Ubuntu Wiki

This page describes the topics that are important for systems administrators to know as well as links to where information can be found about these topics. There are two main sections:

Background Topics

Background information, stuff you wouldn't normally have a class to teach, but is important for students to have access to definitions and an understanding of the concepts. For instance you would need to understand IP-Addresses in order to be able to teach a network management under Ubuntu class, but you wouldn't want to spend a lot of time teaching it.

• Computer Hardware
  • Functional Parts
  • Ports and Buses
• Computer Software

  • The BIOS

  • The Boot Process
  • Operating Systems
• Computer Networking
  • Logical Concepts
    • IP Addresses
      • Subnet masks
    • Routing/gateways
    • Domain Names
    • The Internet
    • Firewalls
  • Network Hardware
    • Ethernet
      • Wire installation issues
    • Wireless (802.11)
      • Access point
    • Routers
    • Switch management
    • Modems
    • iSCSI (or does this qualify as a storage topic under File Systems below?)
    • ATA-over-Ethernet
  • Services and Ports
• File Systems (Storage systems, RAID, Cloud, etc.)
• The Command Line Basics
  • sudo vs. su/root
  • Command Arguments, [arg] [arg] "A R G"
  • Basic Commands, man, ls, cd, cp, mv, ln
  • Editing Files, vim, nano
  • File Permissions, rwx, chmod, chown
  • Access Control Lists (ACLs)

Classroom Topics

List of topics to cover in a class. Each topic should be direct and if need be, split up into simple modular components of the tasks required to be functional in that area.

• Server Stack
• Installation and Deployment
  • Mass deployments through: netboot, ...
• Network Management
  • ifconfig
  • iwconfig | iwlist
  • ifup | ifdown | /etc/network/interfaces
  • iptables
  • iproute

  • VPN: IPsec, SSL, OpenVPN, VPN over SSH

  • time servers, tiers, ..
• Monitoring
  • SMART disk monitoring
  • General: SNMP, mrtg, cacti
  • Network traffic: ntop, vnstat, cbm, ..
  • Network sniffer: wireshark, iptraf, ..
  • Processes: top, htop, ..
• Services and Daemons, Init.d
• Application Management
  • Debian packages, dpkg
  • Apt Package Management, apt-*
  • RPMs under Ubuntu (alien) (limiting to Ubuntu/Deb? No Yum, ..)
  • Compiling packages from source
  • Local package repository hosting
• User Authentication
  • Adding New Users (umask, ..)
  • PAM
    • LDAP
    • Active Directory
  • Samba
• Remote Access
  • SSH
    • SSH Keys
    • OpenSSH
    • Remote XWindows
  • Screen
  • RDP
  • VNC
• Remote Server/Services Administration
  • webmin
  • ebox
• Services
  • Logging, syslog
  • Scheduling System, crond
  • Printing, cups, lpd
  • File Sharing, ftpd
  • Web Hosting, apache, php, MySQL, ..
  • Remote Access, sshd
  • DHCP Server, dhcpd
  • DNS Server, bind
  • Mail: postfix/sendmail/qmail
  • Windows file share/domain server, samba
  • Tomcat
• PXE Booting
  • Client Imaging
  • Thin Client Setups
• Advanced CLI and Scripting
  • Tiny Shell vs.Bash vs. C shell vs etc...
  • Python
  • Perl
  • PHP
• Virtualization
  • Underlying tech: kvm, xen
  • management: libvirt, virtualmanager

  • VirtualBox vs. VMWare vs QEMU vs WINE vs CrossOver

• Clustering
• Backups
  • rsync

  • dirvish Howto

  • rdiff-backup
  • rsnapshot
  • amanda
  • bacula
  • Deja Dup
• Restricting the Desktop Users
  • Gconf-Editor
  • Gconftool-2
• Process for Ubuntu SOE Development
• Basic Security Practices
  • Apparmor
  • Iptables

Further Material Links

• http://www.firewall.cx/linux-introduction-intro.php

• http://www.tcpipguide.com/

• http://www.ubuntugeek.com

• http://doc.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/serverguide/C/

• http://tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/howtos.html

• http://lartc.org/

• http://www.w3schools.com/

• http://www.debian-administration.org/

• http://en.flossmanuals.net/

• http://howtoforge.com/