Linux System Administration

Course Description

This five-day hands-on course teaches students how set up and perform tasks needed to effectively administer a Linux system.

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Set up a Linux system from scratch
Update and install new software packages
Create and install online documentation
Create hard and symbolic links
Find files, applications and utilities by date, name, owner, type or other criteria
Configure the system for RAID and Logical Volumes
Enable disk quotas
Monitor system performance and identify performance bottlenecks
Kill, suspend and alter process priority
Schedule and reschedule tasks
Add, modify, and delete users and groups
Configure user shell environments
Back up and restore files
Describe Linux processes
Identify Linux special files and devices
Manage passwords
Protect files and directories from unauthorized access
Start up and shutdown any Linux computer

Course Benefits

Students will increase their productivity by learning the tools and techniques needed to efficiently and effective administer a Linux system.

Who Should Attend

This course is valuable for all computer professionals involved with Linux and especially for those who are acquiring system administration responsibilities on a Linux system.

Prerequisite

To ensure your success, we recommend you first take either our Introduction To UNIX course or our Introduction To Linux course, or have the equivalent knowledge. Familiarity with Web browsers, the vi editor, and Linux command line interface is assumed.

Hands-on Exercises

Throughout this course, students perform a series of extensive hands-on exercises including:

Installing Linux
Discerning the Linux flavor
Adding a new manual page
Setting file permissions
Creating hard and symbolic links
Finding files with find
Kernel tuning
Managing file and group ownership
Setting and changing permission modes with chmod, and umask
Working with SUID and SGID
Obtaining process status and changing status priorities
Scheduling, and rescheduling processes with at, cron, nice, and renice
Monitoring performance with free, vmstat, ps and top
Discovering available devices on the Linux system
Mounting and unmounting file systems
Booting and rebooting the system
Understanding the boot process
Understanding run levels and startup scripts
Customizing system log files
Add new users and groups
Managing passwords
Making, editing, and deleting a crontab entry
Using rysnc, dump, cpio, and tar to back up files
Enabling disk quotas
Grow file systems
Set up networking, including IPv6

Course Outline
Chapter 1 Linux Installation

Hardware Compatibility
Multi-OS Booting
Partition Considerations
Partition Planning
File System Considerations
Journaled Filesystems
Installation Choices
CD-ROM Installation
Network Installation
Language Selection
Keyboard Configuration
Automatic Partitioning
Network Configuration
Security Configuration
Root Password Configuration
Time Zone Configuration
Installing Packages
First Boot
Chapter 2 PC Hardware and Linux

USB Devices and Configuration
Linux Device Files
Configuring New Hardware
What is the kernel
Kernel responsibilities
Configuring Kernel via /proc
What is the kernel
Kernel responsibilities
System calls
Device drivers
Kernel maintenance
Customizing the kernel
Kernel modules
Chapter 3 System Configuration

Network Services
Configuring NTP Clients
Managing Software
Package Dependencies
Configuring Printers
Common UNIX Printing System
Defining a Printer
Configuring Kernel Parameters
Chapter 4 The Boot Process

GRUB Configuration
/etc/inittab
The rc.local file
Managing Daemons
Controlling Startup Services
Shutdown and Reboot
Chapter 5 Users and Groups

User Administration
Modifying Accounts
Group Administration
Password Aging
Default User Files
Controlling Logins
PAM
sudo
NFS
Chapter 6 File System Administration

File System Creation
Mounting File Systems
Swap
Disk Usage
Disk Quotas
File Access Control Lists
Backing up Files
Planning a backup strategy
tar
cpio
rsync
dump and restore
Chapter 7 - Raid and Logical Volume Management

Implementing LVM
Advanced LVM Concepts
RAID Concepts, Tools, and Implementation
Growing a File System
Chapter 8 Automating Tasks

The /etc/cron.d directory
The cron utility
Making your own crontab entry
The at utility
Monitoring disk usage
The top utility
The vmstat utility
The free utility
Linux processes
Using ps
What are daemons and processes
Background commands (&)
Killing processes
Signals
System logs
Controlling access
Viewing processes
Managing processes
System logging
Process accounting
Limiting system resources
Chapter 9 Networking

Ethernet Hardware Tools
Runtime configuration change
ARP
Starting and Stopping Interfaces
Virtual IP Interfaces
Enabling IPv6
Interface Bonding
DNS Clients
DHCP Clients
Network Diagnostics
Chapter 10 The X Window System

The X Window System
Configuring X
X Fonts
Display Manager Selection
X Security
Chapter 11 Security and Troubleshooting

Security Concepts
Tightening Default Security
Staying Current
The Super Daemon
TCP Wrappers
hosts.allow & hosts.deny
Firewalls
Gathering Information
Information from Log Files
Useful Debugging Aids
Common Problems
The Rescue Environment
Chapter 12 Shell Scripting

Environment Variables
Exit Status
Setting A Variable
Special Variable
Test Conditions
For and While Loops
The case Construct
Scripts With Arguments
Reading In Variables
Subshells

Hardware Requirements

Student computers should feature at a minimum

Pentium III class processor
Minimum 512 MByte RAM
Minimum 30 GByte hard drive
32 MByte graphics card
Linux operating system
Two Ethernet adapters with network cables
A mouse
3.5-inch Floppy Drive
CD-ROM Drive
Browser
Computer monitor

Instructor's computer should feature at a minimum

Pentium III class processor
Minimum 512 MByte RAM
Minimum 30 GByte hard drive
32 MByte graphics card
Linux operating system
Two Ethernet adapters with network cables
A mouse
3.5-inch Floppy Drive
CD-ROM Drive
Browser
Computer monitor