Linux Systems Fundamentals

Linux

Duration: 5 Days

Context

Many companies and organisations are now running mixed systems containing e.g. Microsoft and Linux servers and workstations and laptops running Microsoft, MAC OSX or Linux operating systems. Linux systems are also being introduced into organisations as part of a process of deploying virtualisation environments based on e.g. VMWare, XEN or KVM. The goal of this course is to provide a foundation skill set that will prepare attendees for handling Linux technologies in their place of work. The course itself can be categorised as a hybrid course that covers both user and administrator tasks and activities.

Intended Audience

The course is for existing IT professionals and technologists who are in need of an intensive and rapid introduction to Linux including basic administration, important command line tools and utilities, and GUI based setup and configuration tools. The course will also provide an introduction to shell scripting sufficient to enable users to understand and to modify shell scripts.

Prerequisites

Attendees are expected to have a good working knowledge of working with an operating systems such as Microsoft Windows or MAC OSX. Although the course does not assumet any detailed Linux knowledge it would be beneficial to have had some experience of using the kind of Linux system that attendees will be working with.

Key topics covered

Using command line tools and utilities and working with the BASH shell.
Navigating the filesystem and managing files and directories
Understanding the client/server nature of X Windows System and X windows based applications
Editing files using vi and GUI editors
Manipulating data using command line and GUI tools
Use of file redirection and Posix pipes
Basic administration tasks so as to be able to control processes, filesystems, job scheduling,
Simple networking and basic backups
Reading and writing of typical BASH scripts

Detailed Course Outline

Introduction and Overview

History of and Reasons of the Success of Linux
Hardware, software, operating system - the computing equivalent to "Lights, Camera, Action"
Linux in the Real World
GNU GPL, available Linux distributions
Linux from the viewpoint of network and database administrators
Linux from the viewpoint of application developers

Linux First Steps

Accessing the system
Ordinary users vs. the superuser
The Login process, shells and command line interpreters
Command line structure, control and examples
Basic system interrogation and file reading utilities
File system layout and navigation
System vs. user directories
Absolute and relative pathnames
Man pages and Getting help

Working with Files and Directories
- The File system from a user's perspective
- Typical Linux System Directory structure and the FSH Standard
- Manipulating files and directories - Copy, move, remove ...
- The File system - a system level perspective
- I-nodes and file attributes
- Hard links vs. symbolic links
Editing Text and Command Line Text Editors
- Why it is still important to know vi
- Operational modes of vi - Command mode vs. Insert mode
- 'Colon', or 'ex' mode
- A compendium of useful vi command for navigation, search, substitution, cut, copy and paste
- Extended vi commands and vim configuration
- Some Alternative editors e.g. nano, gedit ...
The Bash Command Line Interpreter/shell
- How a command line interpreter works
- Generating filenames with wildcards (globbing)
- Quoting (protecting special characters from the shell)
- Variable and command substitution
- Bash Command History
- Bash Command Line Editing
Bash Environment and Environment Variables
- Creating, recalling and sharing shell variables
- Shell aliases and functions
- Character sets and localisation
- Bash builtin variables and their uses
- Controlling shell behaviour with command line options such as set -o and shopt
- Interactive Start-up Files
- Start-up files for login and non-login shells
Privilege - access and authorisation
- The su command
- su interactive session
- Running one-off commands
- Checking who you are - actual and effective user identity
- Understanding id and who am i tools
- The sudo tool
- Typical sudo session
- sudo configuration file
Processes and Process Management

What is a Linux Process?
Process life cycle - starting and ending
The kill command and signals
Command exit status
Identifying Processes
ps, top and GUI process monitors

Job Control

Foreground vs. Background jobs
One-off deferral with at
Daemons and job manipulation
User access configuration files
Spool directory
Scheduling repetitive tasks with crontab
Understanding the cron daemon and configuration tables

Data Streams

Standard data streams - stdout, stderr, stdin
Redirecting standard output, error and input
Synchronising (merging) streams
Other ways of handling data streams
Collecting and generating data with sub-shells
Command substitution and its uses

Pipes and Filters
- Sending stdout to a process
- Pipes - single stage and multistage
- Concept of a Unix/Linux filter
- Performing more complex work by combining filters
- The cut, sort, uniq, grep and tr commands
- Filters - some basic filter Kata
Basic Regular Expressions and SED

Regular expressions
sed and how it uses regular expression
Specifying simple sed instructions
Understanding sed addressing
Creating and using a sed command file
sed editing commands and their practical uses

File Management Tools and Utilities
- Using PATH to identify command origins
- The which and type commands
- Locating files usinig the locate command and mlocate database
- Locating and Identifying filenames with find
- Specifying the find command search criteria and specifying actions to perform on located files
- Basic file backups with cpio, and dd and tar
- Linux Compression tools and their uses
Filesystem Access - The First Line of Defence
- Files, directories and filesystems - the key concepts
- File and directory access - Read/write/execute permissions
- User types
- Additional permission bits - Set user/group ID bits and sticky bit
- Using chmod, chown and chgrp to manipulate access attributes
Basic Linux Networking
- High level overview of networking and TCP/IP
- Basic network card configuration using the ifconfig tool
- GUI network configuration programs an overview
- Basic routing configuration
- route commands and their uses
- Basic network troubleshooting and diagnostics - with ping, traceroute and netstat
- Using ssh for remote shell logins
The X Windows System
- The X Window System as a Linux GUI Interface
- XWindows - History, Architecture and Implementation
- Client-server communication
- Configuring display access rights
- Specifying destination a display
- Window managers / desktop systems
- Gnome, KDE ...
- X Window resources - Fonts, colours, geometry
- Wayland - a possible successor to XWindows
Shell Script Programming
- Useful one liners - incorporating into a shell script
- Shell programming languages - sh, bash, ksh ...
- Built in variables - Positional parameters and command exit status
- Selection commands
- Looping commands
- Interactive input

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