Detailed Course Outline
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: APACHE, SQUID AND NGINX
- Apache main configuration files
- Apache server and access configuration
- Configuring secure Apache (https)
- Configuring IP address-based virtual hosts
- Configuring name-based virtual hosts
- Configuring Apache for user-based content
- Configuring the Squid proxy server
- Configuring client browsers
- Squid security settings
- Nginx Proxy and Reverse Proxy
- Exercise
Session 3: NFS NETWORK SERVICES
- NFS operation and associated daemons
- Configuring an NFS server
- Investigating the portmapper
- Configuring an NFS client
- Mounting NFS filesystems at boot
- Using the automounter to access NFS mounts on demand
- Configuring AutoFS direct and indirect mounts
- Creating AutoFS units
- Exercise
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
Day - 2
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 a VSFTPD server
- Configuring FTP
- Configuring Pure-FTPd
- Configuring ProFTPd
- Active vs Passive mode
- vsftpd.conf configuration file
- Anonymous access
- Restricting access to the user's login directory
- FTP logfile
- Exercise
Session 8: CENTRALISED STORAGE WITH ISCSI
- Definition and benefits of iSCSI
- Configuring an iSCSI target and initiator
- Configuring iSCSI via YaST
- Exercise
DAY 3
Session 9: FILESYSTEM TOOLS AND DISK MONITORING
- Converting Ext filesystems to Btrfs
- Checking and repairing Btrfs filesystems
- Creating Btrfs subvolumes and snapshots
- Performing full and incremental backups of XFS filesystems
- Querying the backup repository
- Restoring XFS filesystems
- The ZFS filesystem
- Configuring smartd
- Disk monitoring with smartctl
- Exercise
Session 10: RAID
- RAID overview
- Raw devices and partitions
- Creating and managing a RAID device
- Creating and mounting a file system within RAID
- Hot swapping failed drives
- Exercise
Session 11: LOGICAL VOLUME MANAGEMENT (LVM)
- Logical Volume Management Overview
- Viewing LVM information
- Configuring LVM
- Creating striped logical volumes
- Resizing Logical Volumes
- Logical Volume Snapshots
- The role of the Device Mapper
- Configuring the lvm.conf file
- Exercise
Session 12: DIRECTORY SERVICES
- Structure of an LDAP Tree
- Configuring 389 Directory Services
- Managing Directory Server Users
- Testing the Directory Server
- Configuring the Client
- Legacy LDAP Commands
- Secure LDAPS with Directory Server
- Exercise
DAY 4
Session 13: COMPILING SOFTWARE FROM SOURCE
- Installing programs from source
- Compiling Open Source Software
- Installing the compiled software
- Managing shared libraries
- Compiling from SRC (source) RPM packages
- Exercise
Session 14: SYSTEM MONITORING & PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
- System performance monitoring
- Collecting system performance information
- Monitoring memory usage
- Measuring virtual memory
- Measuring I/O performance
- Performance Guidelines
- Performance monitoring tools
- Capacity planning
- Exercise
Session 15: FIREWALL CONFIGURATION
- Basic packets and routing
- Netfilter (iptables)
- Packet filtering (iptables, chains, rule targets, connection tracking)
- Saving and restoring firewall settings
- Network address translation (NAT)
- Exercise
Session 16: SYSTEM SECURITY
- Reporting security alerts
- Applying security related patches
- Installing and configuring a Host Intrusion Detection System (HIDS)
- Installing and configuring fail2ban
- Exercise
DAY 5
Session 17: PLUGGABLE AUTHENTICATION MODULES (PAM)
- Main PAM configuration files
- Configuration file formats
- Controlling user access using the configuration files
- Configuring pam_listfile
- Controlling time-based access with PAM
- Controlling limits with PAM
- Exercise
Session 18: POSTFIX
- Configuring a Postfix server
- Postfix TLS configuration
- Configuring Dovecot
- Managing email delivery
- Filtering emails
- Exercise
Session 19: THE LINUX KERNEL
- Kernel naming conventions
- Monolithic and Modular kernel design
- Listing modules
- Kernel module configuration
- Kernel tuning
- The GRUB2 Bootloader
- Installing an alternate Kernel
- Exercise
Session 20: HARDWARE CONFIGURATION
- Hotplug system
- Devices and Interfaces
- sysfs filesystem and persistent names
- Device initialisation and interface configuration
- Hotplug and Coldplug
- UDEV system
- Exercise