Lab 13: The Find Command

Objective Focus

Understand and use essential tools: Not listed as an official of objective, but very important!

The find command

The find command is not explicitly written in the EX200 objectives but it is talked about in every book related to Linux administration, including RHCSA related ones.

So, I have decided to include a page for it.

 $ man find

 $ find path search_option action

find	path	search option	action
Command	Where to search	by name, size, permissions, etc.	a command to be executed on matches
	/, /etc,/var/log	File name: -name, -iname	-exec cmd {};
		UID and GID: -user, -group	- ok cmd {};
		Permission: -perm	delete
		Inode: -inum
		Size and type: -size, -type

Lets run a few examples of the find command as the root user.

 $ find /etc -iname *ssh*

 $ find /etc -iname *ssh* -type f

 $ find . -user learner

 $ find . -user root

 $ find /var/log/ -mmin -1

 $ find / -size +100m

Using -exec and -ok

The -exec and -ok option is how we perform an action on the matches found through the first portion of the find command.

The difference between -exec and -ok, is that -ok will prompt you to confirm the action.

 $ find . -iname "file*" -user learner -exec chmod 644 {} \;

 $ find / -size +50M -exec du -sh {} \;

That is all for the find command. There are many options to use with this command. I encourage you to pull up the man page and try some options not mentioned above.