Linux System Administration (LPI) - A 5-day course

 Open Public Course Closed In-House Course

Synopsis

This instructor led course is designed to teach the key administration, security and performance administration of a LINUX Enterprise system. Targeted to closely follow the official LPI curriculum, this course together with the LINUX Essentials and the LINUX Advanced System Administration course will enable the delegate to work towards achieving the LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 qualifications.

Objectives

On completion of this course the delegate will have technical knowledge of what is required to administer LINUX within the Enterprise. They will have gained practical experience of configuring administrative, networking and security aspects of a LINUX Enterprise system. The delegate will posses the essential knowledge required to study towards achieving the LPI certifications.

The delegate will have knowledge in all, and practise in some, of the following:

• Performing administrative tasks with supplied tools such as YaST
• Installing and updating LINUX
• Listing device information
• Managing user and group account information
• Managing the LINUX file systems
• Managing the Logical Volume Manager (LVM)
• Managing software RAID
• Listing, creating and removing swap space
• Managing software packages
• System startup/shutdown management
• Managing system services
• Configuring local and remote printers
• Process monitoring and job scheduling
• Connecting the server to the network
• Managing basic network services (ftp, telnet, ssh etc.)
• Managing NFS to share files and directories
• Troubleshooting and responding to boot problems

Intended Audience

This course is suitable for novice LINUX System Administrators who need to acquire knowledge of the key administrative, networking and security tasks required on LINUX within the Enterprise.

Prerequisites

Basic knowledge of the LINUX operating system in an Enterprise environment to the level covered in the LINUX Essentials course.

Examinations

This course will teach some of the necessary skills to enable the delegate to work towards achieving the LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 certifications. Together with the LINUX Essentials and the LINUX Advanced System Administration course, this course is suitable for delegates intending to sit the LPI 101, LPI 102, LPI 201 and LPI 202 examinations.

Before taking any exam, ensure you have the recommended experience. The LINUX website lists all exam requirements and these are updated regularly.

Exams are not included as part of the course.

Publicly scheduled dates, locations, and prices

Outline Course Contents

Course Introduction

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

Linux Product Offerings

• The different commercial LINUX product offerings
• LINUX certification and exams

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, lsusb commands etc.
• Detecting new/existing devices
• Monitoring the system with siga
• Exercise

User Administration

• 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 and resierfs
• Filesystem journals
• Disk partitioning: fdisk and parted
• Filesystem administration and Maintenance (mkfs, mount, umount and fsck)
• Managing disk quotas
• Exercise

Logical Volume Management (LVM)

• LVM Overview
• Configuring LVM (pvcreate, vgcreate and lvcreate etc.)
• Displaying information about the LVM environment (pvdisplay, vgdisplay, lvdisplay)
• Resizing Logical Volumes (lvextend, resize2fs, resize_reiserfs)
• Logical Volume Snapshots (lvcreate, lvdisplay)
• Exercise

RAID

• RAID overview
• Raw devices and partitions
• Creating a RAID device (fdisk, /etc/raidtab, mkraid, mdadm)
• Managing a RAID device (/proc/mdstat raidstart, raidstop, lsraid)
• Creating and mount a file system on a RAID device
• Hot swapping failed drives
• Exercise

Swap

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

Package Management

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

System Startup/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 (ps, top, pstree amd ksysguard)
• Scheduling jobs using 'at' and 'crontab'
• Controlling access to the 'at' and 'crontab' utilities
• Exercise

Connecting Linux to the Network

• Basic network configuration (i.p. addresses, classes, masks, MAC address)
• 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
• Secure access with OpenSSH
• The OpenSSH programs (ssh. scp, sftp)
• Exercise

NFS Network Services

• NFS operation and daemons (portmapper etc.)
• Setting up an NFS server (/etc/exports and exportfs)
• Setting up an NFS client (mount)
• Mounting NFS filesystems at boot (/etc/fstab)
• Using the automounter to access NFS mounts on demand
• Exercise

Troubleshooting

• 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

Mail Services (Optional)

• Components of the mail system (agents)
• Common mail user agents to access mail
• Configuring the postfix system (files in /etc/postfix)
• Exercise