Executable files on the Raspberry Pi

An executable file is a file that can be double clicked and it will run automatically. For Windows users you will be familiar with .exe files, but for Linux, what is an executable file?

Linux files have permissions that control who can see, edit or delete a file. But one of those permissions is "allow a file to be executed as a program". So lets take a look at a file that is on a USB stick inserted into our Raspberry Pi.

We shall be using the terminal for this blog post, specifically I used SSH to remotely connect to my Raspberry Pi but you should do this from the Raspbian / Pixel desktop. Also permissions cannot be changed for drives that are formatted FAT16, FAT32, NTFS or exFAT, permissions are only supported for Linux filesystems.

Executing Files

So I have a file that I wish to make executable, it's called test.sh but yours can be any file.

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ls
test.sh

Permissions

Lets take a look at the test.sh file, specifically its permissions. You can do this by typing

ls -lha test.sh

Remember to change the filename to that of your file.

-rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi     24 Jan  4 10:02 test.sh

You can see "-rw-r--..." etc these show the permissions of a file/directory.

The letters are split into four groups

File type

In this case we can see "-" indicating it is a file. If we saw "d" then it is a directory.

Owner Permissions

In this case we see "rw-" indicating that the owner can read the file, write to the file, but the "-" means it is not executable by the owner.

Group Permissions

In this case we see "r--" indicating that the group, of which the owner belongs, can read the file, but cannot edit or make it executable.

Other User Permissions

In this case we see "r--" indicating that any user can read the file, but cannot edit or make it executable.

So how can I make the file executable?

In the terminal all we now need to do is type

chmod +x <filename.

And if we now run

ls -lha test.sh

We can see that for the owner permissions we now have an "x" indicating it is executable.

-rwxr-xr-x 1 pi pi 24 Jan  4 10:02 test.sh

To run the file

All we need to do now is type

./<filename>

To run the executable file.

So in my case it was.

./test.sh

That's it! You've learnt a little Linux command line love today!

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Bonus Content for N:CSComputing

Navigating to the USB drive

First plug in your USB drive, the Raspbian / Pixel OS automatically mounts, enabling a USB/hard/DVD drive ready for access, devices when they are plugged in. They are mounted to a specific directory on your Pi, and that directory lives inside

/media/pi

So to navigate to this directory all I need to do is open a terminal and type.

cd /media/pi

Now we are inside the directory, so lets see what is in there, type.

ls

Now you should see the contents of the directory. So for me I can see

pi@raspberrypi:/media/pi $ ls
USB DISK
pi@raspberrypi:/media/pi $ 

Method 1:

So USB DISK is my USB drive, so to go into that directory, which is really our USB drive.

Remember to change the name of the drive to match your USB drive name.

cd USB\ DISK/

But Les, what is that "" all about? Well in Linux a space in a filename or directory name MUST have a backslash before it, otherwise Linux thinks there are multiple directories that you wish to enter.

Method 2

If you don't like method 1, then this method is a little easier. Just wrap the directory name in quotation marks and press Enter.

Remember to change the name of the drive to match your USB drive name.

cd "USB DISK"/

WOO HOO! We are now inside the USB disk!