Linux Administration Course Content

 Introduction to Linux and UNIX

 Linux System Structure
 Boot Process of Linux
 Installation of Linux
 Software Package Administration
 User and Group Administration
 Advanced File Permissions
 Backup and Recovery
 DNS
 DHCP
 Web Server (Apache)
 FTP Server
 Proxy Server (SQUID)
 Samba Server
 Mail Server Configuration
 Log Server
 Network Connections
 Basics of Shell scripting
 Troubleshooting Linux
 INTRODUCTION TO LINUX AND UNIX

The UNIX Operating System

UNIX is an operating system, like Windows (for PCs), VMS (for VAX systems), etc. An
operating system allows users to issue commands to a computer without having to deal with
the lowest-level machine language that the computer hardware actually uses. Most operating
systems are written in an assembly language that is specific to the hardware platform being
used. Another advantage that we will discuss below is that UNIX allows easy customization
of the user environment to suit individual tastes.
UNIX was originally developed by AT&T Bell Laboratories in the late 1960s, and
other versions have since been developed by computer scientists at UC Berkeley. There are
several versions of UNIX, including UNICOS (Cray), AIX (IBM), and ULTRIX (DEC),
and, recently, LINUX (for the PC platform). Therefore, you may encounter slight
differences between UNIX on different types of machines. However most of the basic
commands will be the same.

The UNIX Environment

There are several “layers” in the UNIX environment, from the “lowest” (farthest removed
from the user), which is called the kernel, to the “highest”, the graphical user interface
(GUI). Each of these layers will be described very briefly below.

The Kernel
The kernel is the lowest layer of the operating system, and accounts for hardware devices,
data storage, and executing other regularly scheduled tasks. This layer is machine
dependent, unlike the rest of the operating system. Individual tasks that a user performs
constitute separate processes. Users usually run many processes concurrently during normal
operations.
The Shell

Users of UNIX systems do not interact directly with the kernel. User commands are sent to
the kernel via a shell. This part of the operating system is a high-level programming
language that interprets user commands, executes the appropriate program, sends requests to
the kernel, and delivers the resulting output to the user. The shell is an interface that lets you
customize your user environment and automate complex operations.

UNIX features several different types of shell that you can choose from, including the C
shell (also known as the Berkeley shell), the Tahoe C shell (the T shell), the Bourne shell,
and the korn shell. I recommend using the C or T shell; these two are nearly identical except
the T shell has the advantage of allowing users to edit commands with the arrow keys (e.g.,
you can repeat previous commands by simply hitting the up arrow). I believe that all unity
accounts are set up with the T shell by default when your account is first established.

If you use either the C or T shell, you will have a file in your root directory (the directory
you are automatically in when you first log in) named .cshrc (on unity it is actually called
.mycshrc). This file is your c-shell record file. In this file, you can set up custom commands
(aliases) and set up links to GEMPAK and other software programs. In a moment you will
edit this file and add a few convenient aliases. Note that the period character at the start of
the file name (.cshrc) causes this file to be “hidden” when you list all the files in a given
directory unless you use additional options when listing the files.

The Graphical User Interface (GUI)

The GUI is the highest level of the UNIX operating system. It is simply the window display
environment that you see on the screen when using a computer. You can customize this
environment to suit your tastes as well, for example, you can set the background color, font
size, window size, and have a clock or calendar automatically appear when you log in. If
you have multiple windows open simultaneously, you will have to use the cursor to
“activate” the window you want to use. A mouse controls the movement of the cursor; I will
assume that you have enough computer familiarity to master this aspect of the system!
To summarize the UNIX system environment, consider the following diagram, which
demonstrates the layered structure of UNIX:
 LINUX SYSTEM STRUCTURE
Linux is one of popular version of UNIX operating System. It is open source as its source
code is freely available. It is free to use. Linux was designed considering UNIX compatibility.
Its functionality list is quite similar to that of UNIX.

Components of Linux System

Linux Operating System has primarily three components
 Kernel − Kernel is the core part of Linux. It is responsible for all major activities of
this operating system. It consists of various modules and it interacts directly with the
underlying hardware. Kernel provides the required abstraction to hide low level
hardware details to system or application programs.
 System Library − System libraries are special functions or programs using which
application programs or system utilities accesses Kernel's features. These libraries
implement most of the functionalities of the operating system and do not requires kernel
module's code access rights.
 System Utility − System Utility programs are responsible to do specialized, individual
level tasks.

