Best Practices and Personal Tech Notes
by Jeffrey S. Jonas

I’ve been a Unix/Linux user and developer for over 30 years, starting Sept 1978 with Unix version 6 on the Cooper Union’s PDP11/45.

I’ve used many versions and derivatives of Unix (and Linux) so I tend to use tried-and-true portable “tricks of the trade” to avoid getting too dependent on any particular environment. Code portability used to be a virtue.

At home, I’m running Linux. Most of my work is from the bash command line, using shortcuts such as


  1. my .bashrc
  2. hard vs. soft (symbolic) links
  3. file permission bits
  4. essential & required reading
  5. other rants
  6. Silly Linux trinkets


Here’s my .bashrc full of useful aliases

hard vs. soft (symbolic) links

There are many reasons to assign more than one name to a file (some of them valid!)
From the very beginning, the classic Unix file system allowed “hard links”
(primarily due to the way files are described by inodes but given names by separate directory entries).

How to make hard links

ln(1) or link(2) creates another name to a pre-existing file.
The names do not have to be in the same directory, but must reside within the same file system.
ALL hard link filenames are equally valid. That has interesting implications. It means that the file continues to exist even if any of the names are deleted, moved or re-named.

How to find and track hard links

The inode “link count” as reported by stat(2) or ls(1) is the number of names a files has
(that’s why the system call is unlink(2) instead of delete or remove).
If the link count is >1 then the file name more than one name! To find all the other names:
  1. "ls -i" to find the file’s i-number (the internal number that really describes the file)
  2. "df ." (or file’s pathname) to find the filesystem containing the file (the last field)
  3. "find <filesys> -inum <i-number> -print"
    prints all the names to the file.
    Note: not all names may be found because you may not have permission to reach all the directories.

What are symbolic links?

Symbolic (or soft) links are another way to give alternate names (and locations) to files.
It alters the name of the file as if it’s a character string (similar to what Windows calls a “shortcut”).
Unlike hard links that work only within the file system, they work on any and all file types, across file systems.

Why I don’t like symbolic links

  1. Many utilities are confused by symbolic links and default to NOT following symbolic links (such as creating backups or TAR files).
  2. Unlike hard links, there’s no way to backtrack soft links since they can be ANYWHERE, even on remote systems that are offline.
  3. They can point to non-existant files.
  4. There’s little to no checking on their creation, allowing directory loops.

Hard links have the following ADVANTAGES:
  1. All the names work the same (no confusion about follow/no-follow symlinks)
  2. All file names are equally valid (delete one name and the file remains so long as ANY name links to the file)
  3. The link count (in ls or stat) always shows the number of names to the file
  4. All the names can be found by search: find(1) or ncheck(1)
  5. Only allowed on leaf-nodes (NON-directories) so the file system tree structure is guaranteed

Hard links have the following DRAWBACKS:
  1. Limited to files within the file system
  2. Not supported by all file system types (such as FAT)
  3. BeeGFS (formerly FhGFS) supports hard links only within the same directory because the file system is spread among many servers.

Symbolic/Soft links have the following ADVANTAGES:
  1. Works for all file types (regular file, directory, special file), even across mount points
  2. May work in file system dependent ways (allowing new features such as conditional symbolic links)

Symbolic/Soft links have the following DRAWBACKS:
  1. Works for all file types (may create loops or invalid tree structures)
  2. May work in file system dependent ways that are inconsistent or unexpected
  3. May point to non-existant files (because they were deleted, or not mounted anymore)
  4. May work differently whether it’s full or relative pathname
  5. Not all utilities understand symbolic links (will usually follow them, unaware of possible consequences)

Wikipedia entries

Wikipedia also explains

more to come!

This is a work-in-progress. I will give examples of creating links, side-effects and programs I use to tame them.

file permission bits

One of my peeves: the chmod(2) man page IS STILL WRONG.

First of all, the modes still have their Unix v6 “legacy” names,
which do not properly describe their current context-sensitive meanings:
S_ISUID 04000 set user ID on execution
S_ISGID 02000 set group ID on execution
S_ISVTX 01000 sticky bit
S_IRUSR 00400 read by owner
S_IWUSR 00200 write by owner
S_IXUSR 00100 execute/search by owner
S_IRGRP 00040 read by group
S_IWGRP 00020 write by group
S_IXGRP 00010 execute/search by group
S_IROTH 00004 read by others
S_IWOTH 00002 write by others
S_IXOTH 00001 execute/search by others
How to describe the mode bits properly yet clearly? Let me try.

