Linux System Administration (LPI)

Course Introduction

• Administration and Course Materials
• Course Structure and Agenda
• Delegate and Trainer Introductions

Installing Linux

• Information required
• Installation using virtual consoles
• Installation methods (local CD and networked)
• Installing via a remote system using VNC
• Using boot time options
• Partitioning and software selection
• Installation procedures
• Exercise

Devices Under Linux

• Device files
• Device file naming conventions
• Examining hardware under the /proc directory
• Using the hwinfo command
• Investigating bus/devices: - lspci, lsdev, lsusb commands etc.
• Detecting new/existing devices
• Monitoring the system with siga
• Exercise

Account Management

• Files used in creating users and groups
• Adding, modifying and deleting users and groups
• Password administration
• The shells and the user environment - login files
• The sudo command
• Exercise

Filesystem Configuration

• The Native Linux filesystems ext2, ext3, ext4 and resierfs
• Filesystem journals
• Disk partitioning: fdisk and parted
• Filesystem administration and Maintenance (mkfs, mount, umount and fsck)
• Creating ISO images
• Managing disk quotas
• Exercise

SWAP

• Swap overview
• Creating and monitoring swap space (swapon, swapoff and mkswap)
• Exercise

Package Management

• The Redhat Package Management (RPM) system
• The SUSE zypper package manager
• Installing, updating and removing software
• Querying and verifying packages
• Dependency problems and resolution
• System updating - manual and automatic
• Exercise

System Start-Up/Shutdown

• System startup procedure
• The boot process and run-levels (init and /etc/inittab)
• Managing services (chkconfig and rc commands)
• Modifying system settings in /etc/sysconfig
• Shutdown commands
• Exercise

Printer Management

• The CUPS printing System - local and remote printing
• Administering CUPS using the web browser interface
• Administering CUPS using other graphical tools
• Print queue management
• Print commands
• Exercise

Process Monitoring and Scheduling

• Monitoring system processes (strace, top, pstree and ksysguard)
• Scheduling jobs using 'at' and 'crontab'
• Controlling access to the 'at' and 'crontab' utilities
• Exercise

System Security

• The Secure shell: OpenSSH
• Encryption and Authentication Under SSH
• SSH and Port Tunnelling
• GPG
• GPG Tools
• Managing keys and encryption
• Managing digital signatures
• Exercise

Connecting Linux to the Network

• Basic network configuration (i.p. addresses, classes, masks, MAC address)
• IPv4 and IPv6 addressing
• Network protocols
• Service port numbers
• Configuration files
• Managing network devices (ifup, ifdown, ifstatus)
• Configuring network information (hostnames, i.p addressing, domains)
• Changing media speed (mii-tool, ethtool)
• Managing routing
• Exercise

Internet Services

• The extended internet daemon (xinetd)
• Handling network service requests with xinetd
• Enable and configuring access to a service
• Configuring TCP/IP wrappers for security
• Configuring the network time protocol daemon for a client
• Exercise

Backup and Restore

• Tape devices
• Controlling tapes (mt)
• Backing and restoring with the tar command
• Backing and restoring with the cpio command
• Using dump and restore commands to backup and restore file systems
• Backing up raw data with dd
• File compression and archiving (tar, gzip, bzip2)
• Mirroring data between systems with rsync
• Backing up and restoring with yast
• Exercise

Troubleshooting Linux

• Troubleshooting process - check list
• Manual booting into single user mode
• Automatic booting into single user mode (fsck checking)
• Rescue environment utilities and operation
• Common boot problems and their resolution
• Exercise

System Logging

• Syslog Configuration
• The /etc/syslog.conf Configuration File
• Editing the syslog.conf File
• Testing Using logger
• Managing Logs with logrotate
• Exercise

Addendum: Reference Materials (provided within the course handbook for additional reading)Appendix A - Electronic Mail

• Configuring Postfix Mail

Appendix B - Customising and Using X Windows

• Configuring the X Windows GUI interface and desktops

Appendix C - Accessibility

• Configuring the desktop for disabled users

Appendix D - Localisation

• Geographical considerations and character sets

Appendix E - YUM and APT

• Additional software package management tools

Appendix F - RAIDTOOLS

• The old style software RAID tools

Follow-On Courses

Linux Advanced System Administration (LPI)