LINUX SERVICES AND CONFIGURATION

root User
On many computer operating system, the superuser, or root, is a special user account used for system administration. Separation of administrative privileges from normal user privileges makes an operating system more resistant to viruses and other malware. root has all rights or permissions (to all files and programs) in all modes (single- or multi-user).

Web-Based Administration Tools

Samba
Enable Linux to share files and printers with Microsoft Windows. Is a software that can be run on a platform other than Microsoft Windows, for example, UNIX, Linux, IBM System 390, OpenVMS, and other operating systems. use the TCP/IP protocol that is installed on the host server. CUPS (Common UNIX Printing Service)
standards-based, open source printing system developed by Apple Inc. for Mac OS X and other UNIX-like operating systems. Is a software used to print from applications like the web browser. It converts the page descriptions produced by your application into something your printer can understand and then sends the information to the printer for printing.

Web-Based Administration Tools

SquirrelMail
Is a standards-based webmail package written in PHP4. It includes built-in pure PHP support for the IMAP and SMTP protocols, and all pages render in pure HTML 4.0 (with no Javascript) for maximum compatibility across browsers. It has very few requirements and is very easy to configure and install.

Mailman
Is a server based email list and web based list member management software. It allows list users to send a single email to the list email address (i.e. list@orgname.com) and all members on the list will receive the email. It is a great communications tool for the dissemination of information and for discussion among list members. Mailman will also save list emails for archive and viewing via the web.

Graphical Tools
GNU Image Manipulation Program

Graphical Tools
F-Spot Photo Manager

Graphical Tools
OpenOffice.org Draw

Graphical Tools
gThumb Image Viewer XSane Image Scanner

Network Configuration Command Line

1. Load the proper module(driver) for your Ethernet card 2. Set the IP address and network mask: /sbin/ifconfig -a eth0 192.168.1.5 netmask 255.255.255.0 3. Verify the settings with /sbin/ifconfig eth0 4. Add the default gatway: /sbin/route add default gw 192.168.1.254 replacing 192.168.1.254 with your gateway 5. Verify the gateway setting: /sbin/route. The line beginning with default should have your gateway under the gateway column

Network Configuration Command Line

6. Alternately, you can edit the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 to look like (replace with your network numbers)
DEVICE=eth0 USERCTL=no ONBOOT=yes BOOTPROTO=none BROADCAST=192.168.1.255 NETWORK=192.168.1.0 NETMASK=255.255.255.0 IPADDR=192.168.1.5

and the file /etc/sysconfig/network to look like

NETWORKING=yes HOSTNAME=name.host.net FORWARD_IPV4=yes GATEWAYDEV= GATEWAY=192.168.1.254

7.

Ping the gateway and a few other computers on the network to verify your settings are correct.

GUI-based Windows For System Administration

Server configuration windows: DNS, HTTP (Apache Web Server), NFS, Samba (SMB file sharing) System ---> Administration ---> Network

GUI-based Windows For System Administration

Software packages (Add/Remove Applications) System ---> Administration ---> Synaptic Package Manager

GUI-based Windows For System Administration

Boot Configuration screen (Bootloader) System ---> Administration ---> Bootloader

GUI-based Windows For System Administration

Date And Time System ---> Administration ---> Time and Date

GUI-based Windows For System Administration

Removable Media (Disk management) System ---> Preferences ---> Removable Drives and Media

GUI-based Windows For System Administration

Display System ---> Preferences ---> Appearance

GUI-based Windows For System Administration

Information Of Computer Hardware (Hardware Browser) System ---> Preferences ---> Hardware Information

GUI-based Windows For System Administration

Configuration For Internet Connection (Internet Configuration Wizard) System ---> Administration ---> Network Tools

GUI-based Windows For System Administration

Local And Network Printers (Printing Manager) System ---> Administration ---> Printing

GUI-based Windows For System Administration

User And Group Accounts (Users & Groups) System ---> Administration ---> Users and Groups

Configuration Files
This is where users keep their personal files.
$HOME

/etc

files used by application subsystems such as mail, Oracle database, etc a parent shell script to run commands periodically. It invokes hourly, daily, weekly and monthly scripts

/etc/crontab

Configuration Files
/etc/cups

contain all printing configuration files

/etc/default

contain default values for various files

/etc/init.d

contains various service startup scripts

Configuration Files
/etc/mail

content all mails configuration files content all configuration files about PCMCIA card content all configuration files about point-to-point protocol

/etc/pcmcia

/etc.ppp

Configuration Files
/etc/skel

holds example dot files used to populate a new user s home directory

/etc/sysconfig

Is where many of the files that control the system configuration are stored. This section lists these files and many of the optional values in the files used to make system changes

Utilities For Logging Error And Debugging Messages

In Linux, a variety of log files are maintained. And its understanding is often vital for troubleshooting system problems. The centralized logging is provided by two daemons : Syslogd daemons
Linux system logging utilities provides a kind of logging that many modern programs use. Every logged message contains at least a time, hostname field, a program name field

klogd daemons Kernel Log Daemon is a system daemon which intercepts and logs Linux kernel messages

Removable Hardware on GNOME and KDE

There are wide variety of removable drives and media such as storage devices, cameras, scanners, and more. The configurations for many of these devices are set up automatically during installation. To change the configuration for a drive or other removable device, click : Computer > Control Center > Hardware > Removable Drives and Media User does not need to change the settings that are already configured unless to change the behavior when a device is connected or a new device that is not yet configured.

Linux Commands To Get Hardware Information

To get information of a CPU

Linux Commands To Get Hardware Information

To get information of a memory of the computer

Install a new hard disk hardware a. Shut down the system b. Install the drive into an open drive bay c. Startup the system and enter the BIOS to make the hardware aware of the new disk

Identify the partitions on the a. Partition the new disk with fdisk new disk b. Example :
root@ubuntu : / # fdisk /dev/hdb

Identify the partitions on the new disk

1 4

Adding a New Hard Disk To Linux System

2 3

a. Mount the new partition with the mount command a. Format the new partition with mkfs a. Add the new partition to the /etc/fstab file so it will be mounted at startup time b. Example : in future root@ubuntu : / # mkfs -t ext3 -c /dev/hdb1 Mount the file systems b. Example :
root@ubuntu : / # mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb1 /new1

Mount the file system

Create the file systems on the new disk