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Classic SysAdmin: How to Search for Files from the Linux Command Line

The Linux Foundation - Wed, 01/05/2022 - 03:00

This is a classic article written by Jack Wallen from the Linux.com archives. For more great SysAdmin tips and techniques check out our free intro to Linux course.

It goes without saying that every good Linux desktop environment offers the ability to search your file system for files and folders. If your default desktop doesn’t — because this is Linux — you can always install an app to make searching your directory hierarchy a breeze.

But what about the command line? If you happen to frequently work in the command line or you administer GUI-less Linux servers, where do you turn when you need to locate a file? Fortunately, Linux has exactly what you need to locate the files in question, built right into the system.

The command in question is find. To make the understanding of this command even more enticing, once you know it, you can start working it into your Bash scripts. That’s not only convenience, that’s power.

Let’s get up to speed with the find command so you can take control of locating files on your Linux servers and desktops, without the need of a GUI.

How to use the find command

When I first glimpsed Linux, back in 1997, I didn’t quite understand how the find command worked; therefore, it never seemed to function as I expected. It seemed simple; issue the command find FILENAME (where FILENAME is the name of the file) and the command was supposed to locate the file and report back. Little did I know there was more to the command than that. Much more.

If you issue the command man find, you’ll see the syntax of the find command is:

find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-D debugopts] [-Olevel] [starting-point...] [expression]

Naturally, if you’re unfamiliar with how man works, you might be confused about or overwhelmed by that syntax. For ease of understanding, let’s simplify that. The most basic syntax of a basic find command would look like this:

find /path option filename

Now we’ll see it at work.

Find by name

Let’s break down that basic command to make it as clear as possible. The most simplistic structure of the find command should include a path for the file, an option, and the filename itself. You may be thinking, “If I know the path to the file, I’d already know where to find it!”. Well, the path for the file could be the root of your drive; so / would be a legitimate path. Entering that as your path would take find longer to process — because it has to start from scratch — but if you have no idea where the file is, you can start from there. In the name of efficiency, it is always best to have at least an idea where to start searching.

The next bit of the command is the option. As with most Linux commands, you have a number of available options. However, we are starting from the beginning, so let’s make it easy. Because we are attempting to find a file by name, we’ll use one of two options:

name – case sensitive
iname – case insensitive

Remember, Linux is very particular about case, so if you’re looking for a file named Linux.odt, the following command will return no results.

find / -name linux.odt

If, however, you were to alter the command by using the -iname option, the find command would locate your file, regardless of case. So the new command looks like:

find / -iname linux.odt Find by type

What if you’re not so concerned with locating a file by name but would rather locate all files of a certain type? Some of the more common file descriptors are:

f – regular file
d – directory
l – symbolic link
c – character devices
b – block devices

Now, suppose you want to locate all block devices (a file that refers to a device) on your system. With the help of the -type option, we can do that like so:

find / -type c

The above command would result in quite a lot of output (much of it indicating permission denied), but would include output similar to:

/dev/hidraw6 /dev/hidraw5 /dev/vboxnetctl /dev/vboxdrvu /dev/vboxdrv /dev/dmmidi2 /dev/midi2 /dev/kvm

Voilà! Block devices.

We can use the same option to help us look for configuration files. Say, for instance, you want to locate all regular files that end in the .conf extension. This command would look something like:

find / -type f -name "*.conf"

The above command would traverse the entire directory structure to locate all regular files ending in .conf. If you know most of your configuration files are housed in /etc, you could specify that like so:

find /etc -type f -name “*.conf”

The above command would list all of your .conf files from /etc (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Locating all of your configuration files in /etc.

Outputting results to a file

One really handy trick is to output the results of the search into a file. When you know the output might be extensive, or if you want to comb through the results later, this can be incredibly helpful. For this, we’ll use the same example as above and pipe the results into a file called conf_search. This new command would look like:

find /etc -type f -name “*.conf” > conf_search

You will now have a file (conf_search) that contains all of the results from the find command issued.

