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CTS-UNIX-LINUX-ADM.AB1
UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook
Intermediate Self-paced · 1 year access
43 Hands-On LiveLabs
Practice real IT tasks in guided environments.
- Real environments
- Auto-graded
- No installation
01 / Lessons & labs
See exactly what you will learn and practice
Lessons
32 Interactive Lessons · 275 topics01 Introduction 1 topics +
- The Organization of this course
02 Where to Start 13 topics · 1 LiveLab +
- Essential duties of a system administrator
- Suggested background
- Linux distributions
- Example systems used in this course
- Notation and typographical conventions
- Units
- Man pages and other on-line documentation
- Other authoritative documentation
- Other sources of information
- Ways to find and install software
- Where to host
- Specialization and adjacent disciplines
- Recommended reading
1 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
03 Booting and System Management Daemons 10 topics · 1 LiveLab +
- Boot process overview
- System firmware
- Boot loaders
- GRUB: the GRand Unified Boot loader
- The FreeBSD boot process
- System management daemons
- systemd in detail
- FreeBSD init and startup scripts
- Reboot and shutdown procedures
- Stratagems for a nonbooting system
1 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
04 Access Control and Rootly Powers 5 topics +
- Standard UNIX access control
- Management of the root account
- Extensions to the standard access control model
- Modern access control
- Recommended reading
05 Process Control 9 topics · 2 LiveLab +
- Components of a process
- The life cycle of a process
- ps: monitor processes
- Interactive monitoring with top
- nice and renice: influence scheduling priority
- The /proc filesystem
- strace and truss: trace signals and system calls
- Runaway processes
- Periodic processes
2 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
06 The Filesystem 6 topics · 1 LiveLab +
- Pathnames
- Filesystem mounting and unmounting
- Organization of the file tree
- File types
- File attributes
- Access control lists
1 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
07 Software Installation and Management 7 topics +
- Operating system installation
- Managing packages
- Linux package management systems
- High-level Linux package management systems
- FreeBSD software management
- Software localization and configuration
- Recommended reading
08 Scripting and the Shell 9 topics · 2 LiveLab +
- Scripting philosophy
- Shell basics
- sh scripting
- Regular expressions
- Python programming
- Ruby programming
- Library and environment management for Python and Ruby
- Revision control with Git
- Recommended reading
2 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
09 User Management 11 topics +
- Account mechanics
- The /etc/passwd file
- The Linux /etc/shadow file
- FreeBSD's /etc/master.passwd and /etc/login.conf files
- The /etc/group file
- Manual steps for adding users
- Scripts for adding users: useradd, adduser, and newusers
- Safe removal of a user’s account and files
- User login lockout
- Risk reduction with PAM
- Centralized account management
10 Cloud Computing 6 topics · 2 LiveLab +
- The cloud in context
- Cloud platform choices
- Cloud service fundamentals
- Clouds: VPS quick start by platform
- Cost control
- Recommended Reading
2 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
11 Logging 7 topics · 1 LiveLab +
- Log locations
- The systemd journal
- Syslog
- Kernel and boot-time logging
- Management and rotation of log files
- Management of logs at scale
- Logging policies
1 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
12 Drivers and the Kernel 10 topics +
- Kernel chores for system administrators
- Kernel version numbering
- Devices and their drivers
- Linux kernel configuration
- FreeBSD kernel configuration
- Loadable kernel modules
- Booting
- Booting alternate kernels in the cloud
- Kernel errors
- Recommended reading
13 Printing 4 topics +
- CUPS printing
- CUPS server administration
- Troubleshooting tips
- Recommended reading
14 TCP/IP Networking 16 topics · 4 LiveLab +
- TCP/IP and its relationship to the Internet
- Networking basics
- Packet addressing
- IP addresses: the gory details
- Routing
- IPv4 ARP and IPv6 neighbor discovery
- DHCP: the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
- Security issues
- Basic network configuration
- Linux networking
- FreeBSD networking
- Network troubleshooting
- Network monitoring
- Firewalls and NAT
- Cloud networking
- Recommended reading
4 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
15 Physical Networking 9 topics · 1 LiveLab +
- Ethernet: the Swiss Army knife of networking
- Wireless: Ethernet for nomads
- SDN: software-defined networking
- Network testing and debugging
- Building wiring
- Network design issues
- Management issues
- Recommended vendors
- Recommended reading
1 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
16 IP Routing 8 topics · 3 LiveLab +
- Packet forwarding: a closer look
- Routing daemons and routing protocols
- Protocols on parade
- Routing protocol multicast coordination
- Routing strategy selection criteria
- Routing daemons
- Cisco routers
- Recommended reading
3 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
17 DNS: The Domain Name System 12 topics · 2 LiveLab +
- DNS architecture
- DNS for lookups
- The DNS namespace
- How DNS works
- The DNS database
- The BIND software
- Split DNS and the view statement
- BIND configuration examples
- Zone file updating
- DNS security issues
- BIND debugging
- Recommended reading
2 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
18 Single Sign-On 5 topics · 1 LiveLab +
- Core SSO elements
- LDAP: “lightweight” directory services
- Using directory services for login
- Alternative approaches
- Recommended reading
1 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
19 Electronic Mail 11 topics +
- Mail system architecture
- Anatomy of a mail message
- The SMTP protocol
- Spam and malware
- Message privacy and encryption
- Mail aliases
- Email configuration
- sendmail
- Exim
- Postfix
- Recommended reading
20 Web Hosting 7 topics · 2 LiveLab +
- HTTP: the Hypertext Transfer Protocol
- Web software basics
- Web hosting in the cloud
- Apache httpd
- NGINX
- HAProxy
- Recommended reading
2 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
21 Storage 15 topics · 1 LiveLab +
- I just want to add a disk!
