Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Administration Unleashed

Manual Pages 111Manual PagesOne great feature of Linux and other UNIX-based operating systems is the inclusion ofmanual pages, also known as man pages for most commands. They can be read from agraphical or nongraphical environment and do not require a network connection likedocumentation available over the Internet.Man pages are divided into eight sections:1. Commands2. System Calls3. Library Calls4. Special Files5. File Formats and Conventions6. Games47. Conventions and Miscellaneous8. System Management CommandsTo read the man page for a command, execute man from a shell prompt. If aman page exists for the command, it will be displayed. Use the Page Up and Page Downkeys to scroll through the text. To find a word or phrase in a man page, press the forwardslash key (/) followed by the word or phrase you are looking for. After you press theforward slash, the colon at the bottom of the screen changes to a forward slash. As youtype what you are searching for, it appears after the slash at the bottom of the screen.Press Enter to start searching. Press the N key to jump to the next instance of the word orphrase.Sometimes, there are multiple man pages for the same command. For example, there aretwo man pages for man pages. When you execute the command man man, the page fromsection one, “Commands,” is shown explaining the basics of how to use the command.There is also another man page for man in section 7, “Conventions and Miscellaneous,”which describes how to write man pages. To view the man page for a topic in a specificsection, include the section in the command such as man 7 man or man 8 useradd.If you prefer to read the man pages in a graphical environment, select the System menufrom the top panel and then select the Help menu item to start the graphical help program.Select Manual Pages from the list on the left side. The list of man page topics to choosefrom is slightly different than the man page sections previously discussed, but you shouldstill be able to find the pages you are looking for such as the one shown in Figure 4.5.