SUSE Linux Advanced System Administration — A 5-day course

 Open Public Course Closed In-House Course

Synopsis

This instructor led course is designed to teach the advanced administration, security, networking and performance tasks required on SUSE Linux within the Enterprise.

Targeted to closely follow the official Novell Certified Linux Professional (NCP) curriculum, this course together with the SUSE Linux Essentials and the SUSE Linux System Administration course will enable the delegate to work towards achieving the Novell Certified Linux Professional (NCP - SLES 10) qualification.

Course Objectives

On completion of this course the delegate will have in-depth technical knowledge of what is required to administer SUSE Linux within the Enterprise. They will have gained practical experience of configuring administrative, networking, performance and security aspects of a SUSE Linux Enterprise system to an advanced level. The delegate will posses the essential knowledge required to study towards the Novell Certified Linux Professional (NCP - SLES 10) certification.

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

• Perform administrative tasks with supplied tools such as YAST
• Setting up a network installation server
• Advanced network configuration
• Network troubleshooting
• Configuring network services LDAP, APACHE, SAMBA, SQUID, DNS and NIS
• Securing a Linux server using ACLs and extended file attributes
• Firewall configuration
• Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)
• Backup and restore
• Kernel installation and compilation
• Compiling software from source
• System logging via syslog
• System performance monitoring
• Collecting process and user activity with system accounting
• Hardware configuration with hotplug and udev
• XEN
• Shell scripting

Suitable for

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

Prerequisites

The course assumes administration knowledge of the SUSE Linux operating system to the level covered in the SUSE Linux System Administration course.

Examinations

This course will teach some of the necessary skills to enable the delegate to work towards achieving the Novell Certified Linux Professional (NCP - SLES 10) certification. Together with the SUSE Linux Essentials and the SUSE Linux System Administration course, this course is suitable for delegates intending to sit the related examination.

Before taking any exam, ensure you have the recommended experience. The Novell 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

Contents:

Course Introduction

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

Network Installation of Linux

• Configuring a Linux installation server
• Creating a PXE boot environment
• Automatic installation
• Exercise

Advanced Network Configuration and Troubleshooting

• Configuring the network card (ip link, ip addr)
• Configuring routing (ip route)
• Serial communication
• Network troubleshooting and related tools (ethereal, tcpdump, ping, traceroute, netstat, arp, nmap)
• Exercise

LDAP

• Structure of an LDAP Tree
• Configuring the LDAP server (slapd.conf)
• Testing the LDAP server (ldapsearch)
• Adding information into LDAP (lpdapadd)
• Configuring the LDAP Clients (nsswitch.conf, ldap.conf)
• Exercise

APACHE and SQUID

• APACHE main configuration files
• APACHE server configuration (main Section entries)
• Starting APACHE
• APACHE access configuration
• SQUID proxy server
• Configuring client browsers
• Starting SQUID
• The SQUID configuration file (squid.conf)
• SQUID security settings
• Exercise

SAMBA

• The SAMBA configuration file (smb.conf)
• Testing the SAMBA configuration file (testparm)
• Configuring SAMBA users
• Starting SAMBA
• Testing SAMBA (smbclient)
• Managing Windows filesystems (smbmount, nmblookup)
• Accessing Windows shares
• Exercise

The Domain Name Server

• DNS operation
• Types of DNS Servers
• Domain Name Space
• Setting up a DNS server
• Server configuration files (named.conf and databases)
• DNS resource record formats
• Starting and managing the DNS Server (rcnamed, rndc)
• Testing the DNS Server (host, dig, nslookup)
• DNS Client set up (resolv.conf)
• Exercise

Network Intergration Service (NIS)

• Server and client interaction (ypbind, ypserv)
• NIS Maps
• Name service configuration file (nsswitch.conf)
• Configuring the Master server
• Configuring the NIS clients
• Changing passwords
• Home directories in the NIS environment (automounter)
• Exercise

Securing Linux

• System security checklist
• User level security
• Limiting access to terminals
• Limiting access to files via ACLs (setfacl, getfacl)
• Limiting access to files by extended permissions and attributes (lsattr, chattr)
• System wide security settings and file access (chkstat)
• Exercise

Firewall Configuration

• Basic packets and routing
• Netfilter (iptables)
• Packet filtering (iptables, chains, rule targets, connection tracking)
• Network address translation (NAT)
• Exercise

Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)

• The main PAM configuration files (/etc/pam.d directory)
• Configuration file formats
• Controlling user access using the configuration files
• Exercise

Bachup 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

Kernel Compliation and Installation

• Kernel building
• Monolithic and Modular kernel design
• Listing modules (lsmod, modinfo)
• Modifying the kernel configuration
• Binary kernel packages
• Installing the kernel sources
• Configuring and building a kernel
• Editing the GRUB/LILO configuration file
• Kernel tuning (/proc sysctl.conf, sysctl)
• Exercise

Compiling Software from Source

• Installing programs from source (tar, tarball)
• Compiling Open Source Software (configure, make)
• Installing the compiled software (make install)
• Managing shared libraries (ldd)
• Compiling from SRC (source) RPM packages (rpmbuild, rpm)
• Exercise

System Monitoring and Performance Management

• Syslog configuration (syslog.conf)
• Testing syslog with logger
• Managing logs with logrotate (logrotate.d directory)
• System performance monitoring
• Collecting system performance information (sar)
• Measuring virtual memory (vmstat)
• Measuring I/O performance (iostat)
• Other tuning tools (top, free, ksysguard, gkrellm, xosview)
• System Accounting - collecting process and user information (rcacct, ac, lastcomm, sa)
• Exercise

Hardware Configuration

• The Hotplug system
• Devices and Interfaces.
• The sysfs filesystem and persistent names
• Device initialisation and interface configuration
• Hotplug and Coldplug
• The Udev system
• Exercise

XEN

• Basic definition
• XEN components
• The Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM)
• Virtualization Modes (Fully Virtual, Paravirtual)
• System requirements
• Installing XEN
• Creating a Virtual Machine
• Managing the VM environment (Yast and xm)
• Exercise

Shell Scripting Development

• Executing scripts
• Entering data into scripts (read)
• Command line arguments and positional variables
• Decision constructs (if, then, else, elif, fi)
• The case statement
• Looping constructs (while, until, for, do, done, continue, break)
• Arrays
• Exercise