Man pages are a common way to learn the commands that are on your system. The man command will give you all the details of a given command, including switches used, and syntax. man formats and displays the on-line manual pages. This post will show the quick steps to install man command on linux CentOS 5.7 server.
[root@CentOS57 ~]# yum install man -y
[root@CentOS57 ~]# yum install man -y Loaded plugins: fastestmirror Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile * base: mirror.oscc.org.my * extras: mirror.oscc.org.my * rpmforge: ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de * updates: mirror.oscc.org.my Setting up Install Process Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package man.i386 0:1.6d-2.el5 set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: groff >= 1.18 for package: man --> Processing Dependency: bzip2 for package: man --> Processing Dependency: nroff-i18n for package: man --> Running transaction check ---> Package bzip2.i386 0:1.0.3-6.el5_5 set to be updated ---> Package groff.i386 0:1.18.1.1-13.el5 set to be updated --> Finished Dependency Resolution Dependencies Resolved ==================================================================================================== Package Arch Version Repository Size ==================================================================================================== Installing: man i386 1.6d-2.el5 base 262 k Installing for dependencies: bzip2 i386 1.0.3-6.el5_5 base 49 k groff i386 1.18.1.1-13.el5 base 1.9 M Transaction Summary ==================================================================================================== Install 3 Package(s) Upgrade 0 Package(s) Total download size: 2.2 M Downloading Packages: (1/3): bzip2-1.0.3-6.el5_5.i386.rpm | 49 kB 00:00 (2/3): man-1.6d-2.el5.i386.rpm | 262 kB 00:02 (3/3): groff-1.18.1.1-13.el5.i386.rpm | 1.9 MB 00:17 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 104 kB/s | 2.2 MB 00:21 Running rpm_check_debug Running Transaction Test Finished Transaction Test Transaction Test Succeeded Running Transaction Installing : bzip2 1/3 Installing : groff 2/3 Installing : man 3/3 Installed: man.i386 0:1.6d-2.el5 Dependency Installed: bzip2.i386 0:1.0.3-6.el5_5 groff.i386 0:1.18.1.1-13.el5 Complete!
To man command manual simply run “man man” as below :
[root@CentOS57 ~]# man man
man(1) man(1)
NAME
man - format and display the on-line manual pages
SYNOPSIS
man [-acdfFhkKtwW] [--path] [-m system] [-p string] [-C config_file]
[-M pathlist] [-P pager] [-B browser] [-H htmlpager] [-S section_list]
[section] name ...
DESCRIPTION
man formats and displays the on-line manual pages. If you specify sec-
tion, man only looks in that section of the manual. name is normally
the name of the manual page, which is typically the name of a command,
function, or file. However, if name contains a slash (/) then man
interprets it as a file specification, so that you can do man ./foo.5
or even man /cd/foo/bar.1.gz.
See below for a description of where man looks for the manual page
files.
OPTIONS
-C config_file
Specify the configuration file to use; the default is
/etc/man.config. (See man.config(5).)
-M path
Specify the list of directories to search for man pages. Sepa-
rate the directories with colons. An empty list is the same as
not specifying -M at all. See SEARCH PATH FOR MANUAL PAGES.
-P pager
Specify which pager to use. This option overrides the MANPAGER
environment variable, which in turn overrides the PAGER vari-
able. By default, man uses /usr/bin/less -is.
-B Specify which browser to use on HTML files. This option over-
rides the BROWSER environment variable. By default, man uses
/usr/bin/less-is,
-H Specify a command that renders HTML files as text. This option
overrides the HTMLPAGER environment variable. By default, man
uses /bin/cat,
-S section_list
List is a colon separated list of manual sections to search.
This option overrides the MANSECT environment variable.
-a By default, man will exit after displaying the first manual page
it finds. Using this option forces man to display all the man-
ual pages that match name, not just the first.
-c Reformat the source man page, even when an up-to-date cat page
exists. This can be meaningful if the cat page was formatted
for a screen with a different number of columns, or if the pre-
formatted page is corrupted.
-d Donât actually display the man pages, but do print gobs of
debugging information.
-D Both display and print debugging info.
-f Equivalent to whatis.
-F or --preformat
Format only - do not display.
-h Print a help message and exit.
-k Equivalent to apropos.
-K Search for the specified string in *all* man pages. Warning:
this is probably very slow! It helps to specify a section.
(Just to give a rough idea, on my machine this takes about a
minute per 500 man pages.)
-m system
Specify an alternate set of man pages to search based on the
system name given.
-p string
Specify the sequence of preprocessors to run before nroff or
troff. Not all installations will have a full set of preproces-
sors. Some of the preprocessors and the letters used to desig-
nate them are: eqn (e), grap (g), pic (p), tbl (t), vgrind (v),
refer (r). This option overrides the MANROFFSEQ environment
variable.
-t Use /usr/bin/groff -Tps -mandoc to format the manual page, pass-
ing the output to stdout. The default output format of
/usr/bin/groff -Tps -mandoc is Postscript, refer to the manual
page of /usr/bin/groff -Tps -mandoc for ways to pick an alter-
nate format.
Depending on the selected format and the availability of printing
devices, the output may need to be passed through some filter or
another before being printed.
-w or --path
Donât actually display the man pages, but do print the loca-
tion(s) of the files that would be formatted or displayed. If no
argument is given: display (on stdout) the list of directories
that is searched by man for man pages. If manpath is a link to
man, then "manpath" is equivalent to "man --path".
-W Like -w, but print file names one per line, without additional
information. This is useful in shell commands like man -aW man
| xargs ls -l
