CS 309, Summer 2005

Course Outline

Catalog Description:

3 credits lecture
Semester taught: Spring
Prerequisite: CS 223

The adminstration and management of computer systems. Includes user management, performance monitoring, disk management, systems and device configuration and purchasing decisions. Emphasis will be on Unix and NT operating systems.

Course Outcomes:

The desired outcomes for students completing this course are to have a working knowledge of system administration in the following areas:

Understand the foundational responsibilities of system and network administrators.
Understand the relationship between system administration and foundation areas of computer science, including operating systems, networks and security.
Understand the relationship between various operating system functions and their implementation.
Have the ability to perform basic system administration activities for Linux.
Be familiar with system security issues and be able to apply basic system security under Linux.
Be familiar with application installation, configuration and management for Linux.

Syllabus:

Definitions
- Unix, history and characteristics
- Why Linux?
- Other choices and lab setup
Operating system functions and the relationship to system administration
- Operating system functions
- How the functions are implemented in Linux
Installation and configuration
- Disk organization, partitions and boot managers
- Installing Linux
- Configuration files
- Disk layout and swap space
- Floppies, CD's and networks
- Installation walkthrough
- What to do when it doesn't work
- Boot, shutdown and single-user mode
- Logs and log files
Post installation configuration
- Superuser - all the power and all the blame
- Adding users
- Initial Network configuration
- Configuring X Windows
- Running an X windows system
- Using the information resources on the web
- Security issues
The Boot Process
- Initial boot and disk configuration, bootstrapping
- Kernel loading, LILO and GRUB
- Startup files, inittab, the rc directory
- The sysconfig files
- Managing services
Shell scripting
- Bash shell commands and structures
- External commands used in scripts
Upgrading
- RPM's and apt
- Patches
- Drivers and modules
- Kernel configuration and rebuilds
Process management
- Process life cycle
- Process control
- Performance analysis
- Security issues
- Sudo
File system management
- fstab
- Layout
- Quotas
- fsck
- Floppies, CD ROMs, Zips, etc.
- Network File System (NFS)
- Backup
- Tuning file systems
- File system recovery
Printing
- Configuring printers
- lpd
- Cups
Devices
- Signals and connections
- Printers
- Modems
- Disks, "Scuzzy and otherwise"
Advanced Networks
- Configuration
- xinet.d
- Security and TCP wrappers
- iptables and NAT
- Routing
- PPP
- Network management
- Security issues
Domain Name Services
- How DNS works.
- named, installation and configuration
- Creating DNS databases
Mail and mail services
- Installation
- Sendmail, Postfix and others
- Configuration and management
- Mail clients
- Security issues
Serial Communications
- Connections and configuration
- Printers
- Modems
- Disks, "Scuzzy and otherwise"
Web Server
- Installation
- Configuration and management
- Security issues
Samba Services
- How Samba works and SMB
- Configuring Samba
- Managing Samba
- Security Issues
Accounting
- Why bother?
- CPU and connect-time accounting
- Printer accounting

Spring 2004 Details

Room & Time:

Lecture:

MWF, 9:00 - 9:50 am, EPS 108

Laboratories:

Held in EPS 259 as needed.

Course Organization:
The course will be organized primarily as a hands-on laboratory with each student administering a Linux workstation. Lectures will be dedicated to specific topics and group work on homework assignments.

Textbook:

Linux Administration Handbook, Nemeth, Prentice-Hall.