2. Who should read this book?

Everybody working on a UNIX or UNIX-like system who wants to make life easier on themselves, power users and sysadmins alike, can benefit from reading this book. Readers who already have a grasp of working the system using the command line will learn the ins and outs of shell scripting that ease execution of daily tasks. System administration relies a great deal on shell scripting; common tasks are often automated using simple scripts. This document is full of examples that will encourage you to write your own and that will inspire you to improve on existing scripts.

Prerequisites/not in this course:

• You should be an experienced UNIX or Linux user, familiar with basic commands, man pages and documentation

• Being able to use a text editor

• Understand system boot and shutdown processes, init and initscripts

• Create users and groups, set passwords

• Permissions, special modes

• Understand naming conventions for devices, partitioning, mounting/unmounting file systems

• Adding/removing software on your system

See Introduction to Linux (or your local TLDP mirror) if you haven't mastered one or more of these topics. Additional information can be found in your system documentation (man and info pages), or at the Linux Documentation Project.