SSH/Shell. Kerio technical support almost always work within the Linux prompt usually connected via an SSH session. Once connected to a port, and successfully authenticated, your connection is handed over to a shell program such as "bash" or "tcsh". There are many shells, but they usually have ancestry to either "sh" (bash or korn) or "csh" (tcsh).
Linux and OSX almost always use "bash" so all work in this discussion will be done using the bash shell. Beware, some admins prefer "tcsh" (they are wrong) so they change the login to default to tcsh. This can confuse you very much if you aren't familiar with Linux.
[root@localhost ~]# ps | grep sh 23876 pts/1 00:00:00 bash 23903 pts/1 00:00:00 tcsh [root@localhost ~]# tty /dev/pts/1 [root@localhost ~]#
It is not always simple to tell what shell you are using, but you want bash.
Environment. All programs in Linux/OSX/Windows run under something called an "environment." You don't see it often in Windows, but in Linux or OSX the environment is much more visible.
To see the environment, type "env" and a listing of variables and their values will be displayed. The shell spawns programs when you run them, and these programs inherit the existing environment when they run.
The environment is most important in Linux for the path variable. This is a list of directories that are checked when you type commands. For example, if /sbin is not in your path, then when you run "service keriomailserver start" it will give you an error. You would instead need to type "/sbin/service keriomailserver start" or add /sbin to your path.
Another important part of the environment in Linux is the LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Sometimes this is needed so that programs can find libraries. I will not discuss it any more, just mention it so if you see it in the future, you will know what it is.
Commands. UNIX variants use very simple commands which, when put together can accomplish a lot of things.
| ls | Directory Listing |
ls -l /opt/kerio/mailserver ls -ld . ls -ls ls | wc -l
| less | Paging utility |
less /opt/kerio/mailserver/mailserver.cfg less --help Commands: h Print help screen /Search forwards ? Search backwards G Jump to end of file 1G Jump to beginning of file q Quit less arrows, page-up, page-down all work less does not have a "command mode" like the "vi" editor.
| grep | Search utility |
grep StoreDir mailserver.cfg grep T0 */Calendar/status.fld