Kernel Mode vs User Mode

Kernel component code executes in a special privileged mode called kernel mode with full
access to all resources of the computer. This code represents a single process, executes in
single address space and do not require any context switch and hence is very efficient and
fast. Kernel runs each processes and provides system services to processes, provides protected
access to hardware to processes.
Support code which is not required to run in kernel mode is in System Library. User programs
and other system programs works in User Mode which has no access to system hardware and
kernel code. User programs/ utilities use System libraries to access Kernel functions to get
system's low level tasks.

Basic Features
Following are some of the important features of Linux Operating System.
 Portable − Portability means software can works on different types of hardware in
same way. Linux kernel and application programs supports their installation on any
kind of hardware platform.
 Open Source − Linux source code is freely available and it is community based
development project. Multiple teams work in collaboration to enhance the capability
of Linux operating system and it is continuously evolving.
 Multi-User − Linux is a multiuser system means multiple users can access system
resources like memory/ ram/ application programs at same time.
 Multiprogramming − Linux is a multiprogramming system means multiple
applications can run at same time.
 Hierarchical File System − Linux provides a standard file structure in which
system files/ user files are arranged.

 Shell − Linux provides a special interpreter program which can be used to execute
commands of the operating system. It can be used to do various types of operations,
call application programs. etc.

 Security − Linux provides user security using authentication features like password
protection/ controlled access to specific files/ encryption of data.
Architecture
The following illustration shows the architecture of a Linux system

The architecture of a Linux System consists of the following layers −

 Hardware layer − Hardware consists of all peripheral devices (RAM/ HDD/ CPU etc).
 Kernel − It is the core component of Operating System, interacts directly with
hardware, provides low level services to upper layer components.
 Shell − An interface to kernel, hiding complexity of kernel's functions from users. The
shell takes commands from the user and executes kernel's functions.
 Utilities − Utility programs that provide the user most of the functionalities of an
operating systems.
The Linux File System and Security
As with most modern operating systems, Unix (Linux) maintains files in a directory
structure call the
Unix file system.
• The main directory is called the root directory and is indicated by a single forward slash
character: /
• A series of sub-directories can then appear below the root directory.
Some of the main sub-directories found in more versions of Unix are seen below:

etc – Administrative programs and configuration files

dev – Devices drivers (pointers) such as disk drives, keyboard, mouse, etc.
mnt – Mounting point for additional devices such as cdrom or remote systems
var – Temporary administrative space for logging and other system information
home – Home directories for users (in this example, holowcza, norman and smith are
users)
usr – Standard programs and code libraries
/usr/sbin – Administrative programs
/usr/bin – Standard executable programs
/usr/lib – Code libraries
/usr/local/bin – Additional programs
Files can be executable programs and scripts, text files (letters, lists, etc.), binary files such
as images and links to other files and directories.
• Directories are nested into a tree structure starting with the “root” directory /
• Each directory name is separated by the / (foreslash) character:
/home/holowcza/public_html
• Each user on the system has an assigned username
 • This username is associated with a home directory where all of the user’s files are stored.
• To see the name of your home directory, use the pwd command right after you log in.
• To see what files you have in your directory, use the ls command.
• To create a file, use a text editor such as pico or emacs
• To create a subdirectory, use the mkdir command.
• To change to another directory, use the cd command.
• Special Note About File Names: Unix in general does not work well with file names
that have spaces in
them.
It is strongly recommended that you do not create files with spaces in their names.

BOOT PROCESS OF LINUX

BIOS
 BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System
 Performs some system integrity checks
 Searches, loads, and executes the boot loader program.
 It looks for boot loader in floppy, cd-rom, or hard drive. You can press a key (typically
F12 of F2, but it depends on your system) during the BIOS startup to change the boot
sequence.
 Once the boot loader program is detected and loaded into the memory, BIOS gives the
control to it.
 So, in simple terms BIOS loads and executes the MBR boot loader.
2. MBR
 MBR stands for Master Boot Record.
 It is located in the 1st sector of the bootable disk. Typically /dev/hda, or /dev/sda
 MBR is less than 512 bytes in size. This has three components 1) primary boot loader
info in 1st 446 bytes 2) partition table info in next 64 bytes 3) mbr validation check in
last 2 bytes.
 It contains information about GRUB (or LILO in old systems).
 So, in simple terms MBR loads and executes the GRUB boot loader.