Finding files by size

Now we get to a moment where the find command becomes incredibly helpful. I’ve had instances where desktops or servers have found their drives mysteriously filled. To quickly make space (or help locate the problem), you can use the find command to locate files of a certain size. Say, for instance, you want to go large and locate files that are over 1000MB. The find command can be issued, with the help of the -size option, like so:

find / -size +1000MB

You might be surprised at how many files turn up. With the output from the command, you can comb through the directory structure and free up space or troubleshoot to find out what is mysteriously filling up your drive.

You can search with the following size descriptions:

c – bytes
k – Kilobytes
M – Megabytes
G – Gigabytes
b – 512-byte blocks

Keep learning

We’ve only scratched the surface of the find command, but you now have a fundamental understanding of how to locate files on your Linux systems. Make sure to issue the command man find to get a deeper, more complete, knowledge of how to make this powerful tool work for you.

The post Classic SysAdmin: How to Search for Files from the Linux Command Line appeared first on Linux Foundation.

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Phoronix - Wed, 01/05/2022 - 02:10

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Phoronix - Wed, 01/05/2022 - 00:34

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A New Year’s Message from Nithya Ruff (2022)

The Linux Foundation - Wed, 01/05/2022 - 00:00

The last two years have demonstrated even more clearly that technology is the crucial fabric that weaves society and the economy together. From video conferencing to online shopping and delivery to remote collaboration tools for work, technology helped society continue to function throughout the pandemic in 2020 and the continuing uncertainty of 2021. All that technology (and more) is powered, quite literally, by open source, in one way or another. Software is eating the world and open source software is becoming the dominant part of software, from the operating system to the database and messaging layer up to the frameworks that drive the user experience. Few, if any, organizations and enterprises could run operations today without relying on open source.

Not surprisingly, as it becomes more pervasive and mission-critical, open source is also proving to be a larger economic force. Public and private companies focused on selling open source software or services now have a collective market value approaching half a trillion dollars. There is no easy way to account for the total economic value of open source consumed by all businesses, individuals, nonprofits, and governments; the value enabled is likely well into the trillions of dollars. Open source powers cloud computing, the Internet, Android phones, mobile apps, cars — even the Mars helicopter launched by NASA. Open source also powers much of consumer electronics on the market today.

With prominent positions in society and the economy comes an urgent imperative to better address risk and security. The Linux Foundation is working with its members to take on these challenges for open source. We launched multiple new initiatives in 2021 to make the open source technology ecosystem and software supply chain more secure, transparent, and resilient. From the Software Bill of Materials to the Open Source Security Foundation, the LF, its members, and its projects and communities are collaborating with paramount importance to secure the open source supply chain.

Behind risk management and security considerations — and technology development in general — are real people. This is also why the Linux Foundation is making substantial investments in supporting diversity and inclusion in open source communities. We need to take action as a community to make open source more inclusive and welcoming. We can do this in a data-driven fashion with research on what issues hinder our progress and develop actions that will, we hope, drive measurable improvements.

Working together on collective efforts, beyond just our company and ourselves, is not just good for business; it is personally rewarding. Recently one of our engineers explained that he loves working with open source because he feels it gives him a global network of teachers, all helping him become better. I believe this is why open source is one of the most powerful forces in the world today, and it is only growing stronger. Through a pandemic, through economic challenges, day in, day out, we see people helping each other regardless of their demographics. Open source brings out the best in people by encouraging them to work together to solve great challenges and dream big. This is why in 2021, I am excited to see all the new collaborations, expanding our collective efforts to address truly global problems in agriculture, public health, and other areas that are far bigger than any one project.

After a successful 2021, and hopefully, with a pandemic fading into our rearview mirrors, I am optimistic for an even more amazing 2022. Thank you for your support and guidance, and I wish you all a Happy New Year!

Nithya Ruff
Chair of the Board of Directors, The Linux Foundation

These efforts are made possible by our members and communities. To learn how your organization can get involved with the Linux Foundation, click here.

The post A New Year’s Message from Nithya Ruff (2022) appeared first on Linux Foundation.