GL120 - Linux Fundamentals

Audience:

This course is ideal for those who need to gain proficiency in Linux and Unix.

Prerequisites:

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

Description:

The GL120 is a challenging course that focuses on the fundamental tools and concepts of Linux and Unix. Students gain proficiency using the command line. Beginners develop a solid foundation in Unix, while advanced users discover patterns and fill in gaps in their knowledge. Like all Guru Labs courses, the course material is designed to provide extensive hands-on experience. Topics include: basic file manipulation; basic and advanced filesystem features; I/O redirection and pipes; text manipulation and regular expressions; managing jobs and processes; vi, the standard Unix editor; automating tasks with shell scripts; managing software; secure remote administration; and more.

OUTLINE:

I. 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

II. Login and Exploration

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

Lab Tasks

• Login and Discovery
• Help with Commands
• Switching Users with su

III. The Linux Filesystem

• Filesystem Support
• Unix/Linux Filesystem Features
• Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
• Navigating the Filesystem
• Displaying Directory Contents
• Filesystem Structures
• Determing Disk Usage with df and du
• Determing Disk Usage (GUI)
• Disk Usage with Quotas
• File Ownership
• Default Group Ownership
• File and Directory Permissions
• File Creatoin Permissions with umask
• SUID and SGID on files
• SGID and Sticky Bit on Directories
• Changing File permissions
• User private group scheme

Lab Tasks

• Navigating Directories and Listing Files
• Disk and Filesystem usage
• File and Directory Ownership and Permissions
• Introduction to Troubleshooting Labs
• Troublshooting Practice: Filesystem

IV. 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 Examiniation and Search Commands

V. Shell Basics

• Role of Command Shell
• Communication Channels
• File redirection
• Piping Command 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

VI. 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

VII. 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

VIII. 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

IX. 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

X.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

XI. 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

XII. INTRODUCTION TO SHELL SCRIPTING

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

Lab Tasks

• Writing a Shell Script

XIII. 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

XIV. 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

XV.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 and 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

XVI. THE SECURE SHELL (SSH)

• Secure Shell
• ssh and sshd 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

XVII. MOUNTING FILESYSTEMS and 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

XVIII. 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

Appendix

A. 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

B.EMACS

• Emacs
• The Emacs Interface
• Basic Emacs
• More Emacs Commands

Lab Tasks

• Text Editing with Emacs