Basic file system actions

home directory

When you connect to an instance using SSH you typically enter into the home-directory. Your command prompt usually reflects your location in the file system. In this context, the tilde (~) is used to indicate your home-directory, and you can make the full directory that you are currently in visible using the pwd-command (print working directory).

See if you can recognise the steps below:

me@localmachine:~$ ssh ubuntu@myinstance
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ pwd
/home/ubuntu

To list the files and subdirectories that you may have in your home directory you can use the ls command.

ubuntu@myinstance:~$ ls
file1.txt  file2.dat  file3.log

If nothing shows for you after running the ls-command, there aren’t any files in your current directory. This makes for a poor demo of the ls-command, so lets create some files and directories, and then try again.

Create directories and files

To create directories we can use the mkdir-command and to create some files we will use the touch command. We will use the cd command to change from one directory to another.

ubuntu@myinstance:~$ mkdir mydata
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ cd mydata/
ubuntu@myinstance:~/mydata$ touch datafile1.txt datafile2.dat logfile3.log
ubuntu@myinstance:~/mydata$ ls
datafile1.txt  datafile2.dat  logfile3.log

Much better ls result!

Move directories and files

You can move files and directories using the mv command. Just specify the file and the new name you want it to have like in this example. Note the use of the cd and ls commands again. And two more things: . is used to indicate the current directory and .. to indicate one directory up. See it in action below. Note the comments (after the # characters) describing each action.

ubuntu@myinstance:~/mydata$ cd ..  # move one directory up
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ ls  # list files in current directory
mydata
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ mv mydata/logfile3.log ./  # move file to ./
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ ls  # list files and dirs
logfile3.log  mydata
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ mv mydata researchdata  # use mv to rename dir
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ ls  # list files and dirs
logfile3.log  researchdata
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ ls researchdata/  # list files in specific dir
datafile1.txt  datafile2.dat

Removing files

Let’s now remove those files. We can use the rm-command to remove files, and the rmdir command to remove empty directories (folders). We can use the * wildcard character to indicate multiple files.

ubuntu@myinstance:~$ ls  # list files and dirs
logfile3.log  researchdata
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ rm logfile3.log #delete file in current dir
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ ls #list files and dirs
researchdata
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ rm researchdata/*  # delete all files in subdir
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ ls researchdata/  # list files in subdir (empty)
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ rmdir researchdata/  # delete subdir
ubuntu@myinstance:~$ ls  # list files and dirs (empty)
ubuntu@myinstance:~$

man and –help

There are many ways to interact with the file system on your instance. The examples above are merely a very brief introduction. If you’re uncertain about a command, there is help within the Command Line. Try these two commands:

$ man ls

(use space to scroll, q to exit to the command prompt) and

$ ls --help

Most commands have some form of help included in one of these ways. Try the man-pages (short for manual pages) for some of the other commands we used above, e.g. man ls or man touch.