Linux Systems Administration

Course Overview

1. System Administration Overview

• System Administration Overview
• Installing a Linux virtual machine
• Terminal versus Shell
• A few simple commands

2. The Linux File System

• Navigating through the directory tree
• Parent and current directories
• Passing command arguments
• The touch command
• Making directories
• Combining command options

3. Linux File Editors

• Graphical editors - gedit and kate
• The nano editor
• Saving and exiting vi
• Command mode
• Heads or tails?

4. Copying, Moving, and Deleting Files

• Copying one file
• Copying multiple directories
• Moving multiple files
• Renaming files
• Removing directories

5. Linux Command Types

• The four categories of linux commands
• What does the command do?
• The info page
• Helpful apropos command
• The /usr/share/doc directory

6. Hard versus Soft Links

• Displaying file inode number
• Creating soft links
• Creating hard links

7. Superusers and the Root Login

• Accessing the root user
• The dash difference
• Setting the root password

8. Controlling the Population:

• The /etc/passwd file
• Adding users
• Modifying user attributes
• Defining the skeleton
• Changing the defaults
• Adding group members
• Primary versus secondary groups
• Changing file permissions

9. Piping and I/O Redirection

• Linux pipes
• Redirecting standard output
• Redirecting standard error
• Redirecting standard input

10. Analyzing and Manipulating Files

• Viewing file size
• Counting characters, words, and lines
• Sorting files
• Searching for patterns
• The stream editor
• Text processing with awk

11. Find/Locate Files

• The locate command
• Updating the file database
• The find command

12. Managing and Identifying Software Packages

• How to download packages
• How to install packages
• How to remove packages
• How to show package information
• Listing all packages
• Patching your system

13. Controlling Processes:

• What is a process?
• Parent process versus child process
• Foreground versus background processes
• Sending signals to processes
• Setting priorities for new processes
• The /proc directory

14. The Power of Sudo

• Examples of privileged commands
• Granting access with sudo
• Group privileges
• Listing user privileges
• visudo versus /etc/sudoers

15. Basic Networking

• Testing network connectivity
• The ip command
• The nmcli command
• Checking your IP address
• Flying with traceroute
• Breaking your DNS
• Changing your hostname

16. Shell Scripting Overview

• The PATH variable
• Reading user input
• Passing arguments to scripts
• Using the if condition
• Using the for loop
• Using the while loop
• Bash script functions

17. Controlling Processes: cron and crontab

• Our first cron job
• Run every five minutes
• Automating system patching
• Running a job once

18. System Backups

• Creating an archive
• Extracting archive files
• Compressing with gzip
• Compressing with bzip2
• Compressing with xz
• Measuring performance

19. Creating Aliases

• Your first alias
• One alias for multiple commands
• Listing all aliases
• Creating a permanent alias
• Removing an alias

20. File and Disk Management Tools

• Where are your devices?
• Where is your hard disk?
• Adding disks to your virtual machine
• Creating new disk partitions
• Creating new filesystems
• Mounting filesystems
• Unmounting filesystems
• Corrupting and fixing filesystems
• Creating logical volumes

21. LAMP Server Basics

• Installing Apache and Updating the Firewall
• Installing MySQL
• Installing PHP
• Creating a Virtual Host for your Website
• Testing PHP Processing on your Web Server
• Testing Database Connection from PHP

BONUS TOPICS / Time Permitting

22. The Samba File Sharing Facility

• Installing Samba
• Setting Samba's Global Options
• Creating Users
• Configuring the Samba Shares
• Logging Into the Samba Server

23. Networked File Systems (NFS)

• Downloading and Installing the Components
• Creating the Share Directories on the Host
• Configuring the NFS Exports on the Host Server
• Adjusting the Firewall on the Host
• Creating Mount Points and Mounting Directories on the Client
• Testing NFS Access
• Mounting the Remote NFS Directories at Boot
• Unmounting an NFS Remote Share

Prerequisites

This is an introductory-level course, designed for anyone wanting to learn Linux. Attendees should be comfortable working with computers and the command line, but no other specific skills are required to attend.