LINUX SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION on SuSE

Course Duration: 4 days

Course Overview: This course is designed to transition systems administrators and MIS
professionals from a commercial UNIX environment (e.g., Solaris, AIX, HP-UX) to SuSE
Linux. In particular this course addresses the differences that are encountered between
the two operating systems

Intended audience: Students taking this class should possess at least 1 year of
experience in the administration of a Solaris or Unix Server or have equivalent training.
Attendees should be comfortable working in UNIX/Solaris at the command level, and
should be familiar with the vi editor (Or similar editor), and UNIX or Solaris file
manipulation commands (e.g. file permissions, file copy, etc.)

Course Objectives:
· Learn about the philosophical differences between a GNU/Linux system and
commercial versions of Unix
· Install a GNU/Linux system
· Learn how a Linux i386 system boots
· Learn about the filesystem options for Linux
· Learn about network configuration for Linux, including DHCP, name server, NIS,
NFS, the automounter, and firewall issues
· Learn the benefits of the /proc filesystem
· Learn about packages and how to install them
· Learn about tools such as lsof, rsync, ethereal
· Learn about performance issues on GNU/Linux systems
· Learn how and when to reconfigure the kernel
· Learn how to deal with log files
· Learn how to use YAST to do system administration tasks

Prerequisites: System administration on a Unix/Solaris system (either a previous

training class or comparable experience). Comfortable working at UNIX/Solaris
command level. Be familiar with the vi Editor (or similar editor) and UNIX or Solaris file
manipulation commands.
COURSE OUTLINE
Introduction Useful tools
Class Logistics lsof and fuser
Typographic conventions renice
rsync
GNU/Linux introduction cron
Free software licenses Log files and their rotation
The Cathedral and the Bazaar The /proc filesystem
GNU Info sysctl
Filesystem Hierarchy Summary
Summary Lab
Lab
File and filesystem tools
The SuSE tools yast and yast2 Partitions
Introduction Filesystem labels
yast Boot time filesystem mounting
yast2 fsck
yast modules File attributes
Lab Adding a disk
Dealing with filesystem problems
User Information Summary
Adding and deleting users Lab
/etc/passwd and /etc/shadow
Groups Performance monitoring
Password aging Introduction
PAM sar
nsswitch.conf free
LDAP authentication vmstat
su and the root account iostat
Troubleshooting hints netstat
Summary top
Lab Graphical tools
Troubleshooting
RPM Packages Summary
RPM overview Lab
Working with rpm
Staying up-to-date
yast for package installation
RPM alternatives
Summary
Lab
Booting, part 1 Booting, part 2
The hardware boot process LILO
grub Kernel boot-time options
Booting single user Troubleshooting
Initial ramdisks Summary
init and startup scripts Lab
Boot floppies/CDs Filesystems
Shutting down the system Journaling overview
Troubleshooting Common filesystems (includes
Summary ReiserFS)
Lab Software RAID
Loop device
Networking, part 1 Summary
Network configuration Lab
DNS lookups
inetd Kernel performance issues
xinetd Overview
NIS Benchmarks
NIS+ General guidelines
ssh Recompiling
NFS ext2 filesystem tuning
Automounter ext3 filesystem tuning
Network monitoring and testing hdparm
tools System limits
Troubleshooting SuSE Powertweak
Summary Summary
Lab Lab

Networking, part 2 Kernel configuration

Static network configuration Introduction
mii-tool and ethtool Ways to configure the kernel
neat Configuration options
Virtual network interfaces Other make targets
Network performance tuning Kernel modules
Summary Initial ramdisks
Lab Troubleshooting
Summary
Network access control Lab
Review of networking concepts
Introduction
TCP wrappers
xinetd
IP Tables
GUI configuration tools
Troubleshooting
Summary
Lab