File mode = file type + permissions

The file type is immutable: it cannot be changed once a file is created.
In Unix-type file systems, every file has a mode, as shown by ls, stat(2) and such.
Historically, the bits are represented in octal, or may be shown symbolically.
(thus “old timers” using "chmod 0444" instead of "chmod go-w")
"ls -l" shows file types as:
-   Regular file
b   Block special file
c   Character special file
d   Directory
l   Symbolic link
p   FIFO (p is for pipe)
s   Socket
w   Whiteout (relates to stacking file systems such as translucent file system)
[although file system & OS specific file types may be added]

The lower 12 bits are file permissions, determining access by file owner, group and all-others (world).

The many meanings of the permission bits

The meanings of the permission bits are overloaded: it depends on the context.

For directories:

For symbolic links, the permission bits have no meaning
because that’s determined by the target file (which may be of any type: directory, etc.).

For regular files, things get tricky because the Unix file system presents all regular files as a series of bytes with no structure or record format.
Pure executable (binary) files have no special status to the file system,
although many file formats self identify themselves with a header and magic number as reported by file(1).

When a regular file is accessed by the open(2) or creat(2) system calls (directly or indirectly),
For a regular file containing a pure executable (machine code)
then exec(2) interprets the file mode differently

caveats and details

other rants

One of my friend’s standard rants concerns Value Engineering. It was originally a good idea for cost savings but has been perverted into a form of planned obsolescence: deliberately determining how much can be REMOVED before an item or design is rendered useless or too unreliable. Another friend refers to this trend as “The Race To The Bottom”. That’s why most DVD/VHS/CD players are totally dependent on their remote controls: too many of the buttons and front panel controls have been removed just to save a few pennies. A friend’s now forced to buy “professional” video cameras just for an external mic input.
To me, it an insult to my profession and an irritation as a user.
To quote Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Sadly, this is being taken to illogical extremes.

For instance: ATAPI/IDE hard drives no longer have any LED for disk activity or diagnostics. Not even a connector for an external LED (not that cases or drive bays offer a LED for that anymore). This is not just for blinkenlights entertainment: it’s a useful diagnostic to assure that the drive is active when expected, particularly for backups, RAID operation, during formatting, etc. Similarly, the write protect switch has been eliminated from hard drives, USB hard drives and most SD-card readers/sockets.

SCSI drives always had those features. But even Apple and Sun went the “economy” route and switched to ATAPI drives. Yea, new drives use the SCSI protocol and offer SMART monitoring, but most systems don’t have any software monitoring or logging of disk errors (or case temperature or fan tach). It’s enough to make a hardware engineer cry. Which brings me to …

essential and required reading

Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things (originally published as The Psychology of Everyday Things) ought to be REQUIRED READING for all engineers of all disciplines. It goes way beyond the “user interface”. Read it and take it to heart before your former customers do! It ranks high enough for inclusion in this top 13 list. Citing reviews:
Anybody who has ever complained that “they don’t make things like they used to” will immediately connect with this book. Norman’s thesis is that when designers fail to understand the processes by which devices work, they create unworkable technology. Director of the Institute for Cognitive Sciences at University of California, San Diego, the author examines the psychological processes needed in operating and comprehending devices. Examples include doors you don’t know whether to push or pull and VCRs you can’t figure out how to program. Written in a readable, anecdotal, sometimes breezy style, the book’s scholarly sophistication is almost transparent.

Essential reading for Electrical Engineers: Robert A. Pease, the legendary analog expert
Why did Bob Pease declare himself the Czar of Bandgaps??
Because a lot of people were repeating old mistakes in their new bandgap reference circuits.
Pease has been able to cut down the repetition of old errors.
From here on in, engineers have to make NEW errors.

Silly Linux trinkets

Evil Penguin!
It’s not an official Tux, but this Ikea sippy cup looks like a penguin wearing a gas mask!
And Linux for your server / as your server!
I wonder if Webkinz uses Linux backends.

AT&T's Summit Facility had the tradition of naming computers for cartoon/comic characters
and placing a figurine of the character on the machine.

And who could forget Dick Van Dyke dancing with the
the Penguin Waiters in Disney's 1964 musical extravaganza, Mary Poppins.
youtube: The Penguin Dance - Mary Poppins