Course outline

Module 1: Linux Kernel and Devices

• Hardware discovery tools

• Kernel hardware info—/sys/

• /sys/ structure

• udev

• Managing Linux device files

• List block devices

• SCSI devices

• USB devices

• USB architecture

• Kernel modules

• Configuring kernel components and modules

• Handling module dependencies

• Configuring the kernel via /proc/

• Console

• Virtual terminals

• Keyboard and locale configuration

• Serial ports

• Random numbers and /dev/random

Module 2: Systemd Overview

• System boot method overview

• systemd system and service manager

• Modifying systemd services

• systemd service sandboxing features

• systemd targets

• Using systemd

• Linux runlevels aliases

• Legacy support for SysV init

Module 3: Grub2/Systemd Boot Process

• Booting Linux on PCs

• GRUB 2

• GRUB 2 configuration

• The boot loader specification

• GRUB 2 security

• Boot parameters

• Initial RAM filesystem

• init

• systemd local-fs.target and sysinit.target

• systemd basic.target and multi-user.target

• Legacy local bootup script support

• System configuration files

• RHEL9 configuration utilities

• Shutdown and reboot

Module 4: Software Maintenance

• Managing software

• RPM features

• RPM architecture

• RPM package files

• Working with RPMs

• Querying and verifying with RPM

• Updating the kernel RPM

• Dealing with RPM Yum digest changes

• DNF plugins and RHSM subscription manager

• DNF version lock plugin

• DNF repositories

• DNF repository groups

• Compiling/installing from source

• Manually installed shared libraries

• Rebuilding source RPM packages

Module 5: Local Storage Administration

• Partitioning disks with fdisk and gdisk

• Resizing a GPT partition with gdisk

• Partitioning disks with parted

• Non-interactive disk partitioning with sfdisk

• Filesystem creation

• Persistent block devices

• Mounting filesystems

• Resizing filesystems

• Filesystem maintenance

• Managing an XFS filesystem

• Swap

• Filesystem structures

• Determining disk usage with df and du

• Configuring disk quotas

• Setting quotas

• Viewing and monitoring quotas

• XFS project quotas

• Filesystem attributes

Module 6: LVM and RAID

• Logical volume management (LVM)

• Implementing LVM

• Creating logical volumes

• Activating LVM VGs

• Exporting and importing a VG

• Examining LVM components

• Changing LVM components

• Advanced LVM overview

• Advanced LVM: components and object tags

• Advanced LVM: automated storage tiering

• Advanced LVM: thin provisioning

• Advanced LVM: striping and mirroring

• Advanced LVM: RAID volumes

• RAID concepts

• Array creation with mdadm

• Software RAID monitoring

• Software RAID control and display

Module 7: Remote Storage Administration

• Remote storage overview

• Remote filesystem protocols

• Remote block device protocols

• File sharing via NFS

• NFSv4+

• NFS clients

• NFS server configuration

• Implementing NFSv4

• AutoFS

• AutoFS configuration

• Accessing Windows/Samba shares from Linux

• SAN multipathing

• Multipath configuration

• Multipathing best practices

• iSCSI architecture

• Open-iSCSI initiator implementation

• iSCSI initiator discovery

• iSCSI initiator node administration

• Mounting iSCSI targets at boot

• iSCSI multipathing considerations

Module 8: User/Group Administration

• Approaches to storing user accounts

• User and group concepts

• User administration

• Modifying accounts

• Group administration

• Password aging

• Default user files

• Controlling login sessions

• RHEL DS client configuration

• System security services daemon (SSSD)

Module 9: Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)

