Linux Fundamentals

Upon completion of the Linux Fundamentals course, students will be able to:

• Use the command line
• Develop a solid foundation in Unix
• Discover patterns
• Manipulate the Unix filesystem
• Perform complex tasks with the basic Unix notions of pipes, redirection, regular expressions and other tools
• Manage and process jobs through the use of the standard Unix editor
• Construct shell scripts to automate routine or difficult operations

• Help Desk Support
• Testers
• Database Administrators
• System and Network Administrators

Students should be comfortable with computers. No familiarity with Linux or other Unix operating systems is required.
 

What Is Linux?

• Unix and its Design Principles
• FSF and GNU
• GPL – General Public License
• The Linux Kernel
• Linux Kernel and Versioning
• Components of a Distribution
• Slackware
• SUSE Linux Products
• Debian
• Ubuntu
• Red Hat Linux Products
• Oracle Linux

Login And Exploration

• Logging In
• Running Programs
• Interacting with Command Line
• Desktop Environments
• GNOME
• Starting X
• Gathering Login Session Info
• Gathering System Info
• uptime & w
• got root?
• Switching User Contexts
• sudo
• Help from Commands and Documentation
• whereis
• Getting Help Within the Graphical Desktop
• Getting Help with man & info
• o Lab Tasks
• Login and Discovery
• Help with Commands
• Switching Users With su

The Linux Filesystem

• Filesystem Support
• Unix/Linux Filesystem Features
• Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
• Navigating the Filesystem
• Displaying Directory Contents
• Filesystem Structures
• Determining Disk Usage With df and du
• Determining Disk Usage (GUI)
• Disk Usage with Quotas
• File Ownership
• Default Group Ownership
• File and Directory Permissions
• File Creation Permissions with umask
• SUID and SGID on files
• SGID and Sticky Bit on Directories
• Changing File Permissions
• User Private Group Scheme
• o LAB TASKS
• Navigating Directories and Listing Files
• Disk and Filesystem Usage
• File and Directory Ownership and Permissions
• Introduction to Troubleshooting Labs
• Troubleshooting Practice: Filesystem

Manipulating Files

• Directory Manipulation
• File Manipulation
• Deleting and Creating Files
• Managing Files Graphically
• Drag and drop with Nautilus
• Physical Unix File Structure
• Filesystem Links
• File Extensions and Content
• Displaying Files
• Previewing Files
• Producing File Statistics
• Displaying Binary Files
• Searching the Filesystem
• Alternate Search Method
  • LAB TASKS
• Manipulating Files and Directories
• File Examination & Search Commands

Shell Basics

• Role of Command Shell
• Communication Channels
• File Redirection
• Piping Commands Together
• Filename Matching
• File Globbing and Wildcard Patterns
• Brace Expansion
• Shell and Environment Variables
• Key Environment Variables
• Which and Type
• General Quoting Rules
• Nesting Commands
  • LAB TASKS
• Redirection and Pipes
• Wildcard File Matching
• Shell Variables
• Shell Meta-Characters
• Command Substitution

Archiving And Compression

• Archives with tar
• Archives with cpio
• The gzip Compression Utility
• The bzip2 Compression Utility
• The XZ Compression Utility
• The PKZIP Archiving/Compression format
• GNOME File Roller
  • LAB TASKS
• Archiving and Compression

Text Processing

• Searching Inside Files
• The Streaming Editor
• Text Processing with Awk
• Replacing Text Characters
• Text Sorting
• Duplicate Removal Utility
• Extracting Columns of Text
• Combining Files and Merging Text
• Comparing File Changes
  • LAB TASKS
• Processing Text Streams
• Text Processing

Regular Expressions

• Regular Expression Overview
• Regular Expressions
• RE Character Classes
• Regex Quantifiers
• RE Parenthesis
  • LAB TASKS
• Pattern Matching with Regular Expressions
• Extended Regular Expressions
• Using Regular Expressions With sed

Text Editing

• Text Editing
• Pico/GNU Nano
• Pico/Nano Interface
• Nano configuration
• Pico/Nano Shortcuts
• vi and Vim
• Learning Vim
• Basic vi
• Intermediate vi
  • LAB TASKS
• Text Editing with Nano
• Text Editing with Vim