3. GRUB
 GRUB stands for Grand Unified Bootloader.
 If you have multiple kernel images installed on your system, you can choose which one
to be executed.
 GRUB displays a splash screen, waits for few seconds, if you don’t enter anything, it
loads the default kernel image as specified in the grub configuration file.
 GRUB has the knowledge of the filesystem (the older Linux loader LILO didn’t
understand filesystem).
 Grub configuration file is /boot/grub/grub.conf (/etc/grub.conf is a link to this). The
following is sample grub.conf of CentOS.
#boot=/dev/sda

default=0

timeout=5

splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

hiddenmenu

title CentOS (2.6.18-194.el5PAE)

root (hd0,0)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.el5PAE ro root=LABEL=/

initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-194.el5PAE.img

 As you notice from the above info, it contains kernel and initrd image.
 So, in simple terms GRUB just loads and executes Kernel and initrd images.
4. Kernel
 Mounts the root file system as specified in the “root=” in grub.conf
 Kernel executes the /sbin/init program
 Since init was the 1st program to be executed by Linux Kernel, it has the process id (PID)
of 1. Do a ‘ps -ef | grep init’ and check the pid.
 initrd stands for Initial RAM Disk.
 initrd is used by kernel as temporary root file system until kernel is booted and the real
root file system is mounted. It also contains necessary drivers compiled inside, which
helps it to access the hard drive partitions, and other hardware.

5.Init
 Looks at the /etc/inittab file to decide the Linux run level.
 Following are the available run levels
 0 – halt
 1 – Single user mode
 2 – Multiuser, without NFS
 3 – Full multiuser mode
 4 – unused
 5 – X11
 6 – reboot
 Init identifies the default initlevel from /etc/inittab and uses that to load all appropriate
program.
 Execute ‘grep initdefault /etc/inittab’ on your system to identify the default run level
 If you want to get into trouble, you can set the default run level to 0 or 6. Since you know
what 0 and 6 means, probably you might not do that.
 Typically you would set the default run level to either 3 or 5.

6. Runlevel programs
 When the Linux system is booting up, you might see various services getting started. For
example, it might say “starting sendmail …. OK”. Those are the runlevel programs,
executed from the run level directory as defined by your run level.
 Depending on your default init level setting, the system will execute the programs from
one of the following directories.
 Run level 0 – /etc/rc.d/rc0.d/
 Run level 1 – /etc/rc.d/rc1.d/
 Run level 2 – /etc/rc.d/rc2.d/
 Run level 3 – /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/
 Run level 4 – /etc/rc.d/rc4.d/
 Run level 5 – /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/
 Run level 6 – /etc/rc.d/rc6.d/
 Please note that there are also symbolic links available for these directory under /etc
directly. So, /etc/rc0.d is linked to /etc/rc.d/rc0.d.
 Under the /etc/rc.d/rc*.d/ directories, you would see programs that start with S and K.
 Programs starts with S are used during startup. S for startup.
 Programs starts with K are used during shutdown. K for kill.
 There are numbers right next to S and K in the program names. Those are the sequence
number in which the programs should be started or killed.
 For example, S12syslog is to start the syslog deamon, which has the sequence number of
12. S80sendmail is to start the sendmail daemon, which has the sequence number of 80.
So, syslog program will be started before sendmail

INSTALLATION OF LINUX
1. Log on a Linux machine or connect to one from a Windows machine (e.g.
click on the Exceed icon and then use putty to connect to the server kiwi.
Enter your login (user name) and password at relevant prompts.
2. Enter these commands at the UNIX prompt, and try to interpret the
output don't be afraid to experiment (as a normal user you cannot do much harm):
◦ echo hello world
◦ passwd
◦ date
◦ hostname
◦ arch
◦ uname -a
◦ dmesg | more (you may need to press q to quit)
◦ uptime
◦ who am i
◦ who
◦ id
◦ last
◦ finger
◦w
◦ top (you may need to press q to quit)
◦ echo $SHELL
◦ echo {con,pre}{sent,fer}{s,ed}
◦ man "automatic door"
◦ man ls (you may need to press q to quit)
◦ man who (you may need to press q to quit)
◦ who can tell me why i got divorced
◦ lost
◦ clear
◦ cal 2000
◦ cal 9 1752 (do you notice anything unusual?)
◦ bc -l (type quit or press Ctrl-d to quit)
◦ echo 5+4 | bc -l
◦ yes please (you may need to press Ctrl-c to quit)
◦ time sleep 5
◦ history