7 Linux basics: finding files

Learn the concepts and tools to find files on your Linux file system to have control over what is going on and to be able to find out where changes occur.

Develop the skill to master your Linux file system with this course for starting Linux professionals.

Installation of exact copy of Linux course machines

Exploration of find to find files

Complementing find with friends like xargs, sed, etc.

Find to detect file system changes

Find pipelines to manipulate directories

Updatedb and locate to find files

Find and friends: the basic skillset to control and explore your file system.

On every Linux system you need to install, configure and run software. To let your system run smoothly, you need to be able to control what's on your file system. So you need to know how your file system is organized and how you can find files on it. That's exactly what this course is about: finding files. Once you have found files you will want to manipulate them. In the course we show some common examples how to do so. Learning the fundamental concepts of find gives you the power to let your Linux system run smoothly.

Even in these days of system automation, find is more important than ever. Find gives you the power to explore your system so that you can find what you need to automate.

Content and overview

Suitable for beginners with some Linux experience, this course teaches you how to tackle some common problems on your Linux file system using the find and friends commands.

To ensure that you get the exact same results as the teacher, we start with setting up the course environment. It doesn't matter if you use your Windows 10 machine or an empty machine. Together we will install 3 virtual machines with Linux on it. Our Linux distribution of choice is CentOS 7, hence the 7 in "7 Linux basics".

On the first Linux machine we do all the instructions, demonstrations and exercises. Concepts are shown on the command line to demonstrate the practical value. You will first hear about a concept in a presentation and right after, it is demonstrated on the Linux machine. We start simple, with exploring the find command. Next, we will use find to manipulate the file system. Some more complex pipelines will be used to achieve our goals. Lastly, you will install a second Linux machine with NFS and a third with iSCSI. These will be used to demonstrate the effect of having different types of file systems mounted under your Linux root file system and how we use find on them.

Personally I like to have a book when I study and references where I can quickly find details. So I have added a course survival guide with information about the video's. It is very useful to quickly go back to a specific topic. Furthermore, I have added quick reference cards so that you can get to the information lightning fast of the commands you have studied in this course.

Have fun finding files!