Learn

Click to edit Linux

Master in style
title 3 Hours

Agenda
Agenda
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• Which Linux to use
• How to install
• Logging in to Linux
• Your first shell script
• Understanding where to find what
• Finding help about commands
• Accessing Linux Remotely
• Using storage devices
• Q&A
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

About the Instructor

About your instructor
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• Linux user since 1992, Linux professional since 1996
• Linux author and instructor since 1996
• Many titles on this platform
• Live: Linux Fundamentals Bootcamp
• Linux Fundamentals - recorded video course
• RHCSA Crash Course
• Containers in 4 hours
• Kubernetes in 4 hours
• Ansible in 4 hours
• and many more, all on learning.oreilly.com
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

About you
PollClick
question 1
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• How would you rate your own Linux knowledge on a
scale 1-5?
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
PollClick
question 2
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• Do you have a favorite distribution?
• not yet
• Red Hat / CentOS / Fedora
• Ubuntu /Linux Mint
• Oracle
• SUSE
• Windows Subsystem for Linux
• Other
PollClick
question 3
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• Which job title applies to you best?
• Systems administrator
• Developer
• Devops
• Manager
• Student
• Other
PollClick
Question 4
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• Which statement best applies to you
• I want to learn how to work with WSL
• I want to learn how to access a remote Linux installation and work on
that
• I want to install Linux on a computer and work with it from there
PollClick
question 5
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• Which part of the world are you from?
• North/Central America
• South America
• India
• Asia
• Europe
• Netherlands
• Africa
• Australia Pacific
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

Which Linux to Use:

Distributions
About Linux Distributions
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• The Linux kernel is the heart of the operating system
• Other tools come from different open source projects
• Source code of these projects is freely available on Git
• Because collecting them individually to compile it into a working
computer is a lot of work, there are Linux distributions
• Or use https://linuxfromscratch.org if you want to do it yourself
(not recommended for beginners)
Most common Linux Distributions
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• Red Hat and Family
• CentOS
• Fedora
• Oracle Linux
• Rocky Linux
• Ubuntu and Family
• Linux Mint
• Debian
• Kali
• WSL
• Cloud optimized
• Alpine
• Busybox
About the focus of Linux distributions
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• Linux is the worldwide leading server platform
• Linux is used behind cloud to run applications in containers on top
of a Linux distribution
• Linux is in Windows as Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
• Linux is in embedded devices
• Linux is in your Android phone
• The only platform where Linux is not leading is the end-user
desktop
• Fun fact: Most Linux professionals use MacOS because it runs all
applications and is closely related to Linux
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

How to Install Linux

HowClick
to work with Linux?
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• To start working with Linux, you'll need to put it on your computer
• Instances in cloud are deployed, in all other cases you'll need to install
it
• Install on physical hardware or in a virtual machine
• Recommended Requirements
• 1GB of RAM
• 20GB disk space
• Connectivity to the Internet
• Alternatively, use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
Installing Linux for this class
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• Use WSL
• Use the Rocky O'Reilly Sandbox
• Don't use the Linux Sandbox!
• Use a virtualization platform
• VirtualBox: free
• VMware Fusion/Workstation: $$ but superior
• Parallels
• HyperV
• Or look for "free tier Linux" in AWS, Google, Azure
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

Logging in to Linux
Connecting to Linux
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• To log in, you should use a non-root user account
• There are multiple common ways to connect
• From the GDM Login Screen
• From the console
• Remotely (covered later)
To Root or not to Root
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• Avoid logging in as root directly
• Root is a kernel level user and as such unrestricted!
• Use sudo to run commands with root privileges
• And if there really is no other option: use su - to open a root shell
sudo versus su
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• sudo allows you to run commands with elevated privileges
• Requires authorization
• Password of the authorized user account is used
• su - allows you to open a root shell
• Requires the root password
• Does not work on Ubuntu (or WSL)
• Notice that some distributions don't set a root password by default
• sudo su - and sudo -i open a root shell for you
LabClick
1: Accessing Linux
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• Determine how you want to access Linux in this class and access it.
• From the login prompt, if required, log in as a regular non-root user
• If your Linux environment doesn't require you to log in, type
whoami to see the actual username that is used
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

Your First Shell Script

Running a Shell Script
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• The Linux Bash shell offers a powerful scripting language
• Bash scripting is easy to use and straightforward and will always
have a place besides Python and other languages
• To create a script, you need an editor: vim (vi) is the only editor
that really matters
• Use vimtutor to learn how to work with it
• BUT: vim is relatively complex, for a start use nano to edit text files
and worry about vim later
• To run the script, you need to make it executable
Permissions and Running Scripts
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• Linux is the most secure operating system around
• Because files by default cannot be executed
• No virii
• No ransomwhere
• Use chmod +x to make your script file executable!
The $PATH and Other Environment Variables
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• Linux runs commands from the $PATH
• The current directory is not in the $PATH
• Copy your script there where it belongs: /usr/local/bin
• sudo cp countdown /usr/local/bin
• Or rewrite the $PATH:
• export PATH=$PATH:/my/directory
Getting access to the script
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• My example script is in my github repository
• Use the following to install the git client
• Ubuntu: sudo apt-get update; sudo apt install git
• CentOS: sudo dnf install git
• Use git clone https://github.com/sandervanvugt/linuxin3hours
• If prompted for a username / password, you've made a typo!
• The git clone command creates a directory "linuxin3hours" in your
current directory, containing this script
LabClick
2: Install the Git Client
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• Open a terminal and type which git. If the output looks like
/usr/bin/git, you don't have to install anything.
• Use cat /etc/os-release. This will tell you on which Linux
distribution you are
• If you're on Ubuntu and you don't have Git installed, type sudo apt
install git
• If you're on Red hat and related and you don't have Git installed,
type sudo dnf install git
• Type git clone https://github.com/sandervanvugt/l3h to clone the
course Git repository
• Use ls ~/git to verify its content
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