Messaging

• System Messaging Commands
• Controlling System Messaging
• Internet Relay Chat
• Instant Messenger Clients
• Electronic Mail
• Sending Email with sendmail
• Sending and Receiving Email with mailx
• Sending and Receiving Email with mutt
• Sending Email with Pine
• Evolution
  • LAB TASKS
• Command Line Messaging
• Messaging with talkd
• Command Line Email
• Alpine

Command Shells

• Shells
• Identifying the Shell
• Changing the Shell
• Configuration Files
• Script Execution
• Shell Prompts
• Bash: Bourne-Again Shell
• Bash: Configuration Files
• Bash: Command Line History
• Bash: Command Editing
• Bash: Command Completion
• Bash: 'shortcuts'
• Bash: prompt
• Setting Resource Limits via ulimit
  • LAB TASKS
• Linux Shells
• Bash History
• Aliases
• Bash Login Scripts
• The Z Shell

Introduction To Shell Scripting

• Shell Script Strengths and Weaknesses
• Example Shell Script
• Positional Parameters
• Input & Output
• Doing Math
• Exit Status
• Comparisons with test
• Conditional Statements
• Flow Control: case
• The borne for-Loop
• The while and until Loops
• The while and until Loops
  • LAB TASKS
• Writing a Shell Script

Process Management And Job Control

• What is a Process?
• Process Lifecycle
• Process States
• Viewing Processes
• Signals
• Tools to Send Signals
• nohup and disown
• Managing Processes
• Tuning Process Scheduling
• Job Control Overview
• Job Control Commands
• Persistent Shell Sessions with Screen
• Using screen
• Advanced Screen
  • LAB TASKS
• Job Control Basics
• Process Management Basics
• Screen Basics
• Using Screen Regions
• Troubleshooting Practice: Process Management

AT And Cron

• Automating Tasks
• at/batch
• cron
• The crontab Command
• crontab Format
• /etc/cron.*/ Directories
• Anacron
  • LAB TASKS
• Creating and Managing User Cron Jobs
• Adding System cron Jobs
• Troubleshooting Practice: Automating Tasks

Managing Software

• Downloading with FTP
• FTP
• lftp
• Command Line Internet – Non-interactive
• Command Line Internet – Interactive
• Managing Software Dependencies
• Using the Yum command
• Using Yum history
• YUM package groups
• Configuring Yum
• yumdownloader
• Popular Yum Repositories
• Using the Zypper command
• Zypper Services and Catalogs
• The dselect & APT Frontends to dpkg
• Aptitude
• Configuring APT
  • LAB TASKS
• Command Line File Transfers
• Using Yum
• Using Zypper
• Managing Yum Repositories
• Managing Zypper Repositories
• Using APT
• Adding an APT repository

The Secure Shell (SSH)

• Secure Shell
• OpenSSH Client & Server Configuration
• Accessing Remote Shells
• Transferring Files
• Alternative sftp Clients
• SSH Key Management
• ssh-agent
  • LAB TASKS
• Introduction to ssh and scp
• SSH Key-based User Authentication
• Using ssh-agent

Mounting Filesystems & Managing Removable Media

• Filesystems Concept Review
• Mounting Filesystems
• NFS
• SMB
• Filesystem Table (/etc/fstab)
• AutoFS
• Removable Media
  • LAB TASKS
• Accessing NFS Shares
• On-demand filesystem mounting with AutoFS

Printing

• Legacy Print Systems
• Common UNIX Printing System
• Defining a Printer
• Standard Print Commands
• Format Conversion Utilities
• enscript and mpage
  • LAB TASKS
• Printing
• Configuring Print Queues

The X Window System

• The X Window System
• X Modularity
• X.Org Drivers
• Configuring X Manually
• Automatic X Configuration
• Xorg and Fonts
• Installing Fonts for Modern Applications
• Installing Fonts for Legacy Applications
• The X11 Protocol and Display Names
• Display Managers and Graphical Login
• Starting X Apps Automatically
• X Access Control
• Remote X Access (historical/insecure)
• Remote X Access (modern/secure)
• XDMCP
• Remote Graphical Access With VNC and RDP
• Specialized X Servers
  • LAB TASKS
• Remote X with XDMCP
• Configure X Security
• Configure a VNC Server
• Configure a VNC Server
• Configure a VNC Server
• Launching X Apps Automatically
• Secure X

Emacs

• Emacs
• The Emacs Interface
• Basic Emacs
• More Emacs Commands
  • LAB TASKS
• Text Editing with Emacs