How to add shell script to my linux system

Question

I have shell script for monitoring local area traffic for my system. Now I want to install it, and want to run like other unix command

Answer 1

The way I would solve this (with my fairly rudimentary linux skillz) is to make an alias to the shell script.

First ensure the shell script is executable.

chmod u+x,g+x script.sh

Then, edit your .bashrc file like following:

cd
vi .bashrc

Add this towards the bottom. (I think you can also add this in a specific alias file, such as .bash_aliases, but I don't.)

alias commandtorun='/home/user/script.sh'

Here, commandtorun will be the command you type in to run the script, and '/home/user/script.sh' is the path to the script.

To save changes to your .bashrc in vi editor, :wq, which writes to file and quits.

Good luck!

Answer 2

The usual location to install local scripts is /usr/local/bin or /usr/local/sbin. See man hier for details of the directory structure.

These directories are usually included if the corresponding /usr/bin or /usr/sbin directories are in the path. See man eviron for information on the standard environment variables including PATH.

Answer 3

On Ubuntu, it is possible to create a bin folder in your home folder and place your user scripts in there. Indeed, your ~/.profile will contain the following:

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"

After you have created your bin folder you must logout and login again for /home/$USER/bin to appear in your path when you enter echo $PATH. Once it is in your path you will be able to call scripts in there by name and execute them just like you can any other programs.

The bin folder does not need any special permissions, and if you just want your user to be able to execute the scripts enter chmod u+x when you make them executable.

Your new output of echo $PATH when your bin folder is added should be:

/home/mike/bin:/usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games

You can place your scripts in /usr/local/bin, but you will need to use sudo to copy them to the folder and then use sudo again when you want to edit them there, so I find having a bin folder in the home folder is very convenient and sensible, particularly on a single user system.

However, it is important to note that if you have more than one user on your system and you want the script to be available for them all, you would definitely need to put it in /usr/local/bin.