Apple Mac OS X Server Command-Line Specifications download pdf (Page 10)

Use this chapter to determine when to use command-line

tools and to understand the fundamentals of how to

use them.

A command-line interface (CLI) is an alternative to graphical applications for

interacting with and controlling your computer. Mac OS X Server provides graphical

applications—primarily, Server Admin and Workgroup Manager—to address common

administration tasks. There are situations, though, where using a command-line

interface might be appropriate. These situations include:

Conguring advanced options that aren’t supported by the graphical applications. Â

Conguring remotely from a computer that doesn’t have the Server Admin tools Â

installed—for example, a computer with Windows, Linux, or another UNIX-based

operating system.

Performing tasks that are repetitive or that need to be run at predened times. Â

Editing text les, usually in order to change advanced conguration settings and Â

preferences.

The primary way to access the CLI in Mac OS X is with the Terminal application. Other

ways to access the CLI are discussed in “Accessing the Shell” on page 11 , and

in Chapter 4, “Connecting to Remote Computers.”

Each window in Terminal contains an execution context, called a shell, which is

separate from all other execution contexts. The shell is an interactive programming

language interpreter, with a specialized syntax for executing commands and writing

structured programs (shell scripts). Dierent shells have slightly dierent capabilities

and programming syntax. Although you can use any shell, the examples in this book

use bash, the startup shell for Mac OS X and the default user shell.

Introduction to the Command-Line

Environment

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Apple Mac OS X Server Command-Line Specifications Page 10