- Storage hardware
- Storage hardware interfaces
- Attachment and low-level management of drives
- The software side of storage: peeling the onion
- Disk partitioning
- Logical volume management
- RAID: redundant arrays of inexpensive disks
- Filesystems
- Traditional filesystems: UFS, ext4, and XFS
- Next-generation filesystems: ZFS and Btrfs
- ZFS: all your storage problems solved
- Btrfs: “ZFS lite” for Linux
- Data backup strategy
- Recommended reading
1 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
22 The Network File System 9 topics · 1 LiveLab +
- Meet network file services
- The NFS approach
- Server-side NFS
- Client-side NFS
- Identity mapping for NFS version 4
- nfsstat: dump NFS statistics
- Dedicated NFS file servers
- Automatic mounting
- Recommended reading
1 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
23 SMB 7 topics · 2 LiveLab +
- Samba: SMB server for UNIX
- Installing and configuring Samba
- Mounting SMB file shares
- Browsing SMB file shares
- Ensuring Samba security
- Debugging Samba
- Recommended reading
2 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
24 Configuration Management 9 topics · 4 LiveLab +
- Configuration management in a nutshell
- Dangers of configuration management
- Elements of configuration management
- Popular CM systems compared
- Introduction to Ansible
- Introduction to Salt
- Ansible and Salt compared
- Best practices
- Recommended reading
4 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
25 Virtualization 8 topics · 1 LiveLab +
- Virtual vernacular
- Virtualization with Linux
- FreeBSD bhyve
- VMware
- VirtualBox
- Packer
- Vagrant
- Recommended reading
1 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
26 Containers 5 topics · 2 LiveLab +
- Background and core concepts
- Docker: the open source container engine
- Containers in practice
- Container clustering and management
- Recommended reading
2 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
27 Continuous Integration and Delivery 6 topics +
- CI/CD essentials
- Pipelines
- Jenkins: the open source automation server
- CI/CD in practice
- Containers and CI/CD
- Recommended reading
28 Security 13 topics · 8 LiveLab +
- Elements of security
- How security is compromised
- Basic security measures
- Passwords and user accounts
- Security power tools
- Cryptography primer
- SSH, the Secure SHell
- Firewalls
- Virtual private networks (VPNs)
- Certifications and standards
- Sources of security information
- When your site has been attacked
- Recommended reading
8 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
29 Monitoring 11 topics +
- An overview of monitoring
- The monitoring culture
- The monitoring platforms
- Data collection
- Network monitoring
- Systems monitoring
- Application monitoring
- Security monitoring
- SNMP: the Simple Network Management Protocol
- Tips and tricks for monitoring
- Recommended reading
30 Performance Analysis 8 topics · 1 LiveLab +
- Performance tuning philosophy
- Ways to improve performance
- Factors that affect performance
- Stolen CPU cycles
- Analysis of performance problems
- System performance checkup
- Help! My server just got really slow!
- Recommended reading
1 LiveLab in this lesson — see the labs panel →
31 Data Center Basics 7 topics +
- Racks
- Power
- Cooling and environment
- Data center reliability tiers
- Data center security
- Tools
- Recommended reading
32 Methodology, Policy, and Politics 11 topics +
- The grand unified theory: DevOps
- Ticketing and task management systems
- Local documentation maintenance
- Environment separation
- Disaster management
- IT policies and procedures
- Service level agreements
- Compliance: regulations and standards
- Legal issues
- Organizations, conferences, and other resources
- Recommended reading
Hands-On Labs Our edge
43 LiveLabs- Building Software from Source Code
- Using systemd Commands
- Using ps Commands
- Creating a cron Job
- Using the chmod Command
- Working with Arithmetic Operations and Loops
- Executing the sh Script
- Creating an Instance in GCP
- Creating an EC2 Auto Scaling Group
- Using journalctl Commands
- Obtaining the IP Route Information from the IP Routing Table
- Capturing Network Packets Using tcpdump
- Capturing a Packet Using tshark
- Creating a VPC
- Using Commands for Wireless Connectivity
- Configuring OSPF
- Configuring BGP Redistribution
- Configuring EIGRP
- Performing Zone Transfer Using dig
- Signing a Zone
- Examining Kerberos Settings
- Using the curl Command
- Creating a Load Balancer in GCP
- Partitioning a Disk
- Configuring NFS Server
- Configuring Samba
- Creating an SMB File Share
- Using the Ansible Tool
- Using Ansible Vault
- Creating Ansible Roles
- Creating an Ansible Configuration File
- Checking Hyper-V Compatibility
- Running Docker daemon Commands
- Using Docker
- Using Social Engineering Techniques to Plan an Attack
- Simulating the DDoS Attack
- Performing Nmap Port Scanning
- Cracking a Linux Password Using John the Ripper
- Generating a Symmetric Key
- Generating an Asymmetric Key
- Examining Asymmetric Encryption
- Performing Symmetric Encryption
- Using Performance Analysis Commands
Labs run in your browser — nothing to install.
02 / FAQs
Questions before you start
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