[Wolves] Linux sys admin learning.

[Adam Sweet]

My additions have no > symbols preceding them.

> -1. Perl

> 0. shell scripting
0.1. Sed, awk and grep
0.2 Process and load management (ps, top, kill)
0.3 Hardware resource management (df, free, mount,
fdisk, fsck, modprobe etc)

> 1 .Samba is a must.
> 2.Email server.  setup, maintenance
> 2.1 MTA (Postfix, Exim)
> 2.2 MDA (Procmail)
> 2.3 MUA (Courier, Cyrus)
> 2.4 Spamassassin, ClamAV
3.Firewall.  Smoothwall done try IpCop. IP Tables
4.Nfs server (host based access rights)
> 5.ssh server
6.lamp server - set up wordpress, or some other web
app
> 7.php
> 8.mysql database
> 9.Apache
> 10. Security (firewall, patching, upgrades, locking
down)
> 11. Logging / Fixing stuff that's broken
> 12. Network monitoring (Nagios/OpenNMS)
> 13. Databases (not everyone uses mysql)
> 14. Active Directory / LDAP / etc.
> 15. Installation / configuration of
$random_bits_of_software
16. Backups (inc rsync)
> 17. DNS
> 18. Web proxy caching (probably Squid)
> 19. Clusters (for parallel numerical analysis)
20. Network setup, IP addressing, using network
diagnostics, routing (ifconfig, netstat, route)
21. Compiling of software and kernels
22. Misc - Understand permissions, run-levels, init
scripts and how to stop, start, add and remove system
services, using cron jobs, using vi(m).
23. How to find information fast (man pages and Google
;)
24. Find out about hardware (lspci, lsusb, lshw,
lsmod, /proc)
25. Text processing (head, tail, cat, less, more,
using redirects and pipes)

Perl you could get away without if you can shell
script and script in PHP or Python. I don't use perl,
though maybe I should.

Personally I don't do much of 14, 18 and 19.

Everything else is core to what I do on a daily basis.

You might want to look at different Linuxes to learn
the differences. Get a Debian box and a Fedora box as
they are the primary variants you would encounter and
abandon yourself at the command line for as long and
as often as you can bare. If it gets too tough then
install mc ;)

If you want hints for commands, just ask. I was
planning to write a presentation for this kind of
thing but I just don't have time to sit and write it
these days.

A good idea would be to either get an LPI syllabus
book and follow that, which is about everything you
need to know as a starting point. I would get involved
in mail and DNS if you can also. Look at Vexim for an
email related mission and then you can tell me why
Courier POP3 on Debian won't authenticate against a
MySQL database with the same configuration as a custom
compiled version on Fedora ;) (I may bug the list
about this in the future). 

For Apache, look at virtual hosts, authentication and
directory based access rights. Familiarise yourself
with the online docs for most software that you use.

Ad

-- 

http://www.drinky.org.uk

http://blog.adamsweet.org


		
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