• PAM overview

• PAM module types

• PAM order of processing

• PAM control statements

• PAM modules

• pam_unix

• pam_nologin.so

• pam_limits.so

• pam_wheel.so

• pam_xauth.so

Module 10: Security Administration

• Security concepts

• Tightening default security

• Security advisories

• Fine grained authorizations with Polkit

• File access control lists

• Manipulating FACLs

• Viewing FACLs

• Backing up FACLs

• File creation permissions with umask

• User private group scheme

• Alternatives to UPG

• SELinux security framework

• SELinux modes

• SELinux commands

• Choosing an SELinux policy

• SELinux Booleans

• Permissive domains

• SELinux policy tools

• FirewallD

Module 11: Basic Networking

• IPv4 fundamentals

• TCP/UDP Fundamentals

• Linux network interfaces

• Ethernet hardware tools

• Network configuration with ip command

• Configuring routing tables

• IP to MAC address mapping with ARP

• Starting and stopping interfaces

• NetworkManager

• DNS clients

• DHCP clients

• Network diagnostics

• Information from ss and netstat

• Hardware and system clock

• Continual time sync with NTP

• Time synchronization with chronyd

Module 12: Advanced Networking

• Multiple IP addresses

• Configuring a DHCP server

• IPv6

• Interface aggregation

• Interface bonding

• Network teaming

• Interface bridging

• 802.1q VLANS

• Tuning kernel network settings

• TCP congestion control

Module 13: Log File Administration

• System logging

• systemd journal

• systemd journal's journalctl

• Secure logging with journal's log sealing

• Cockpit - logs

• rsyslog

• /etc/rsyslog.conf

• Log management

• Log anomaly detector

• Sending logs from the shell

Module 14: Monitoring and Troubleshooting

• System status—memory

• System status—I/O

• System status—CPU

• Performance trending with sar

• Determining service to process mapping

• Real-time monitoring of resources—cgroups

• Troubleshooting basics: the process

• Troubleshooting basics: the tools

• strace and ltrace

• Common problems

• Troubleshooting incorrect file permissions

• Inability to boot

• Typos in configuration files

• Corrupt filesystems

• RHEL9 rescue environment

Appendix A: Pre-installation Considerations

• Pre-installation considerations

• Hardware compatibility

• Multi-OS booting

• Partition considerations

• Filesystem planning

• Selecting a filesystem

Appendix B: Installing RHEL9

• Anaconda: overview

• Anaconda: booting the system

• Anaconda: common boot options

• Anaconda: loading Anaconda and packages

• Anaconda: storage options

• Anaconda: troubleshooting

• FirstBoot

• Kickstart

• Network booting with PXE

• Typical install

Appendix C: Installing SLES15

• YaST install program interface

• Network installation

• SLP for SUSE Linux installation

• Installation choices

• Kernel crash dump configuration

• Network booting with PXE

• Creating AutoYaST2 files

• Using AutoYaST2 files

• linuxrc automation

• Installation diagnostics

• After the first reboot

• A typical install

Appendix D: Managing Virtual Machines

• Virtualization: what and why?

• Introducing libvirt

• libvirt: basic concepts

• libvirt: storage architecture

• libvirt: network architecture

• libvirt: graphical tools

• libvirt: command line tools

• virsh: basics

• virsh: common tasks

• virt-install

• Virtual machine guest tools and rivers

• libguestfs and guestfish

Appendix E: Backups

• Backup software

• Managing optical media

• SCSI tape drives and libraries

• Backup examples

Lab outline

Lab 1: Linux Kernel and Devices

• Adjusting kernel options

• Linux kernel driver compilation

• Introduction to troubleshooting labs

• Troubleshooting practice: kernel modules

Lab 2: Systemd Overview

• Managing services with systemd's systemctl

• Creating a systemd unit file

Lab 3: Grub2/Systemd Boot Process

• Boot process

• Booting directly to a bash shell

• GRUB command line

• Basic GRUB security

• Troubleshooting practice: boot process

Lab 4: Software Maintenance

• Managing software with RPM

• Creating a custom RPM repository

• Querying the RPM database

• Installing software via RPM and source and rebuilding SRPMs

• Troubleshooting practice: package management

Lab 5: Local Storage Administration

• Creating and managing filesystems

• Hot adding wwap

• XFS copy-on-write

• Setting user quotas

• Creating XFS project quotas

Lab 6: LVM and RAID

• Creating and managing LVM volumes

• Creating LVM thin volumes

• Using boom to boot to an LVM Snapshot

• Troubleshooting practice: LVM

• Creating and managing a RAID-5 array

Lab 7: Remote Storage Administration

• Using autofs

• NFS server configuration

• iSCSI initiator configuration

• Multipathing with iSCSI

Lab 8: User/Group Administration

• User and group administration

• Using LDAP for centralized user accounts

• Troubleshooting practice: account management

Lab 9: Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)

• Restricting superuser access to wheel group membership

• Using pam_nologin to restrict logins

• Setting limits with the pam_limits modules

• Using pam_limits to restrict simultaneous logins

Lab 10: Security Administration

• User private groups

• Using filesystem ACLs

• Exploring SELinux modes

• SELinux file contexts

• SELinux contexts in action

Lab 11: Basic Networking

• Network discovery

• Using nmcli

• Chrony client configuration

Lab 12: Advanced Networking

• Multiple IP addresses per network interface

• Configuring IPv6

• TCP congestion control

• Troubleshooting practice: networking

Lab 13: Log File Administration

• Using the systemd journal

• Setting up a full debug logfile

• Remote Syslog configuration

• Remote Rsyslog TLS configuration

Lab 14: Monitoring and Troubleshooting

• System activity reporter

Lab B: Installing RHEL9

• Linux installation

• Automating installation with Kickstart

Lab C: Installing SLES15

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server installation

• Automating installation with AutoYaST

Lab D: Managing Virtual Machines

• Installing a virtual machine

Lab E: Backups

• Using rsync and ssh for backups

• Using tar for backups

• Using cpio for backups

• Creating ISO images for backups

• Using dump and restore for backups