Apple Mac OS X Server manual Correcting Typing Errors, Repeating Commands

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Correcting Typing Errors

To correct a typing error before you press Return to execute the command, press Left Arrow or Right Arrow to skip over parts of the command you don’t want to change, press the Delete key to remove characters, enter regular characters to insert them, and finally press Return to execute the command.

To ignore what you have entered and start again, press Control–U.

Repeating Commands

To repeat a command, press Up Arrow until you see the command, make any modifications, and then press Return.

Including Paths Using Drag and Drop

To include a fully qualified filename or folder path in a command, you can drag and drop the folder or file from a Finder window into the Terminal window.

Searching for Text Within a File

To locate a unique string within a file, use the grep tool. The grep tool searches the named input files for lines containing a match to the given pattern. By default, grep prints the matching lines.

To search for a unique string in a file:

$ grep sunshine filename

where filename is the name of the file you wish to search through and sunshine is the unique string.

Commands Requiring Root Privileges

Many commands used to manage a server must be executed by the root user. If you get a message such as permission denied, the command probably requires root privileges.

To execute a single command as the root user, begin the command with sudo (short for super user do). For example:

$ sudo serveradmin list

You’re prompted for the root password if you haven’t used sudo recently. The root user password is set to the administrator user password when you install Mac OS X Server.

To switch to the root user so you don’t have to repeatedly enter sudo, use the su command:

$su root

You’re prompted for the root user password and then are logged in as the root user until you log out or use the su command to switch to another user.

Chapter 1 Executing Commands