Learn › Linux Foundations › Bash Shell Environment
export - a hands-on Linux lab on a real virtual machine.
The Bash Environment module capstone mission. Drill export, env/printenv, alias, type/which, command substitution, and brace expansion in one hands-on operation on a real Linux VM. Mission mode: no commands shown, recall required.
You have finished the Bash Environment module. The shell is no longer a stranger. You know how to set a variable and push it into the environment with export. You can read that environment back with env and printenv. You can bend the shell to your habits with an alias. You can ask what any command really is with type and which. And you know the expansions the shell runs before a command ever executes: command substitution that drops one command's output into another line, and brace expansion that grows a single word into a whole set.
This is the final run. One real machine, six objectives, and every one of them uses a move you already trained. Nothing new is introduced here.
This is mission mode. No commands are shown. You read the objective, recall the move, and type it. That recall is the whole point: it is how these moves become instinct. Progress checks itself as you go, and a signal is one click away if you get stuck.
One quick rep in the practice terminal before the real machine boots. Same rules as the mission: the goal is stated, the command is not. If this comes back instantly, you are ready.
You want the shell to write out the numbers one through five for you, on a single line, without typing each one. Reach for brace expansion and give it a range from one to five.
prompt: student@linuxcamp:~$ answer: echo {1..5} output: 1 2 3 4 5 hint: A brace group with two dots makes a range. echo, then the braces with a start, two dots, and an end: echo {1..5}
The shell expanded the braces into five words before echo ever ran, and echo printed them. That move came from memory, not from a copy button. Good. The mission asks for that same recall six more times.
Boot the machine below and take the console. Six objectives: push a variable into the environment, read the environment back, define a shortcut of your own, find out what a command really is, run one command inside another line, and grow a single word into a set. No commands shown, progress checks itself as you type.
Practice Mission Control: Operation Home Turf in a real Linux terminal at The Linux Camp. Progress is verified automatically as you type commands on the machine.