Course: 000. Linux System Administration

Module 1: Getting Started with Linux

Introduction and Installation

• Topic: What is Linux? History, distributions (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, etc.), and the open-source philosophy.

• Hands-on: Download and create a bootable USB drive with Ubuntu Desktop.

• Assignment: Install Ubuntu on a virtual machine (e.g., VirtualBox) and boot into the desktop environment.

The Command Line Interface (CLI)

• Topic: Introduction to the terminal. Basic commands like ls, cd, pwd, and clear.

• Hands-on: Navigating the file system using absolute and relative paths.

• Assignment: Create a simple directory structure and navigate between folders using the command line.

Working with Files and Directories

• Topic: Commands for file manipulation: touch, mkdir, rm, rmdir, cp, mv. Understanding wildcards (*, ?).

• Hands-on: Creating, copying, moving, and deleting files and directories.

• Assignment: Replicate a given directory structure and file layout using only the command line.

Users and Permissions

• Topic: Understanding Linux users (whoami, id), groups, and file permissions (rwx). The chmod, chown, and chgrp commands.

• Hands-on: Changing file permissions and ownership.

• Assignment: Set specific read, write, and execute permissions for different users on a set of files.

Module 2: Essential Administration and Networking

The Superuser and System Information

• Topic: The sudo command and its importance. Viewing system information like hostname, kernel version (uname), and disk usage (df).

• Hands-on: Running administrative commands with sudo. Checking system resources.

• Assignment: Use sudo to install a simple software package and check your system's memory usage.

Package Management (APT)

• Topic: Introduction to APT (Advanced Package Tool) for managing software. Commands like apt update, apt upgrade, apt install, and apt remove.

• Hands-on: Installing and removing software packages from the official repositories.

• Assignment: Install a text editor (e.g., nano) and a web server (e.g., nginx) using APT.

Advanced Disk Management: Logical Volume Management (LVM)

• Topic: Understanding the limitations of traditional partitioning. Introduction to LVM, which provides flexibility in managing storage space. Concepts of Physical Volumes (PVs), Volume Groups (VGs), and Logical Volumes (LVs).

• Hands-on: Creating a new physical volume, adding it to a volume group, and creating a logical volume.

• Assignment: Extend an existing logical volume without losing data.

Networking Fundamentals

• Topic: Basic networking concepts. Commands like ping, ip addr, netstat, and ssh.

• Hands-on: Checking network connectivity and configuring a basic network interface.

• Assignment: Ping a website and use ip addr to find your machine's IP address.

Module 3: Advanced Administration

• Topic: The process lifecycle. Commands for managing processes: ps, top, kill, killall. Understanding process IDs (PIDs).

• Hands-on: Finding and terminating rogue processes.

• Assignment: Identify and kill a specific process by its PID.

Service Management (systemd)

• Topic: Introduction to systemd, the standard for managing services on modern Linux systems. Commands like systemctl start, stop, enable, and status.

• Hands-on: Starting, stopping, and checking the status of system services.

• Assignment: Use systemctl to restart the web server you installed in a previous session.

Disk and Storage Management

• Topic: Understanding disk partitions and file systems. Commands like fdisk, lsblk, mount, and umount.

• Hands-on: Listing disks and mounting a simple storage device.

• Assignment: Create a new directory and mount a virtual disk to it.

Module 4: Security and Maintenance

Users and Groups in Depth

• Topic: Advanced user and group management. Commands: useradd, usermod, userdel, groupadd.

• Hands-on: Creating new users and assigning them to groups.

• Assignment: Create a new user with a specific home directory and assign them to a newly created group.

Backup and Archiving

• Topic: Introduction to data backup and archiving. Commands like tar and gzip.

• Hands-on: Creating compressed archives of files and directories.

• Assignment: Create a compressed archive of your entire home directory.

Cron Jobs and Automation

• Topic: Automating tasks with cron. Understanding the crontab file syntax.

• Hands-on: Scheduling a script to run at a specific time.

• Assignment: Create a cron job that backs up a directory every night.

Log Files and Troubleshooting

• Topic: The importance of log files. Viewing system logs with journalctl and a live example of troubleshooting a service using its logs.

• Hands-on: Checking system logs and filtering them for specific information.

• Assignment: Find and analyze the log entries for the last time the nginx web server was started and stopped.

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