Red Hat System Administration I

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Lab: Creating, Viewing, and Editing Text Files

Performance Checklist

In this lab you will edit a text file, using the vim editor.

Outcomes

You should be able to:

  • Use Vim to perform file editing.

  • Use visual mode to simplify file editing.

Log in to workstation as student using student as the password.

On workstation, run the lab edit-review start command. 

[student@workstation ~]$ lab edit-review start

  1. Redirect a long listing of all content in the student's home directory, including hidden directories and files, into a file named editing_final_lab.txt.

    Note

    The output may not exactly match the examples shown.

    On workstation, from the student home directory, use the ls -al command to redirect a long listing of all content to a file named editing_final_lab.txt. 

    [student@workstation ~]$ ls -al > editing_final_lab.txt

  2. Edit the file using Vim. 

    [student@workstation ~]$ vim editing_final_lab.txt

  3. Remove the first three lines. Enter line-based visual mode with uppercase V.

    Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at the first character in the first row. Enter line-based visual mode with Shift+V. Move down using the down arrow key twice to select the first three rows. Delete the rows with x.

  4. Remove columns on the first line. Enter visual mode with lowercase v. Lowercase v selects characters on a single line only. The columns after -rw- should be deleted.

    Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at the first character. Enter visual mode using lowercase v. Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at the last character. Delete the selection with x.

  5. Remove columns, and the subsequent dot (".") on the remaining lines. Use the visual block mode. Enter visual block with the control sequence Ctrl+V. Use this key sequence to select a block of characters on multiple lines. The columns after -rw- should be deleted.

    Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at the first character. Enter visual mode using the control sequence Ctrl+V. Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at the last character of the column on the last line. Delete the selection with x.

  6. Use visual block mode to remove the fourth column.

    Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at the first character of the fourth column. Enter visual block mode using Ctrl+V. Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at the last character and row of the fourth column. Delete the selection with x.

  7. Use visual block mode to remove the time column, leaving the month and day on all lines.

    Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at the first character. Enter visual block mode using Ctrl+V. Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at the last character and row of the time column. Delete the selection with x.

  8. Remove the Desktop and Public rows. Enter visual line mode with uppercase V.

    Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at any character on the Desktop row. Enter visual mode with uppercase V. The full line is selected. Delete the selection with x. Repeat for the Public row.

  9. Use the :wq command to save and exit the file. Make a backup, using the date (in seconds) to create a unique file name.

    The following copy command is very long and should be entered as a single line. 

    [student@workstation ~]$ cp editing_final_lab.txt
editing_final_lab_$(date +%s).txt

  10. Append a dashed line to the file. The dashed line should contain at least 12 dashes.

    The following echo command is very long and should be entered on a single line. 

    [student@workstation ~]$ echo "----------------------------------------"
>> editing_final_lab.txt

  11. Append a directory listing of the Documents directory. List the directory listing on the terminal and send it to the editing_final_lab.txt file with one command line. 

    [student@workstation ~]$ ls Documents/ | tee -a editing_final_lab.txt
lab_review.txt

  12. Confirm that the directory listing is at the bottom of the lab file. 

    [student@workstation ~]$ cat editing_final_lab.txt
-rw-  1 student   310 Jan 21  .bash_history
-rw-  1 student    18 Oct 12  .bash_logout
-rw-  1 student   141 Oct 12  .bash_profile
-rw-  1 student   312 Oct 12  .bashrc
drwx  8 student   201 Jan 14  .cache
drwx 10 student   203 Jan 14  .config
drwx  2 student     6 Jan 14  Documents
drwx  2 student     6 Jan 14  Downloads
-rw-  1 student     0 Jan 22  editing_final_lab.txt
-rw-  1 student    16 Jan 14  .esd_auth
-rw-  1 student   310 Jan 14  .ICEauthority
drwx  3 student    19 Jan 14  .local
drwx  2 student     6 Jan 14  Music
drwx  2 student     6 Jan 14  Pictures
drwx  3 student    19 Jan 14  .pki
drwx  2 student    73 Jan 14  .ssh
drwx  2 student     6 Jan 14  Templates
drwx  2 student     6 Jan 14  Videos
-rw-  1 student  1095 Jan 14  .viminfo
------------------------------------
lab_review.txt

Evaluation

On workstation, run the lab edit-review grade command to confirm success of this exercise. 

[student@workstation ~]$ lab edit-review grade

Finish

On workstation, run the lab edit-review finish script to complete this exercise. 

[student@workstation ~]$ lab edit-review finish

This concludes the lab.

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