Linux Advanced System Administration (LPI)

Requirements

Experience of administering Linux in an Enterprise environment to the level covered in the Linux System Administration course. Knowledge of Linux Shell Programming to the level covered on the Linux Shell Programming course would also be beneficial.

Course Contents - DAY 1

Course Introduction

• Administration and Course Materials
• Course Structure and Agenda
• Delegate and Trainer Introductions

Session 1: ADVANCED NETWORK CONFIGURATION & TROUBLESHOOTING

• Configuring the network card (ip link, ip addr)
• Network scripts
• Configuring routing (ip route)
• Network troubleshooting and related tools (ethereal, tcpdump, ping, traceroute, netstat, arp, nmap, nc)
• Exercise

Session 2: LDAP

• Structure of an LDAP Tree
• Configuring the LDAP server (slapd.conf)
• Testing the LDAP server (ldapsearch)
• Adding information into LDAP (lpdapadd)
• Configuring the LDAP Clients (nsswitch.conf, ldap.conf)
• Testing the Client connection to the Server (getent)
• Exercise

Session 3: APACHE& SQUID

• APACHE main configuration files
• APACHE server configuration (main Section entries)
• Starting APACHE
• APACHE access configuration
• Configuring secure APACHE (https)
• SQUID proxy server
• Configuring client browsers
• Starting SQUID
• The SQUID configuration file (squid.conf)
• SQUID security settings
• NGINX Proxy and Reverse Proxy
• Exercise

Course Contents - DAY 2

Session 4: SAMBA

• The SAMBA configuration file (smb.conf)
• Testing the SAMBA configuration file (testparm)
• Configuring SAMBA users
• Starting SAMBA
• Testing SAMBA (smbclient, smbstatus)
• Managing Windows filesystems (smbmount, nmblookup)
• Accessing Windows shares
• Exercise

Session 5: THE DOMAIN NAME SERVER

• DNS operation
• Types of DNS Servers
• Domain Name Space
• Setting up a DNS server
• Server configuration files (named.conf and databases)
• DNS resource record formats
• Starting and managing the DNS Server (rcnamed, rndc)
• Testing the DNS Server (host, dig, nslookup)
• DNS Client set up (resolv.conf)
• Exercise

Session 6: DHCP

• Configuring DHCP
• The dhcpd.conf configuration file
• DNS entries
• Client address entries
• Address leases
• Exercise

Session 7: FTP

• Configuring FTP
• The vsftpd.conf configuration file
• Anonymous access
• Restricting access to the user's login directory
• FTP logfile
• Exercise

Course Contents - DAY 3

Session 8: NFS NETWORK SERVICES

• NFS operation and daemons (portmapper etc.)
• Setting up an NFS server (/etc/exports and exportfs)
• Setting up an NFS client (mount)
• Mounting NFS filesystems at boot (/etc/fstab)
• Using the automounter to access NFS mounts on demand
• Exercise

Session 9: LOGICAL VOLUME MANAGEMENT (LVM)

• LVM Overview
• Configuring LVM (pvcreate, vgcreate, vgextend, lvcreate etc.)
• Displaying information about the LVM environment (pvdisplay, pvs, vgdisplay, vgs, lvdisplay, lvs)
• Resizing Logical Volumes (lvextend, resize2fs, resize_reiserfs, xfs_growfs)
• Logical Volume Snapshots (lvcreate, lvdisplay)
• Exercise

Session 10: RAID

• RAID overview
• Raw devices and partitions
• Creating a RAID device (fdisk, mdadm)
• Managing a RAID device (mdadm, /proc/mdstat)
• Creating and mount a file system on a RAID device
• Hot swapping failed drives
• Exercise

Session 11: CENTRALISED STORAGE WITH ISCSI

• Definition and benefits of iSCSI
• Server target
• Client initiator
• Configuring the target and initiator with the yast tool
• Configuring the target and initiator with files and commands

Course Contents - DAY 4

Session 12: SMARTD

• Main features of monitoring disk devices with smartd
• Configuring smartd
• /etc/sysconfig/smartmontools
• /etc/smartd.conf
• Managing smartd with smartctl
• Exercise

Session 13: FIREWALL CONFIGURATION

• Basic packets and routing
• Netfilter (iptables)
• Packet filtering (iptables, chains, rule targets, connection tracking)
• Network address translation (NAT)
• Exercise

Session 14: PLUGGABLE AUTHENTICATION MODULES (PAM)

• The main PAM configuration files (/etc/pam.d directory)
• Configuration file formats
• Controlling user access using the configuration files
• Exercise

Session 15: KERNEL COMPILATION AND INSTALLATION

• Kernel building
• Monolithic and Modular kernel design
• Listing modules (lsmod, modinfo)
• Modifying the kernel configuration
• Binary kernel packages
• Installing the kernel sources
• Configuring and building a kernel
• Editing the GRUB/GRUB2 configuration file
• Kernel tuning (/proc sysctl.conf, sysctl)
• Exercise

Course Contents - DAY 5

Session 16: COMPILING SOFTWARE FROM SOURCE

• Installing programs from source (tar, tarball)
• Compiling Open Source Software (configure, make)
• Installing the compiled software (make install)
• Managing shared libraries (ldd)
• Compiling from SRC (source) RPM packages (rpmbuild, rpm)
• Exercise

Session 17: SYSTEM MONITORING & PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

• System performance monitoring
• Collecting system performance information (sar)
• Measuring virtual memory (vmstat)
• Measuring I/O performance (iostat)
• Performance Guidelines
• Exercise

Session 18: HARDWARE CONFIGURATION

• The Hotplug system
• Devices and Interfaces.
• The sysfs filesystem and persistent names
• Device initialisation and interface configuration
• Hotplug and Coldplug
• The Udev system
• Exercise

Addendum: Reference Materials (provided within the course handbook for additional reading)

APPENDIX A - CONFIGURING APACHE FOR PHP AND TOMCAT

• Configuring Apache Web Server to support PHP and Tomcat

APPENDIX B - BASIC OPENVPN

• Accessing a private network with OpenVPN

APPENDIX C - RAIDTOOLS

• Old style raidtools package

APPENDIX D - BTRFS

• A basic description of the btrfs file system

APPENDIX E - DRACUT

• Managing the Linux boot process with dracut

APPENDIX F - UEFI

• A basic description of the UEFI firmware interface

APPENDIX G - ELECTRONIC MAIL AND POSTFIX

• Basic mail server configuration with postfix