How to find/locate it?

[scarymovie]

Hi, everyone. I am a newbie here. I would like to know if I want to vi /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward, but assume that I don't know the path of ip_forward, is there a way to tell where is it?

Thanks

[corysmith]

The ironic thing is that the subject of your post contains two commands which will do just that...

find and locate

redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/step-guide/s1-managing-locating.html]Locating Files and Directories (won't let me post a link)

Also, another command I wish I would have know about earlier on is the apropos command. This is useful if you don't know a command name, but you know what it should do. It searches the whatis descriptions for your keyword. Say for example you want to find commands related to iptables, type:

apropos iptables

You can access manuals or "man pages" for each command by typing "man command". Sometime the man pages will have a SEE ALSO section which will help you find related commands.

Hope this helps.

[scarymovie]

The ironic thing is that the subject of your post contains two commands which will do just that...

find and locate

redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/step-guide/s1-managing-locating.html]Locating Files and Directories (won't let me post a link)

Also, another command I wish I would have know about earlier on is the apropos command. This is useful if you don't know a command name, but you know what it should do. It searches the whatis descriptions for your keyword. Say for example you want to find commands related to iptables, type:

apropos iptables

You can access manuals or "man pages" for each command by typing "man command". Sometime the man pages will have a SEE ALSO section which will help you find related commands.

Hope this helps.

Corysmith, thanks for your reply, I think you got my question wrong. I meant eg. if I need to to edit the ip_forward,but I do not know where is this "ip_forward", how do I find the path to it?

[corysmith]

My friend, I believe I did answer your question correctly. If you read the documentation at the link I sent you, you could derive that the path to ip_foward could be found with either:

updatedb
locate ip_forward

or

find / -name ip_forward

Additionally, you could discover these commands for yourself by typing either:

apropos find | less

or

apropos locate | less

Also, if you are working with RHEL, don't be shy about searching their knowledge base, as this is some of the most thoroughly documented software I know of.