ls -n
Lists the output like -l, but shows the uid and gid in numeric format instead of names.
$ ls -l ~/.bash_profile
-rw-r–r– 1 ramesh ramesh 909 Feb 8 11:48 /home/ramesh/.bash_profile
$ ls -n ~/.bash_profile
-rw-r–r– 1 511 511 909 Feb 8 11:48 /home/ramesh/.bash_profile
[Note: This display 511 for uid and 511 for gid]
13. Visual Classification of Files With Special Characters Using ls -F
Instead of doing the ‘ls -l’ and then the checking for the first character to determine the type of file. You can use -F which classifies the file with different special character for different kind of files.
$ ls -F
Desktop/ Documents/ Ubuntu-App@ firstfile Music/ Public/ Templates/
Thus in the above output,
/ – directory.
nothing – normal file.
@ – link file.
* – Executable file
14. Visual Classification of Files With Colors Using ls -F
Recognizing the file type by the color in which it gets displayed is an another kind in classification of file. In the above output directories get displayed in blue, soft links get displayed in green, and ordinary files gets displayed in default color.
$ ls –color=auto
Desktop Documents Examples firstfile Music Pictures Public Templates Videos
15. Useful ls Command Aliases
You can take some required ls options in the above, and make it as aliases. We suggest the following.
Long list the file with size in human understandable form.
alias ll=”ls -lh”
Classify the file type by appending special characters.
alias lv=”ls -F”
Classify the file type by both color and special character.
alias ls=”ls -F –color=auto”
Shell Scripting Examples
1. Fibonacci Series
#!/bin/bash#!/bin/bash
# SCRIPT: fibo_iterative.sh
if [ $# -eq 1 ]
then
Num=$1
else
echo -n “Enter a Number :”
read Num
fi
f1=0
f2=1
echo “The Fibonacci sequence for the number $Num is : ”
for (( i=0; i<=Num; i++ ))
do
echo -n “$f1 ”
fn=$((f1+f2))
f1=$f2
f2=$fn
done
echo
2. Script to check all IP Pinging or not.
Ans. Write this in script.
A.
for i in `seq 1 50`
do
# set ping timeout to 2 sec
ping 192.168.0.$i 2 |grep “no answer”
done
B.
#!/bin/sh
iconpath=”/path/to/router/icon/file/internet.png”
# document icon is used, not document content
# Put the IP address of your router here
localip=192.168.1.1
clear
echo ‘Router avaiability notification with Growl’
#variable
avaiable=false
com=”################”
#comment prefix for logging porpouse
while true;
do
if $avaiable
then
echo “$com 1) $localip avaiable $com”
echo “1″
while ping -c 1 -t 2 $localip
do
sleep 5
done
growlnotify -s -I $iconpath -m “$localip is offline”
avaiable=false
else
echo “$com 2) $localip not avaiable $com”
#try to ping the router untill it come back and notify it
while !(ping -c 1 -t 2 $localip)
do
echo “$com trying…. $com”
sleep 5
done
echo “$com found $localip $com”
growlnotify -s -I $iconpath -m “$localip is online”
avaiable=true
fi
sleep 5
done
C.
set 10.0.0.1 10.0.0.2 # etc
trap exit 2
while true; do
i=1
for ipnumber in “$@”; do
statusname=up$i
laststatus=${!statusname:-0}
ping -c 1 -t 2 $ipnumber > /dev/null
ok=$?
eval $statusname=$ok
if [ ${!statusname} -ne $laststatus ]; then
echo status changed for $ipnumber
if [ $ok -eq 0 ]; then
echo now it is up
else
echo now it is down
fi
fi
i=$(($i + 1))
done
sleep 5
done
3. Shell script to monitor user directory size.
#!/bin/bash
#directory to be monitored
dir1=/raid/userhome/abc
dir2=/raid/userhome/def
dir3=/raid/userhome/ghi
dir4=/raid/userhome/jki
# limit on the size (in KB) of the directory
limit=500000
# alert email
email1=abc@domain.com
email2=def@domain.com
email3=ghi@domain.com
email4=jki@domain.com
# if directory exists, find out it’s size
if [ -d $dir ]
then
size=$(du -sk $dir | cut -f1)
else
echo “$dir is invalid !!!” | mail -s “Invalid directory” $email
exit
fi
# if directory size is greater than limit, alert the user
if [ $size -gt $limit ]
then
echo “Total amount of data in $dir is ${size}KB and exceeds the limit of $limit kB!” | mailx -s “File limit exceeded” $email
fi
