Bash

Extract filename from full path filename / Get file extension

 in Bash / GNU/Linux / HowTos  tagged basename / extension / filename / path by

The first command strips down the full path filename to the filename only ising the basename command.

filename=$(basename $filenamefullpath)

Afterwards you can see how to extract the file extension from the filename.  There is no need to do this after issuing the above command since this command will just remove everything after the first from right dot (‘.’) — so make sure that the filename you are parsing has a dot or you will end up with wrong results (like the full path or a part of the full path if it contains a dot somewhere).

extension=${filename##*.}

Finally, by issuing the following command you remove everything after the first dot on the right (including).

filename=${filename%.*}

 

List the contents of a tar or tar.gz file

 in Bash / GNU/Linux / HowTos  tagged archive / bz2 / bzip2 / gz / gzip / list / tar by

List the contents of a tar file

<code>tar -tvf file.tar</code>

List the contents of a tar.gz file

<code>tar -ztvf file.tar.gz</code>

List the contents of a tar.bz2 file

<code>tar -jtvf file.tar.bz2</code>

Options:
-t List the contents of an archive
-v Verbose mode
-z Use gzip so that you can process a compressed (.gz) tar file
-j Use bzip2, use to decompress .bz2 files
-f filename Use archive file called filename

Linux: Check if a User or a Group Exists 2

 in Bash / GNU/Linux / HowTos  tagged $? / bash / egrep / GNU/Linux / group / howtos / user by

You can find out if user exists by searching in the /etc/passwd file using the following command:

egrep -i "^useraccount:" /etc/passwd

The above command will print the matching record from /etc/passwd if the user exists or nothing if the user does not exist.
The ^ symbol is used to make sure there is no characters before the username and the : character is used as the delimiter in the file (which indicates the end of the username). By wrapping the username with these characters we are sure that if we matched a record, we matched the correct record with the full username.

A very simple way to use this code in a script is by utilizing the $? (question mark) variable. The question mark variable contains the exit status of the last command that executed. Specifically, egrep will return 0 if there was a match or else it will return a a positive number (usually 1).
Taking advantage of this behavior, after executing the above command, we check the $? variable to see the result with an if statement.

egrep -i "^useraccount:" /etc/passwd;
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
   echo "User Exists"
else
   echo "User does not exist -- Invalid Username"
fi

You can also find out if a group exists by searching in the /etc/group file. Similar to the approach we showed before, we can check if a group exists using the following:

egrep -i "^groupname" /etc/group;
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
   echo "Group Exists"
else
   echo "Group does not exist -- Invalid Group name"
fi

gpasswd

 in Bash / GNU/Linux / HowTos  tagged gpasswd / group / user by 

gpasswd group
gpasswd -a useraccount groupname
gpasswd -d useraccount groupname
gpasswd -R groupname
gpasswd -r groupname
gpasswd [-A useraccount,...] [-M useraccount ,...] groupname

gpasswd is used to administer the /etc/group file (and /etc/gshadow file if compiled with SHADOWGRP defined).
System administrator can use:
-A option to define group administrator(s)
-M option to define members and has all rights of group administrators and members.

Group administrator can use:
-a to add users
-d to delete users.

Administrators can use:
-r option to remove group password. When no password is set only group members can use newgrp to join the group.
-R disables access to the group through newgrp command.

gpasswd called by a group administrator with group name only prompts for the group password. If password is set the members can still newgrp without a password, non-members must supply the password.