Course details
Advanced Topics of Linux Administration
ILI Acad. year 2018/2019 Winter semester 4 credits
Students attending the course obtain hands-on experience with modern Linux systems. The course starts from the process of selecting a Linux distribution suitable for a certain planned scenario of its usage. Students can choose their distribution freely, and they use it during the entire course. Distributions chosen by the students are installed into a virtual environment that is used in the course without a risk of causing potential problems on a standard network. Students obtain deeper knowledge in two main areas, namely, storage subsystems and server-side services, as well as in various subsystems closely related to these main main topics of the course. The part of course devoted to storage includes different views on Linux file systems, logical volume management, and encryption of individual partitions. The course also covers server-side data storage technologies such as software RAID and export of block devices using the iSCSI standard. The part of the course devoted to server-side services concentrates on high-availability and load-balancing clusters and their impact on services provided by a system. Further, the course also contains an introduction to the SELinux security project as well as to network management in Linux.
Guarantor
Course coordinator
Language of instruction
Completion
Time span
- 26 hrs pc labs
- 13 hrs projects
Assessment points
- 40 pts mid-term test
- 60 pts projects
Department
Subject specific learning outcomes and competences
Students will acquire knowledge and hands-on experience of modern technologies for GNU/Linux that are used in complex enterprise environments. Using these technologies, students will be able to design and implement solutions based on GNU/Linux servers for various application scenarios of such servers. The extent of the acquired knowledge corresponds to the level of Red Hat certifications.
Improved knowledge of operating systems and their administration.
Learning objectives
The course covers advanced topics of administration of Linux/Unix operating systems as well as services typically running on such systems. The course emphasizes practical training of administration skills.
Why is the course taught
The course allows students to get deeper knowledge of selected advanced topics of administration of Linux/Unix operating systems as well as services typically running on such systems.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
User-level proficiency in GNU/Linux operating system.
Corequisite knowledge and skills
Positive attitude towards UNIX-based systems.
Syllabus of computer exercises
- Introduction to Linux distributions and differences among them.
- The SystemD management system.
- Storage management using Logical Volume Manager and software RAID.
- Single-mount file systems and their benefits: ext*, xfs, btrfs.
- Exporting block devices over network using iSCSI.
- Cryptography in GNU/Linux and possible attacks.
- High availability clusters: infrastructure, fence agents.
- High availability clusters: resource management, constraints.
- Shared file systems: gfs2.
- Load balancing on top of high availability clusters.
- Increasing internal security through SELinux.
- Network management and firewall configuration in Linux.
- Designing solutions for complex Linux usage scenarios.
Syllabus - others, projects and individual work of students
- Preparation of automated installation and configuration for virtual machines.
- Installation and configuration of SW RAID and LVM.
- Installation and configuration of iSCSI.
- Building a high availability cluster.
Progress assessment
Points for both the homeworks and the final practical test will be assigned based on an evaluation of the systems or their components installed and configured by the students.
Exam prerequisites:
To successfully pass the course, a student needs to get at least 50 points in total out of which at least 24 points must be obtained from the homeworks and at least 16 points from the final practical test.
Controlled instruction
The knowledge and experience gained by the students is evaluated through 4 homeworks covering the contents of the course (4x 15 points) and further through a final practical test (40 points). The practical test has the form of having to install a system according to some predefined requirements in some given time limit.
Exam prerequisites
To successfully pass the course, a student needs to get at least 50 points in total out of which at least 24 points must be obtained from the homeworks and at least 16 points from the final practical test.
Course inclusion in study plans