FastTrack to Red Hat Linux 7 System Administrator

This highly practical instructor led FastTrack to Red Hat Linux 7 System Administrator course is designed to give experienced LINUX/UNIX administrators practical experience in the administration of a Red Hat Linux 7 System to the level required by the Red Hat Certified Systems Administration (RHCSA) certification.

This class will have a high, practical content and will be delivered at a fast pace. Delegates should have strong command line experience of UNIX/LINUX, including but not limited to: cp, grep, mkdir, vi, ssh, tar, gzip, useradd and be capable of using man pages.

This course is targeted to closely follow the official Red Hat curriculum and makes for an ideal practical refresher course prior to taking the RHCSA examination.

A great skills transfer course for system administrators already experienced in administering other Linux/UNIX systems such as: Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, SUSE to name but a few.

Exercises and examples are used throughout the course to give practical hands-on experience with the techniques covered.

The delegate will learn and acquire skills as follows:

• Use the command line to manage files and directories
• Manage users and groups on a local system
• Use Cockpit for Administrative Tasks
• Control access to files and directories with Linux extended file system permissions
• Monitor and Manage Processes and System logs
• Install and Manage software using rpm, yum and RHN
• Control and monitor system processes using systemd
• Configure IPV4 & IPV6 and test Network Interfaces
• Configure Partitions, File systems and Swap space
• Use logical Volume Manager (LVM) and understand Stratis
• Secure systems using SELinux, basic Firewalls (firewalld) and Access Control Lists (ACL's)
• Schedule repetitive tasks using cron and at
• Install the Operating System using kickstart
• Mounting CIFS/Samba and NFS File shares
• Configure System Logging (rsyslog) and use journalctl
• Install and Manage KVM virtual machines
• Deploy Containers using Red Hat's new tools Podman and Buildah (these replace Docker)
• Troubleshoot Systems

The FastTrack to Red Hat Linux 7 System Administrator course is suitable for experienced LINUX/UNIX System Administrators who need to acquire knowledge of the key administrative tasks required to administer a LINUX system. This course will teach the necessary skills to enable the student to work towards the RHCSA certification.

On completion of the FastTrack to Red Hat Linux 7 System Administrator course, the delegate will have a greater technical awareness of the system and will have acquired practical experience of the key administration duties on a Red Hat Linux system. They will possess the essential knowledge required to study towards the official Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) qualification.

This course will aid the delegate in their preparation for the following exams:

• Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA): EX200

Attending this course will help the delegate gain many of the skills and product knowledge requirements as outlined in the exam objectives. Studying this course and its associated reference materials can form part of the preparation to achieve certification. Experience, practice, self-study and aptitude are also key requirements for exam success.

Before taking any exam, ensure you have the recommended experience. The Red Hat website lists all exam requirements and these are updated regularly.

Exams are not included as part of the course.

This course assumes a strong prior knowledge of the Linux operating system, and significant experience working with Linux as a system administrator is recommended. The delegate will be expected to already understand fundamental Linux computing concepts, to the level covered on the Administering Red Hat Linux 7 - Part 1 course, as a minimum level requirement for attendance.

• Administering Red Hat Linux 7 - Part 3
• System Security for Red Hat Linux
• Apache Web Server
• Perl Programming
• Oracle SQL

• Course technical content is subject to change without notice.
• Course content is structured as sessions, this does not strictly map to course timings. Concepts, content and practicals often span sessions.

Course Contents - DAY 1

Course Introduction

• Administration and Course Materials
• Course Structure and Agenda
• Delegate and Trainer Introductions

Session 1: ACCESSING THE SYSTEM

• Logging in and command line access
• Getting Help - man pages, info, /usr/share/doc
• Sources of information available on the WEB
• Remote Desktop Access - both secure and insecure

Session 2: BASIC CLIENT NETWORKING

• Configuring Network Interfaces
• Controlling Network Devices: ifup/ifdown
• Configuring IPV4 & IPV6 dynamic and static networking
• Network Tools ifconfig, ip, ethtool etc
• Configuring basic NTP
• Connecting NIS and LDAP clients to corresponding servers
• Linking to a system using ssh and vnc
• Synchronising files with rsync
• Exercise

Session 3: USER AND FILE ADMINISTRATION

• Authentication policies and User Private Groups
• Supplied Red Hat Tools - system-config-users and Cockpit
• Password management using passwd, chage etc
• Managing user profile files
• Extended file permissions including suid,sgid
• Access Control List (ACL's)
• Switching to another user
• Connecting to a centralised administration server
• Exercise

Course Contents - DAY 2

Session 4: SYSTEM MONITORING

• Monitor CPU and memory usage
• Check disk utilisation
• System Log Files
• Monitor system logs
• rsyslogd
• Analysing and rotating logfiles
• Exercise

Session 5: SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT

• The Red Hat Package Management system
• Installing removing software manually using rpm
• RPM queries and verifying packages
• Dependency problems and resolution
• Updating the Kernel from RPM's
• Other RPM features
• Exercise

Session 6: MANAGING SOFTWARE WITH YUM

• The YUM and dnf management tool
• Software repositories
• Accessing repositories from a client
• Updating your system with Red Hat Network

Session 7: DATA SECURITY

• SELinux
• Management of SELinux
• Easy configuration and customisation of SELinux
• Configuring and using ssh and scp
• Basic Firewall management
• Exercise

Course Contents - DAY 3

Session 8: DISK PARTITIONING

• Understand and configure disk partitioning
• LUKS encrypted partitions
• Exercise

Session 9: LVM VOLUMES

• Basic LVM design and configuration
• The Logical Volume Manager (LVM)
• Creating LVM file systems
• Resizing LVM file systems
• Exercise

Session 10: MAINTAINING THE KERNEL

• Kernel Design
• Dynamic Modules
• Loading and removing modules
• Using kernel arguments
• Changing Tuneable Parameters
• Exercise

Course Contents - DAY 4

Session 11: INSTALLING RED HAT LINUX USING KICKSTART

• How Kickstart works
• Sections within a Kickstart configuration file
• Pre and Post Kickstart processing
• Creating a Kickstart file
• Creating the Linux Install Server
• Differing ways of starting a Kickstart installation
• Exercise

Session 12: USING SYSTEMD AND CONTROLLING SERVICES

• The systemd deamon
• Control Services using systemctl etc.
• System Shutdown and Reboot management

Session 13: MANAGING VIRTUAL SYSTEMS

• Virtualisation concepts
• Install a KVM virtual system
• Checking for supported hardware
• Start and shutdown a virtual system
• Exercise

Course Contents - DAY 5

Session 14: DEPLOY CONTAINERS USING THE NEW PODMAN AND BUILDAH

• What is a Linux Container
• What are the advantages of Containers
• Why is Red Hat's Buildah and Podman replacing Docker
• Building a Container using Buildah
• Running Containers with Podman
• Exercise

Session 15: ACCESSING DATA ON REMOTE SYSTEMS

• Configuring client access to a Network Filesystem Server (NFS)
• Providing CIFS access
• Configuring autofs
• Exercise

Session 16: TROUBLESHOOTING

• Understanding the boot process
• The Rescue Environment
• Overriding Boot Levels from grub
• Common boot problems and their resolution
• Exercise