Using PuTTY, commands etc for a novice...

[lauriedunsire]

For the first time I need to use a command prompt to set some variables and other tasks that I am completely lost with. I am basically a complete novice with with this, I have downloaded PuTTY but I'm not sure where to start - in terms of what connection to use and how to connect to the site I need to make changes on.

The site itself is just hosted on a fasthosts shared server, not sure if this creates issues?

Anyway like I say I am completely new to this, I just hope I can manage to get a grip of the basics and it's not a huge amount that I need to do with it.

Many thanks in advance for any assistance!

Thanks,

Laurie

[bigtomrodney]

Hi lauriedunsire,
The connection itself should be simple enough. Just enter the servername/hostname and the default port is 22. After that there are a lot of configuration options but you likely won't be interested in those until your usage becomes more advanced.

The difficult part will be learning the shell interface. Have you used Linux or Unix at all before? Commands such as cd and mkdir are mostly the same as in DOS while many other commands will have slightly different names.

This article is an introduction to bash, but it is aimed at more than just basic navigation. Don't be intimidated by it, it's not as difficult as it first appears.

BASH Programming - Introduction HOW-TO

[lauriedunsire]

Hi lauriedunsire,
The connection itself should be simple enough. Just enter the servername/hostname and the default port is 22. After that there are a lot of configuration options but you likely won't be interested in those until your usage becomes more advanced.

The difficult part will be learning the shell interface. Have you used Linux or Unix at all before? Commands such as cd and mkdir are mostly the same as in DOS while many other commands will have slightly different names.

This article is an introduction to bash, but it is aimed at more than just basic navigation. Don't be intimidated by it, it's not as difficult as it first appears.

OK I've got connected, hadn't set a password before though and I've just done this on the SSH page on the fasthosts account but it says I need to wait around an hour to get access now. I used PuTTY at a very basic level when I just left school and worked for a web company, but I can't even remember if it was LINUX or UNIX now and it was never very often - so I'm pretty much starting from scratch.

Thanks for the link, I'll have a look through and take things step by step. Generally with these things if I can see examples and get basic intstructions I can gradually get the hang of it. It's just the system I'm trying to implement just has instructions that are clearly written under the impression that the person reading them has experience in using commands with LINUX.

[bigtomrodney]

Well if you stumble into any problems as you go, don't be afraid to ask

[lauriedunsire]

Well if you stumble into any problems as you go, don't be afraid to ask

I think you may regret saying that...

OK I'm in now, one of the first things I need to do is find the location of a file. Now I guess this isn't vital as I can find the path out alternatively, but just for reference why when I type "find / -name" and then the file name, is it just listing lots of locations and "Permission Denied2 after it?

Many thanks for this!

Laurie

[Kieren]

That error is because of file permissions. On a Linux system there will be a lot of files that you are not allowed to view for various reasons such as they don’t belong to you

You are getting a lot of the messages because you are searching from the root directory (/). This means find will search in every directory on the computer. You can change the command a bit to search downwards from the current working directory by using a . instead of the /

find . –name filename

[lauriedunsire]

That error is because of file permissions. On a Linux system there will be a lot of files that you are not allowed to view for various reasons such as they don’t belong to you

You are getting a lot of the messages because you are searching from the root directory (/). This means find will search in every directory on the computer. You can change the command a bit to search downwards from the current working directory by using a . instead of the /

find . –name filename

Ah rite cool, that's found it now - cheers.

OK now what I was needing to do to this file was add it's path to an environment variable - it's for a payment system. I have to confess I'm not exactly sure how or why I'm doing this! Anyway someone else has given me instructions how to do this, so I've typed "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=lusr/lib/libCcCpitools.so" and I've pressed enter. No error has come up but it's just went to a new line without any confirmation either. has nothing happened here? I'd usualyl expect an error or confirmation, but I have neither

[Kieren]

This is a common problem to new comers. If Linux is successful it normally doesn't print anything. It will usually only print something on an error

You can check that the environment variable has been set by using the command:

echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH

[lauriedunsire]

This is a common problem to new comers. If Linux is successful it normally doesn't print anything. It will usually only print something on an error

You can check that the environment variable has been set by using the command:

echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH

OK I've entered that command, it jumps a line but doesn't actually come up with anything. Is that good?

I have a feeling that the problems I am experiencing may not primarily be with the settings I am initiating in PuTTY. I feel another thread may be necessary soon...

[Kieren]

No it is not a problem with Putty any more. If you think of Putty as a telephone and you have made a call to the server. Since you have made a connection to the server you are now interacting with that so your current problem is with setting an environment variable

I think I have discovered your problem if you haven't made a type with the command:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=lusr/lib/libCcCpitools.so"

Note that after the = you have used a pipe (|) instead of a "

If that wasn’t causing the error have you closed your session and restarted it? If so then the variable wont survive between sessions