It is easy to dismiss bash — the typical Linux shell program — as just a command prompt that allows scripting. Bash, however, is a full-blown programming language. I wouldn’t presume to tell you that ...

Skip one-click backup apps. This rsync script gives you full control over what gets saved and when, plus logs and a few hard-won lessons.

Bash scripting is a powerful tool for automating tasks on Linux and Unix-like systems. While it's well-known for managing file and process operations, arithmetic operations, such as division, play a ...

You need to package up a bunch of files, send them somewhere, and do something with them at the destination. It isn’t an uncommon scenario. The obvious answer is to create an archive — a zip or tar ...

Don't expose your system with sloppy scripts! Although a Linux desktop or server is less susceptible to viruses and malware than a typical Windows device, there isn't a device on the internet that isn ...

The printf command offers well-defined behavior following the POSIX standard, which means it works the same way across shells and systems. Where echo often fails with escape sequences, printf handles ...

If you're not yet comfortable with writing scripts on Unix and Linux systems, this post might get you off to a healthy start. Creating a script on a Unix or Linux system can be dead easy or ...

This post follows up on Part 1 by examining the many ways that you can test the value of variables – e.g., whether they equal particular strings like “yes” or “no”, if they have a numeric value, if ...