Meeting 0, First Meeting of the 2024-2025 School Year!

The first meeting was a success, and we were glad to see some new (and old) faces.

Member Specific Containers On Our Server

You may have heard of a Virtual Machine before (basically a program that simulates a computer in software). We have something similar to that for each member, as they are each systems with isolated environments (we use containers, here is a blog post with more details on our setup). During this meeting, we made containers for our new members so they can enjoy full root access to a Linux system.

Using Your Container

When we setup our server before a meeting starts, a member can access their account on the server using a simple command entered into a terminal: ssh <member_name>@ssh.stuylinux.org -p 2221.

ssh is the command used, which means "secure shell", and it lets you run shell commands on a remote machine. For example, when you want to access a stuycs server from home, you could use ssh jdoe60@homer.stuy.edu.

To run the ssh command, you would provide the remote machine ssh.stuylinux.org on port 2221, and your username.

Good Practices For Your Container

When you log onto your container, it is usually a good idea to update the system. To update your container, you can use the command apk upgrade.

You should also change your password from the default password. To change your password, use the passwd command.

Terminal Usage

Besides running commands and hacking into servers, the main usage of the terminal is to interact with the filesystem. "Interacting with the filesystem" can basically be split into a couple different methods.

pwd: Seeing Your Current Directory

To see where what directory you are currently located in (aka your current working directory), use the pwd (Print Working Directory) command.

cd: Moving Around

To change directories, use the cd command followed by where you would like to go.

If I am currently in the directory /home/user/Downloads, and I want to go to /home/user/Downloads/folder, I would run cd /home/user/Downloads/folder, or just cd folder.

Important note:

In a terminal, there are a couple shorthands to make your life a bit easier:

• . means "this directory" (in this context). Hence, if I ran cd ., nothing would change because I would be in the same directory as before.
• .. means "the directory immediately before the current working directory." Meaning if I am in /home/user and I want to go to /home, I would run cd ..

ls: Listing Contents of Directories

To list all the contents of a directory, use the ls command. If you provide a path to a directory, you can list the contents of that directory. If you just run ls, you would list the contents of the current working directory. If you add an argument, running ls -l, you would list out the files in your current working directory in list format. See ls --help for more options.

If I am in /home and I want to list the contents in /home/user/Downloads, I can run ls /home/user/Downloads or ls user/Downloads.

cat: Printing a File's Contents

To print a file's contents to the terminal, you can run cat followed by a filename/path to a file.

If I am in /home and I want to "cat" (print out) /home/info.txt, I would run cat /home/info.txt, or cat info.txt.

file: Checking a File's Type

Because file extensions are not always accurate (or present!), it is useful to be able to check what type of file you are handling.

If I have a file mystery in my current working directory, I would run file mystery to get more information about the file.