The UNIX operating system utilized by our company, XYZ Corporation

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Executive Summary
(Separate Page – to the non-technical CEO, manager, etc)
The UNIX operating system utilized by our company, XYZ Corporation, is responsible
for supporting 350 employees as well as 6,000 customers. Our Apache web site is visited by
1,345 Internet users daily. This makes our UNIX infrastructure the most important company
asset we have. As the systems manager, it is my responsibility to maintain a stable operating
system that is available and responsive every minute of every day. For this reason, I am
proposing funds to write a shell script that will expedite the process for finding various files and
character strings regardless of their location in the UNIX file system structure. This particular
script will save the systems administration department two hours of productive time each day.
The additional 10 hours each week can be used by the systems administration team to provide
even better employee and customer service for our users and web site visitors. The cost for
developing this script is $350.00. The pay back period for this expense is one week. I am
requesting permission to dedicate one assistant administrator for 10 hours to this project.
Introduction
(Separate Page – to the technical director, manager, etc.)
The systems administration department spends 2 hours each day searching for files by
content, or by file name, for employees who have archived information on our storage area
network (SAN). In order to expedite the time it takes the staff to perform a search and to inform
the user of the results, I am proposing funding to dedicate one assistant administrator to write a
Bourne Again Shell (bash) script that will automate this task. The shell is the command line
interpreter for the UNIX kernel (Das, 2001, p.3). This particular bash shell script will group all
the commands used by an administrator during a file search task into a single executable file. The
ability to string together a whole group of commands as a language –with its own variables,
conditionals, and loops –is know as scripting (Das, 2001, 535). This paper introduces our shell
script and explains how it will reduce costs and improve productivity in the systems
administration department.
Body
(Separate Page – describe each line of commands making up your script)
This section provides a line-by-line explanation for our proposed bash script. By
presenting a line-by-line description, our analysis follows the interpretive mode used by the shell
of interpreting one statement at a time in a script (Das, 2001, p.535). The entire script can be
viewed in its entirety in the appendix. Although the script is presented as a written, final product,
it has not been executed or tested for bugs on our particular system. This process will take the
proposed 10 hours of time and must be performed during a week-end when the system is not
being utilized.
#!/bin/bash
This statement is required as the first interpreted line in a shell script. It is used to inform
the kernel on which shell to use when interpreting the script. The # is normally treated as a
comment line. When it is followed by the !, the shell interprets the remainder of the string as the
interpreter specification (Das, 2001, p.539).
PN=`basemane “$0”`
This statement assigns a value to the variable PN. Shell variables are a convenient way of

storing values that can be used throughout the rest of the shell script (Das, 2001, p.536). The tick
marks, `, will execute a shell command, and in this statement, store the results in the variable
named PN. The basename command is used to change a filename extension (Das , 2001, p.572).
When basename is used with a second argument, it strips off the string represented by the
argument from the first argument, $0 (Das, 2001, p.572). For example, if the first argument ($0)
on the command line is Linux Verison 2.4, the basename will strip off the Version 2.4 and leave
only the word “Linux.”
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Continue with each line of your script until you complete the body section & be sure to
cite your references – 3 to 5 pages describing each line of your script.
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Conclusion
(Separate Page – this is where you have a dynamic closing statement)
Write a closing conclusion for your paper – reiterate how your script will benefit the
company.
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Appendix
(Separate Page – include the original shell script you wrote)
Shell Script
(place you actual shell script here so I can read it before grading your paper).
bin/sh
# script written for FreeBSD 5.4-STABLE
# written by B. B. Shell at 404-555-1212 or [email protected]
PN=`basemane “$0”`
clear
echo "`date`: Service Check Script Started"
count=`ps -ax | grep -c httpd`
if [ $count = 0 ]
then
echo "`date`: server is down, restarting httpd"
/usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl restart
else
echo "`date`: httpd was found"
fi
count=`ps -ax | grep -c sendmail`
if [ $count = 0 ]
then
echo "`date`: server is down, restarting sendmail"
/usr/sbin/sendmail -bd -q5m
else
echo "`date`: sendmail was found"
fi
count=`ps –ax | grep -c wu.ftpd`
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if [ $count = 0 ]

then
echo "`date`: server is down, restarting ftpd"
/usr/libexec/ftpd
else
echo "`date`: wu.ftpd was found"
fi
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References
(Separate Page – list all references – at least five)
Kochan, G., Stephen, Wood, Patrick (2003). Unix shell programming. Indianapolis, IN: Sams
Publishing Prentice-Hall, Inc
Jr. Shotts, W. (2000). LinuxCommand.org. Retrieved January 5, 2006 from the World Wide
Web: http://www.linuxcommand.org/index.php
At least five references listed