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Lecture 1 Introduction

This course covers system and network administration using Linux. It is intended for students interested in learning about system administration roles and responsibilities. The course will cover configuring and managing Linux systems, boot processes, user accounts, resources, security, utilities, and basic network services. It will not cover networking, security, Windows administration, or hardware in depth. The instructor is Ahmad Hassan and the class meets from 10am to 4:30pm, including labs.

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Salman Khan
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
33 views

Lecture 1 Introduction

This course covers system and network administration using Linux. It is intended for students interested in learning about system administration roles and responsibilities. The course will cover configuring and managing Linux systems, boot processes, user accounts, resources, security, utilities, and basic network services. It will not cover networking, security, Windows administration, or hardware in depth. The instructor is Ahmad Hassan and the class meets from 10am to 4:30pm, including labs.

Uploaded by

Salman Khan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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System and Network

Administration

Instructor : Ahmad Hassan


Email Address :
[email protected]
Class timing : 10 A.M to 4:430 Pm
(including labs)
Who is this course for?
● Students interested in learning
– The roles and responsibilities of a computer systems
and network administrator
– How to configure & manage their own linux systems
– How to diagnose and debug problems
– How some of the major system services operate
– Why they need to be nice to the sysadmin

UNIX/Linux familiarity and programming
experience required

Spring 2012
What will the course
cover?
Understand the role & responsibilities of a system administrator

● Configure the Linux operating system


● Describe the system boot process
● Setup and manage user accounts and groups
● Manage the resources and security of a computer running

Linux
Make effective use of Unix utilities and scripting languages
● (bash, Perl)
Configure and manage simple network services on a Linux
● system
Develop an appreciation of the documentation available as part
of an installed Unix/Linux system

Spring 2012
What will it not cover?
● Networking in depth
–Take CSE342 or CSE404 instead
● Network security in depth
–Take CSE343 instead

Windows administration
● Many hardware issues
● All the details needed
for certification
–Lots of certification
courses available
Spring 2012
What will it not cover?
● Networking in depth
–Take CSE342 or CSE404 instead
● Network security in depth
–Take CSE343 instead

Windows administration
● Many hardware issues
● All the details needed
for certification
–Lots of certification
courses available
Spring 2012
What does a sysadmin do?

Administration ?

Spring 2012
What does a sysadmin do?
● User account management
● Hardware management
● Perform filesystem

backups, restores

Install and configure new software and services
Keep systems and services operating
–Monitor system and network
–Troubleshoot problems


Maintain documentation

Audit security
Help users,
performance tuning,
Spring 2012
User Account Management
● User Ids
● Mail
● Home directories (quotas,
drive capacities)
● Default startup files

(paths)
Permissions, group
● memberships, accounting and
restrictions

Communicating policies and


Spring 2012
Hardware Management
– Capacity planning
– Inventory
– Hardware evaluation and purchase
– Adding and removing hardware

Configuration
● Cabling, wiring, DIP switches, etc.
– Device driver installation
– System configuration and settings
– User notification and documentation

Spring 2012
Data Backups
– Perhaps most important aspect!
– Disk and backup media capacity planning
– Performance, network and system impact
– Disaster recovery
Onsite/Offsite

● Periodic testing

● Multiple
copies
– User communication

Schedules, restore guarantees
and procedures, loss
tolerance
Spring 2012
Software Installation/Maintenance

● Evaluation of software

Downloading and building (compiling
and tweaking)

Installation

Maintenance of
multiple versions

Security

Patches and
● updates
User notification,
Spring 2012
System Monitoring
– Hardware and services functioning and operational
– Capacity

Disk, RAM, CPU, network
– Security

Passwords
● Break-ins
– System logs

Examination
● Periodic rotation and truncation

Spring 2012
Troubleshooting
● Problem discovery, diagnosis, and resolution
– Root cause analysis
– Often quite difficult!
● Often requires
– Broad and thorough
system knowledge
– Outside experts
– Luck

Expediency
Spring 2012
Local Documentation
● Administrative policies and procedures
– Backup media locations
– Hardware

Location
● Description, configuration, connections
– Software

Install media (or download location)
● Installation, build, and configuration details
● Patches installed
● Acceptable use policies
Spring 2012
Security Concerns
● System logging and audit facilities
– Evaluation and implementation
– Monitoring and analysis
– Traps, auditing and monitoring programs

Unexpected or unauthorized use

detection Monitoring of security
advisories
– Security holes and weaknesses
– Live exploits
Spring 2012
User Assistance
– Time intensive!
– Techniques

Help desks
● Trouble-ticket systems
– Software availability and usage
– Software configuration settings
– Hardware usage, maintenance, and troubleshooting
– Writing FAQs

Spring 2012
Administration Challenges
– Need

Broad knowledge of hardware and software
● To balance conflicting requirements
– Short-term vs. long-term needs
– End-user vs. organizational requirements
– Service provider vs. police model
● To work well and efficiently under pressure
● 24x7 availability
● Flexibility, tolerance, and patience
● Good communication skills
– People think of sysadmins only when things don't work!

