Topic

topic #	Topic	Reading	Homework	Slides
1	tour of the configuration landscape & tools system control mechanisms init process	System Initialization/Service Mgmt. Nemeth ch 3 "Booting and Shutting Down" pp. 77-82, 87-93, 100-101 describes the older SysVinit overview article "Initializing and Managing Services in Linux: Past, Present and Future" descibes the evolution from SysVinit to the newer systemd Passing kernel boot parameters The Linux BootPrompt-HowTo, about kernel parameters, to your level of interest kernel parameters doc by kernel.org (who publish the kernel) man bootparam Review: filesystem, processes as review, Nemeth ch 6 "The Filesystem" (previous familiarity assumed but read if not) as review, Nemeth ch 5 "Controlling Processes" (previous familiarity assumed but read if not)	system control (in-class) bootloaders -floppys (in-class) bootloaders - usb (in-class) boot sequence (in-class) runlevels (in-class)	The landscape Sys Control Mechanisms Bootup Logical Volume Management
2	user administration	Nemeth ch 4 "Access Control and Rootly Powers" Nemeth ch 7 "Adding New Users" Nemeth, section 22.5 "PAM: Cooking Spray or Authentication Wonder?" pp. 908-912	users/groups/access (in-class) PAM (pluggable authentication modules)	User administration Pluggable Authentication Modules User authentication alternatives
3	backup	read about backup and backup tools. The textbook has a 40-page chapter 10 on it, but most of it concentrates on backup to media other than those we'll use, with software other than we'll use. The book talks about dedicated backup media such as tape. We will back up to a hard disk. It doesn't really matter, since linux uses the filesystem interface to refer to all manner of devices ("everything is a file"). A small syntax change can easily substitute one medium for another. Also, the book talks about dump/restore, amanda, and commercial products. But we'll use tar and rsync. Skim over chapter 10, and read fully what it has to say about tar (not much) and, in Chapter 19, about rsync (also not much). More substantially, here is what you should read about those commands: tar - see the GNU tar Reference Manual read from section 1 "Introduction" - 1.1-1.4 read from section 2 "Tutorial Introduction to tar" - whole section read from section 3 "Invoking GNU tar" - 3.1-3.4 from section 5 "Performing Backups and Restoring Files" - just scan it rsync read from A Tutorial on Using rsync read from Snapshot-style backups with rsync - this method is more subtle than it looks, in its use of hard links. The core of it is the 5-line script in the section titled "Putting it all together." Read through that section, paying particular attention to the "review of hard links" and the use of the option (-l) of the cp command to only copy links to files, not their data itself. We will use this method in class. read about the rsync algorithm, which makes rsync particularly efficient for dealing with large data volumes sent over low bandwidth channels because it identifies incremental changes within files and sends/applies only those deltas. Linux backup programs - here is a listing. Very many of them are based on rsync ssh ssh section in Chapter 22 article "Getting Started with SSH"	ssh key setup (in-class) ssh passphrases and ssh-agent (in-class) backup (in-class)	ssh - Secure shell netcat (nc) Backup
4	logging	Nemeth ch 11 "Syslog and Log Files" (skip Solaris and AIX specific sections) syslog replacement contenders: rsyslog (adopted in recent Fedora) - visit project home page - read pgs 5-10 of this white paper syslog-ng - glance at this article - drop in to this website journalctl tutorial	centralized logging with syslog with syslog-ng with rsyslog (in-class) encrypted logging rsyslog w/ stunnel (in-class) rotating log files (in-class) monitoring log files (in-class)	Centralized logging stunnel Logging: logrotate Logging: swatch Syslog-ng
5	task scheduling	Nemeth ch 9 "Periodic Processes"	scheduled jobs (in-class)	Scheduled processes
6	time synchronization and control	- "Linux, Clocks, and Time" - wikipedia article - time precision howto - home of David Mills father of ntp protocol - home of network time protocol	Unix time (in-class)	Unix time
7	process and load analysis with top linux process scheduling (observed with top)	article Examining Load Average	top (process display) exercise demonstration programs - as shown in class, with a readme file explaining how to use them, in file "process_priority.zip" Examine and play with these on your own if you wish. process scheduling exercise (in-class)	linux process scheduling
8	configuration management with ansible		ansible (in-class)	ansible
9	remote management			Character and GUI forwarding
10	software maintenance and update	Nemeth section 11.3 "Package management" and 11.4 "High-level package management systems" (scan only the parts about RHN and APT)	rpm economics yum and rpm	Compilation Installation yum (auto-update)
11	recompiling the kernel	Nemeth sections 28.3-28.5 fedora-specific instructions general, traditional instructions	compiling the kernel-fedora10 (in-class)	Kernel building