CSC 318: Network and System Administration

Credit Hours: 3
Lecture Hours: 2
Lab Hours: 2
Prerequisites: CSC 213 and CSC 323
Course Objectives
At the end of the course, students will
 Explain booting and shutting down procedure including all involved files,
 Define file structures and file attributes,
 Define and manage processes,
 Manage user accounts, devices and drivers,
 Manage networks and process queues,
 Explain syslog file contents,
 Install and configure the kernel,
 Define network file systems and explain security issues, and
 Manage secondary storages and backups.
Course Description
Installation and configuration of an operating system, maintenance and monitoring of
file systems, managing users, monitoring and troubleshooting system performance,
developing and customizing user login and other start-up scripts, managing system
services, automating system services, installing and updating device drivers, connecting
to a network, implementing fileservers, system backups and restores.
Course Content
Chapter 1 - Booting and Shutting Down
1.1 Kernel initialization,
1.2 System processes, startup scripts, etc.
1.3 Important users: superuser, daemon, bin, sys.
Chapter 2 - The File System
2.1 Regular files, directories
2.2 Character and block files
2.3 Hard links, symbolic links, permission bits, etc.
Chapter 3 - Controlling Processes
3.1 PID, PPID, UID, GID
3.2 Priority and nice value
3.3 Signals, process states, etc.
Chapter 4 - Adding New Users
4.1 Editing passwd file
4.2 Initial passwd
4.3 Startup files
4.4 Accounting info, quotas, etc.
Chapter 5 - Devices and Drivers
5.1 Adding device drivers
5.2 Naming conventions
5.3 Loadable kernel modules, etc.
Chapter 6 - Periodic Processes
6.1 cron, changing crontabs
6.2 UUCP polling, accounting, etc.
Chapter 7 - Backups
7.1 Backup devices and media
7.2 Incremental backup regime
7.3 Restoring, archiving programs, etc.
Chapter 8 - Syslog and Log Files
8.1 Syslog, configuring syslogd, using syslog programs, etc.
Chapter 9 - Configuring the Kernel
9.1 Building, compiling and installing the kernel
Chapter 10 - Setting and Debugging a Network
10.1 Setting up a network
10.2 Network debugging, etc.
Chapter 11 - The Domain Name System
11.1 Internet addresses
11.2 Address translation and DNS
11.3 The DNS database, etc.
Chapter 12 - The Network File System
12.1 Server-Side NFS
12.2 Client-Side NFS
12.3 Automatic mounting, security of NFS, etc.
Chapter 13 - Network Management
13.1 Detecting network faults
13.2 SNMP
Chapter 14 - Security Issues
Chapter 15 - Disk Space Management
Teaching Methods
- Lecture, Lab
Method of Assessment
- Continuous assessment 30%
- Lab: 20%
- Mid exam: 20%
- Final exam: 30%
Textbook
- Mark Burgess, “Principles of Network and System Administration”, 2nd Edition, John
Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2004.
References
- Craig Hunt, “TCP/IP Network Administration”, 3rd Edition, O’Reilly and Associates
Inc., 2002.
- Matthias Kalle Dalheimer and Matt Welsh, “Running Linux”, 5th Edition, O’Reilly and
Associates Inc., 2007.
- Eleen Frisch, “Essential System Administration”, 3rd Edition, O’Reilly and Associates
Inc., 2003.