SUSE Linux Advanced System Administration Course Overview
This instructor led
SUSE Linux Advanced System Administration training course is designed to teach the advanced administration, security, networking and performance tasks required on a SUSE Linux Enterprise system.
Targeted to closely follow the official Novell Certified Linux Professional (CLP) and Novell Certified Linux Administrator (CLA) curriculum, this course together with the Linux Introduction, Linux Shell Programming and the SUSE Linux System Administration course will enable the delegate to work towards achieving the Novell Certified Linux Professional (CLP - SLES 11) and the Novell Certified Linux Administrator (CLA - SLES 11) qualifications.
Skills Gained
The delegate will have knowledge in all, and practise in some, of the following:
- Perform administrative tasks with supplied tools such as YAST
- Advanced network configuration
- Network troubleshooting
- Setting up a network installation server
- Configuring network services LDAP, DNS, SAMBA and NFS
- Configuring network services APACHE and SQUID
- Managing NFS to share files and directories.
- Managing the Logical Volume Manager (LVM).
- Managing software RAID.
- Securing a Linux server using ACLs and extended file attributes
- Firewall configuration
- Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)
- Kernel installation and compilation
- Compiling software from source
- System performance monitoring
- Collecting process and user activity with system accounting
- Hardware configuration with hotplug and udev
- Configuring the XEN Virtual Machine environment
Who will the Course Benefit?
The
SUSE Linux Advanced System Administration training course is suitable for Linux System Administrators who need to acquire advanced administration knowledge of the key administrative, networking, performance and security tasks required on SUSE Linux within the Enterprise.
Course Objectives
On completion of this course the delegate will have in-depth technical knowledge of what is required to administer SUSE Linux within the Enterprise. They will have gained practical experience of configuring administrative, networking, performance and security aspects of a SUSE Linux Enterprise system to an advanced level. The delegate will possess the essential knowledge required to work towards achieving the Novell Certified Linux Professional (CLP - SLES 11) and the Novell Certified Linux Administrator (CLA - SLES 11) qualifications.
Examinations
The
SUSE Linux Advanced System Administration training course will teach some of the necessary skills to enable the delegate to work towards achieving the Novell Certified Linux Administrator (CLA - SLES 11) and the Novell Certified Linux Professional (CLP - SLES 11) certifications. Together with the Linux Introduction, Linux Shell Programming and the SUSE Linux System Administration course, this course is suitable for delegates intending to sit the related examinations.
Before taking any exam, ensure you have the recommended experience. The Novell website lists all exam requirements and these are updated regularly.
Exams are not included as part of the course.
Requirements
Experience of administering SUSE Linux in an Enterprise environment to the level covered in the SUSE Linux System Administration course. Knowledge of Linux Shell Programming to the level covered on the Linux Shell Programming course would also be beneficial.
Pre-Requisite Courses
- SUSE Linux System Administration
Follow-On Courses
- Apache Web Server
- Perl Programming
- Oracle SQL
NOTE: Course technical content is subject to change without notice.
SUSE Linux Advanced System Administration Training Course
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)
- Serial communication
- Network troubleshooting and related tools (ethereal, tcpdump, ping, traceroute, netstat, arp, nmap, nc)
- Exercise
Session 2: NETWORK INSTALLATION OF LINUX
- Configuring a Linux installation server
- Creating a PXE boot environment
- Automatic installation
- Exercise
Session 3: 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)
- Exercise
SUSE Linux Advanced System Administration Training Course
Course Contents - DAY 2
Session 4: APACHE & SQUID
- APACHE main configuration files
- APACHE server configuration (main Section entries)
- Starting APACHE
- APACHE access configuration
- SQUID proxy server
- Configuring client browsers
- Starting SQUID
- The SQUID configuration file (squid.conf)
- SQUID security settings
- Exercise
Session 5: 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 6: 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
SUSE Linux Advanced System Administration Training Course
Course Contents - DAY 3
Session 7: 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 8: LOGICAL VOLUME MANAGEMENT (LVM)
- LVM Overview
- Configuring LVM (pvcreate, vgcreate, vgextend, lvcreate etc.)
- Displaying information about the LVM environment (pvdisplay, vgdisplay, lvdisplay)
- Resizing Logical Volumes (lvextend, resize2fs, resize_reiserfs)
- Logical Volume Snapshots (lvcreate, lvdisplay)
- Exercise
Session 9: 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
SUSE Linux Advanced System Administration Training Course
Course Contents - DAY 4
Session 10: SECURING LINUX
- System security checklist
- User level security
- Limiting access to terminals
- Limiting access to files via ACLs (setfacl, getfacl)
- Limiting access to files by extended permissions and attributes (lsattr, chattr)
- System wide security settings and file access (chkstat)
- Exercise
Session 11: FIREWALL CONFIGURATION
- Basic packets and routing
- Netfilter (iptables)
- Packet filtering (iptables, chains, rule targets, connection tracking)
- Network address translation (NAT)
- Exercise
Session 12: 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 13: 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/LILO configuration file
- Kernel tuning (/proc sysctl.conf, sysctl)
- Exercise
SUSE Linux Advanced System Administration Training Course
Course Contents - DAY 5
Session 14: 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 15: SYSTEM MONITORING & PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
- System performance monitoring
- Collecting system performance information (sar)
- Measuring virtual memory (vmstat)
- Measuring I/O performance (iostat)
- Performance Guidelines
- System Accounting - collecting process and user information (rcacct, ac, lastcomm, sa)
- Exercise
Session 16: 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
Session 17: XEN
- Basic definition
- XEN components
- The Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM)
- Virtualization Modes (Fully Virtual, Paravirtual)
- System requirements
- Installing XEN
- Creating a Virtual Machine
- Managing the VM environment (Yast and xm)
Addendum: Reference Materials (provided within the course handbook for additional reading)
APPENDIX A - CONFIGURING APACHE FOR PHP, TOMCAT AND SSL
- Configuring Apache Web Server to support PHP, Tomcat and SSL Security
APPENDIX B - NETWORK INTEGRATION SERVICE (NIS)
- Configuring the NIS Directory Service
