System Administration

Table of Contents

1. General Hints for System Administrators

Introduction

Reading list for administrators

Installation and Configuration Checklist

Administrators file summary

Keeping a record of your system

System Log

Hardware Configuration and Compatibility

Software Checklist

Backup Log

A review of some of basic commands

2. Installation and Bootup

Installation

Planning and Preparation

Starting the Installation

Language and "dbootstrap"

Main Menu

Select a keyboard

Partition hard disk

Hard drive device names

Large disks in older machines

cfdisk

Initialize and activate swap

Initialize a Linux partition

Found a Debian CD-ROM

Configure device driver modules

Configure the network

Install the base system

Make system bootable

Make a boot floppy

Reboot

Troubleshooting - Whoops, it didn't work, now what?

Post-installation configuration

Time Zone

MD5 passwords

Shadow passwords

Root password

Create a normal user account

ACACIA

PPP dial-up configuration

Configuring APT

tasksel and dselect

Logging In

Bootup

The X11 system

Changing your bootloader from LILO to GRUB

Debian Package Management

RPM Package Management:

Upgrading your Linux kernel in Debian

Configuring X Windows

networked installations:

3. File Types and File Systems

Let's review the different file types

Regular files

Directory files

Device files

Interprocess communication Devices

Inodes

A detailed look at the filesystem in Debian

What is a filesystem?

Types of filesystems

The layout of a filesystem

Using Filesystems

mount and unmount

/proc

file system monitoring

Advanced file permissions

file attributes on the ext2 file system

4. Backups

Introduction

Backup media

Magnetic Tape

CD-ROM

Hard Disk

Which form of Media to use?

Securing your backup

Backup concepts

Backup software

mt

tar

cpio

dump and restore

dd

Open source backup solutions

AMANDA -- http://www.amanda.org/

Roll your own

Performing a backup

Verifying Backups

Restore from backup

5. User Information and Administration

Introduction

useradd

groupadd

groupmod

groups

usermod

userdel

groupdel

adduser, addgroup, deluser and delgroup

chfn and chsh

Debian and disk quotas:

initial setup

repquota

edquota

quota

6. Process Accounting

Introduction

Installing the accounting package

ac

lastcomm

sa

last

7. Managing Processes

Introduction

The process table and the nice command

Process creation

System Processes

Scheduling Command execution with batch (cron) jobs

Monitoring system resources

ulimit:

Working with log files

8. Hardware Installation

Adding a new drive to a Linux system:

Does the kernel detect the drive?

Partition the new drive

Build Linux filesystem on any relevant partitions

Decide on a mountpoint and create it

Add the new filesystem to /etc/fstab

Print configuration

BSD Print Spooler (lpr)

/etc/printcap

Explanation of the legend used

Explaining the Generic entry

CUPS - Common Unix Printing System

installation

lpinfo

lpadmin

Removing a printer:

9. Configuration of the Kernel

The /proc filesystem:

A. Troubleshooting

Log files

Common problems:

Lost root password:

Troubleshooting LILO:

B. Additional exercises:

C. Practical lab

Index