Spring 2012
Which OS to learn to admin?

Window
Linux
Macintosh
Why (Red Hat/CentOS) Linux?
– Need to use some OS to make ideas concrete
– Really only two choices:

Windows (I'm not qualified)
● UNIX (and UNIX-like OSes such as Linux)
– Both are useful and common in the real world
– Linux is popular, free, and usable on personal
machines, but also handles large-scale services
– Red Hat/CentOS is relatively polished, popular

I've been using it since ~1996
● There are, of course, many alternatives

Spring 2012
What is Linux?
much is courtesy of www.kernel.org

Linux is a clone of the operating system Unix, written by a loosely-knit
team of hackers across the Net. It aims towards POSIX and
Single UNIX Specification compliance.

Like any modern fully-fledged Unix, Linux includes true multitasking,
virtual memory, shared libraries, demand loading, shared copy-on-
write executables, proper memory management, and TCP/IP
networking.

Linux really refers to the kernel – most of the commands that you are
familiar with are really separate programs, not specific to Linux, and

often are part of the Free Software Foundation's GNU project.
Linux was first developed for 32-bit x86-based PCs (386 or higher).
These days it also runs on dozens of other processors.

Spring 2012
Brief history of UNIX
● Originated as a research project in 1969 at AT&T Bell Labs
– Made available to universities (free) in 1976

Berkeley UNIX started in 1977 when UCB licensed code from
AT&T.

Berkeley Software Distribution started in 1977 with 1BSD, and
ended in 1993 with 4.4BSD

Licensing costs from AT&T increased, so Berkeley attempted to
remove AT&T code, but ran out of funds before completion.

Final release of AT&T-free code called 4.4BSD-Lite.
– Most current BSD distributions (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD) are
● derived from 4.4BSD-Lite.
Most commercial versions of UNIX (Solaris, HP-UX) are derived
from the AT&T code
Spring 2012
Brief history of Linux

Created as a personal project (and still
controlled) by Linus Torvalds, a
Finnish graduate student, in 1991

Conceived as an offshoot of Minix (a
model OS)
● – Not derived from AT&T or BSD UNIX
Red Hat (one of many Linux vendors)

founded in 1993
● Kernel v1.0 released 1994
Most recent (Jan 2012) kernel release is 3.2.1
Spring 2012
Where to get answers

Linux/UNIX documentation can be found
in many places
– Manual pages (man pages, using man
command)
– Texinfo documents (read with info command)
– HOWTOs – focused descriptions of a topic
– Distribution-specific documentation
– Your favorite Web search engine

Will typically find online versions of the above

Spring 2012
Where to get answers

Spring 2012
man pages
– Usually my first resource
– Provide OS installation-specific
information
– Man pages document (almost)
every command, driver, file
format, and library routine
– “man -k topic” will list all man
pages that use topic
– Parameters are not the same
for every UNIX, e.g.:

Linux: man 4 tty
● Solaris: man -s4 tty

Spring 2012
man page organization
● Man pages are divided into sections (somewhat Linux specific)
– 1: User-level commands and applications
– 2: System calls and kernel error codes
– 3: Library calls
– 4: Device drivers
– 5: Standard file formats
– 6: Games and demonstrations
– 7: Miscellaneous files and documents
– 8: System administration commands
– 9: Obscure kernel specs and interfaces
● Some sections are subdivided
– 3M contains pages for math library
– Section “n” often contains subcommands (such as bash built-in cmds)
● Sections 6 and 9 are typically empty

Spring 2012
Where do we go from
here?
– In this course, I'll assign homework projects that
require root access on a RHEL/CentOS 5 system.
– In our first lab, you will be provided with a hard drive
that can be used in the Sandbox lab (PL112) with the
OS, and root privileges so that you will administer it.
– In addition, you can (and should) use

the department Suns for most things

A CentOS 5 system (on the CSE network) called
edgar.cse.lehigh.edu to explore a minimal working system
– See course web page for syllabus and schedule
for topics and readings.
Spring 2012

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