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  Linux System Administration


Public Schedule Dates

Course Duration

3 days

Course Overview

The Linux® System Administration course is aimed at anyone who will be in a position of administrating a Linux based system, or in need of a fuller knowledge of the tools and methods available for administration within Linux.

Who should attend

This course assumes the delegate has already gained a good understanding of basic UNIX/LINUX commands, e.g. from attending our LINUX Essentials course, or our UNIX® Essentials

Course Objectives

The course is based on the latest versions of SuSE and Red Hat. However, most of the subjects are applicable to any Linux flavour.
On completion of the course delegates will be able to:
- Know Linux history, good/bad points
- Understand the roles of an administrator
- Configure X Windows
- Understand Linux documentation
- Manage users and groups
- Maintain and interpret System Logs
- Fully understand and manage hardware
- Fully understand and manage disk filesystems
- Understand and control processes
- Implement job scheduling using at and cron
- Install, remove, list and verify software
- Upgrade to a new Kernel.
- Be able to backup and restore a Linux system
- Understand and configure the boot loaders LILO and GRUB
- Understand Boot and Shutdown procedures, including starting/stopping subsystems
- Basic Firewall configuration
- Basic Network configuration.
- Perform basic troubleshooting
- Recover from a variety of boot problems
- Share files and printers between Linux and Windows® machines using SAMBA
- Manage all aspects of printer administration
- Install a Linux system

Course Topics

   Linux Overview

Define and identify origins, benefits, drawbacks, and uses of the Linux operating system
Differences between Linux and UNIX
Differences between the Linux distributions

   Understand the roles of an administrator

The superuser, SU, System Admin Tools, Denying root access

   Configure X Windows

Configure, start, disable, troubleshoot X Windows.
Virtual Terminals.
Gnome and KDE Interfaces.

   Understand Linux Documentation

man,
HOWTOs,
Guides,
LDP,
the info command

   Manage users and groups

useradd, usermod, userdel, groupadd, groupmod, groupdel, /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/group.
Privileged users, the sudo command, customising shells with .bash_profile and .bashrc

   Maintain and Interpret System Logs

What and where are my logs, and how/when to trim them.

   Fully understand and manage hardware

What hardware do I have?
How to add/remove hardware. (eg disks, modems etc).
Device Files What are they, what do they contain, how to create them, and what are they called?
The dmesg command. The hwconf file

   Fully understand and manage disk filesystems

The Linux/UNIX directory layout.
Partitions (primary and logical).
Filesystem types, differences between ext2 and ext3.
Raw and block useage.
Creating a new partition, putting a filesystem on it, mounting it, checking it's mounted, getting it mounted automatically at boot time.
The /etc/fstab file. Mounting/ejecting cdroms and floppies.
Unmounting.
Filesystem maintenance, monitoring disk usage, how full is too full?
Expanding/reducing filesystems,
fixing broken filesystems.

   Understand and control processes

The process tree,
ps, kill, pkill, pstree, top,
other performance and monitoring tools.

   Implement job scheduling using at and cron

at, crontab, /etc/crontab, anacron

   Install, remove, list and verify software

rpm with all the options.

   Upgrade to a new Kernel.

Where, when, why and how?
Be able to backup and restore a Linux system
dump, cpio, tar, gzip, dd

   Understand and configure the boot loaders LILO and GRUB

Difference between LILO and GRUB.
Installing a new loader.
Switching between LILO and GRUB

   Understand Boot and Shutdown procedures, including starting/stopping subsystems

init and the /etc/rc.d directories and files.
Permanently and/or temporarily starting/stopping subsystems (eg telnet).
The shutdown commands.
Enabling/disabling Ctrl-Alt-Del.
Allowing non-root users to shutdown.

   Basic Firewall Configuration

Disabling insecure connections, (eg telnet, ftp)
Using the ssh commands.

   Basic Network Configuration.

Displaying/changing hostname, IP, netmask and Broadcast Addresses.
Using DHCP.
Configuring a Modem
Setting up a Web Server.

   Recover from a variety of boot problems

Breaking in with no root password
Recovering from both minor and major boot problems.
Booting from floppy/CD-ROM.

   Share files and printers between Linux and Microsoft machines

Basic SAMBA configuration

   Manage all aspects of printer administration

Local, remote and network printers

   Install a Linux System


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