Why start with basic commands?

Before touching services, networking or ZFS, you should be completely comfortable with moving around the system and running simple read-only commands. Yeh sab commands aap har Solaris session mein use karoge.

Is lesson mein hum mainly safe, non-destructive commands cover karenge jo sirf information dikhate hain—kuch todte nahi 🙂.

Basic command flow in a Solaris session

Yeh ek typical flow hai jab aap nayi Solaris machine par login hote ho: system info check, current path dekhna, files list karna, logs directory visit karna, etc.

terminal — bash

solaris-lab

[root@solaris ~]# uname -a
SunOS sol11 5.11 11.4.0.15.0 i86pc i386 i86pc
 
[root@solaris ~]# pwd
/root
 
[root@solaris ~]# ls
Desktop  Documents  scripts  backup.sh
 
[root@solaris ~]# cd /var/log
[root@solaris /var/log]# ls -l
total 12
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root       10240 Jan 10 10:22 messages
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root        2048 Jan 10 10:10 secure
 
[root@solaris /var/log]# cat /etc/release
                             Oracle Solaris 11.4
        Assembled xx Month 20xx
 
[root@solaris /var/log]# df -h
Filesystem             Size   Used  Available Capacity  Mounted on
rpool/ROOT/solaris      40G    10G        30G    25%    /
 
[root@solaris /var/log]# ps -ef | head
    UID   PID  PPID   C    STIME TTY         TIME CMD
    root     0     0  0    Jan 10 ?           0:03 sched
    root     1     0  0    Jan 10 ?           0:05 /sbin/init

Command categories you should know

Instead of ratta-marofying random commands, yaad rakho ki har command ek category mein fit hota hai. Neeche 4 main categories hain.

System information

uname, date, whoami — commands to check OS version, current date/time and which user you are logged in as.

Navigation & listing

pwd, ls, cd — move between directories and list files in different formats (ls -l, ls -a, etc.).

Viewing file content

cat, more, less, tail — see configuration and log files without editing them.

Getting help

man, --help — in-built documentation so you can discover options yourself on any Solaris box.

Important commands in this lesson

System & session info

uname -a → complete OS + kernel info
uname -r → only OS release version
whoami → which user is logged in
date → current date & time on server

Navigation

pwd → print current directory
ls → list files (ls -l, ls -lh, ls -a)
cd /path → change directory
cd .. → go one level up

Viewing files safely

cat /etc/release → Solaris version
more /var/log/messages
less /var/log/messages (better for big files)
tail -f /var/log/messages → live log tailing

Processes & disk usage

df -h → disk usage in human readable format
du -sh * → size of folders in current directory
ps -ef → full process listing
ps -ef | head → just check top rows quickly

Practice task – do this on your VMware lab

Note down the output of uname -a, df -h and ps -ef | head to understand your system profile.

Try using man for at least 3 commands (e.g. man ls, man df, man ps).

Don't worry about remembering everything – focus on getting comfortable typing and reading the outputs.

Next up, we move to user and group management where these basic commands will keep helping you.