Understanding where to find

what
Main Directory Structure
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• Linux is file oriented, so knowing about files and directories is
essential
• /home/$USER is the user homedir
• /tmp is for temporary files
• Non-root users have write access to /tmp and /home/$USER only
• /usr/bin is for non-root binaries
• /usr/sbin is for system binaries
• /etc is for config files
• and many more
Finding Files
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• Use find to find the exact location of any file
• find / -name "myfile"
• Use which to quickly find the exact location of an executable file
• which passwd
About Standardization
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• The Linux Filesystem hierarchy is highly standardized
• This is because of Linux Foundation
• https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org
• The File System Hierarchy is documented in man hier
LabClick
3: Finding Files
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• Use the most efficient way to find the location of all files with the
name "passwd"
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

Finding Help about Linux

Commands
Using man
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• Given differences between distributions, Google can be confusing
as well as outdated
• man is on-system documentation and always provides accurate
system-specific documentation
• Before using man, you need to know which man page to use
Finding the right man page
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• man uses a database that contains names and descriptions of
commands
• Use sudo mandb to generate it if that hasn't been done yet
• Use man -k keyword to generate an overwhelming list of help
output
• Use man -k keyword | grep something to filter down the results
• Filtering on man sections is useful: see man man for an overview
Other options for getting help
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• command --help provides command line option summary
• pinfo command provides additional information
• Use if man See also states that additional information is available via
info
LabClick
4: Using help
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• Use the appropriate command to find detailed usage information
about the grep command. Which option do you need to use this
command in case-insenstive mode?
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

Accessing Linux Remotely

Understanding Remote Linux Access
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• Most people don't sit directly behind the Linux console
• SSH is the most common way to access Linux
• To access SSH, you'll need the following
• If necessary: install the software package
• Start and enable the process
• Find the IP address
• Open a port in the firewall
• Remote graphical access to Linux is not commonly used
Checking and Installing Software Packages
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• Before using SSH, you'll need to install it
• Use sudo apt install openssh-server on Ubuntu, and sudo dnf
install openssh-server on CentOS
• To install software, access to repositories is required
• On Ubuntu, use sudo apt update before installing packages
Managing Processes
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• Use ps aux | grep ssh to see if the SSH service is currently running
• Or use top for an overview of most active processes
• If it's not running yet, use systemctl
• systemctl status sshd
• sudo systemctl start sshd
• sudo systemctl enable sshd
• On WSL, use the service command
• sudo service ssh status
• sudo service ssh start
Stopping Processes
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• And if you don't want to have the process anymore
• sudo systemctl stop sshd
• sudo systemctl disable --now sshd
• sudo kill $(pidof sshd)
• On WSL, use the service command
• sudo service ssh stop
• And better don't use this
• sudo kill -9 $(pidof sshd)
Analyzing Network Information
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• To remotely access a host, you need its IP address
• Use ip addr show to find it
• Do NOT use ifconfig, it is obsolete and often not even installed
anymore
Opening a Port in the Firewall
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• Check if the firewall is running
• sudo firewall-cmd --list-all (CentOS)
• sudo ufw status (Ubuntu)
• WSL does not run the firewall by default
• Add the service to the firewall
• sudo firewall-cmd --add service sshd --permanent; firewall-cmd --
reload
• sudo ufw allow ssh
LabClick
5: enabling SSH
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• Type sudo apt-get update to update the package indexes
• Use sudo apt install openssh-server to install the SSH server
• Type systemctl status ssh to verify the SSH server is running
• Use ip a to check your local IP address
• Type ssh localhost to open an SSH session to "localhost"
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

Using Storage Devices

Using Storage Devices
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• To access disk devices, you need to find the device name
• Every disk device has a storage device file in /dev
• Plug in your USB thumb drive and use lsblk to find the device name
• Next, use sudo mount /dev/sdb /mnt to make your disk device
accessible on the directory /mnt
• May need to change mount point as well as device name
• On WSL, device mounts are handled by Windows, and mounted
devices occur in /mnt
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

Where to go from here

Where to go next
Click to edit Master title style
• Live: Linux Fundamentals Bootcamp (2x4 hours)
• Linux Fundamentals - recorded video course
• RHCSA Crash Course
• Containers in 4 hours
• Kubernetes in 4 hours
• Ansible in 4 hours
• and many more titles, all on learning.oreilly.com
 Learn
Click to edit Linux
Master in style
title 3 Hours

Q&A