Administration-Unit I

T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System

STUDY MATERIAL WITH RESPECT TO
CONTENT FROM REFERENCE BOOK OF
SYBEX RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX
Introduction

Operating Systems

• An operating system is a program that manages computer hardware and software for the user.

•O.S is designed to perform repetitive hardware tasks, such as managing files, running programs,
and receiving commands from the user.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•User interacts with an O.S through a user interface, which allows O.S to receive and interpret
instructions sent by the user.

•An O.S also manages software applications.

•To perform different tasks, such as editing documents or performing calculations, you need specific
software applications.

•The O.S controls the loading and execution of all programs, including any software applications.
File management, program management, and user interaction are traditional features common to
all operating systems.
What Is UNIX?

•The UNIX OS was originally developed at AT & T Bell Laboratories, in 1970.

•UNIXis a multiuser, multitasking operating system for a wide variety of hardware platforms, from
PC workstations to multiprocessor servers and supercomputers.

•Originally designed as an OS for researchers.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•Major goal - to create a system that could support the researchers’ changing demands.

•So need to design a system that could deal with many different kinds of tasks.

•Flexibility became more important than hardware efficiency.

What is Linux?

•Linux is a multiuser and multitasking system.

•As it is a multitasking system, you can ask the system to perform several tasks at the same time.

•You do not have to wait for the other file to finish printing before you edit.

•As it is a multiuser system, several users can log in to the system at the same time, each interacting with

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
the system through his or her own terminal.

•Linux has the advantage of being able to deal with the variety of tasks any user may face.

•The user is not confined to limited and rigid interactions with the operating system.

•Instead, the operating system is thought of as making a set of highly effective tools available to the user.

•This
user-oriented philosophy means you can configure and program the system to meet your specific
needs.

•Linux and UNIX programs are very similar.

•In fact, almost all programs written for UNIX can be compiled and run on Linux.
Linux Overview

•Linux can be generally divided into three major components: the kernel, the environment, and the
file structure.

•The kernel is the core program that runs programs and manages hardware devices, such as disks
and printers.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•The environment provides an interface for the user. It receives commands from the user and sends
those commands to the kernel for execution.

•Thefile structure organizes the way files are stored on a storage device, such as a disk. Files are
organized into directories.

•Each directory may contain any number of subdirectories, each holding files.

•Together, the kernel, the environment, and the file structure form the basic operating system
structure. With these three, you can run programs, manage files, and interact with the system.
Duties of System Administrator

1. The Linux System Administrator

•Systemadministrators are those who decided what software and peripherals were bundled with
machine when it was shipped.

•Administering a system involves degree of learning and gain skills and understanding in setting up

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
and configuring your own system.

•Linux system administrators achieve that by taking full control of what computer does and how it
does.

•Linux system administrator is a person who has the “root” access i.e. a system’s super user or root
user.

•Root users access to user accounts, their home directories and file in it, all system configuration
and all files on the system.

•System administrator has full system privileges-sees to flexibility of system against responsibility to
run an organization.
2. Installing and Configuring Server

•Server is a computer that offers some type of service to clients.

•It is not a standalone workstation but a computer that performs services to many users.

•Eg. Printing in Linux takes place after you configure a printer server.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•Linux distributions used to ship servers turned on by default. i.e. installing operating system,
installing and configuring with default parameters, services available with distributions earlier.

•Now servers remain turned off unless specifically enabled and configured.

•This is the duty of system administrator, to know which servers are needed how to employ.

•Don’t enable service that system doesn’t use or not needed.

3. Installing and Configuring Application Software

•Individual users can install applications in their home directories.

•These applications are not available to other users without the permission of system administrator.

•Ifapplication is to be used by more than one user, it needs to be installed in higher Linux file
hierarchy and done by system administrator.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•System administrator decides which user can use what applications by creating groups.

•For this Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) is used.

•Skeleton
configuration, an administrator determined default configuration, sets baseline for user
employment of application.

•Eg. Forms used throughout the enterprise are available by adding them to skeleton configuration,
to decide what appears on desktop, to add menu items for newly installed applications are all the
duties of system administrator.
4. Creating and Maintaining User Accounts

•No one can just log onto a Linux machine.

•Account must be created for each user is the task of system administrator.

•It involves decisions which you or your company makes.

•You are allowed to choose your own password, but as easier to remember so easier to crack.

•You are assigned passwords which is secure but user writes it down so a risk.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•User must change passwords periodically but user forgets and so again a risk.

•What about old accounts?

•If
someone leaves the company, he must not have access to company account. But don’t delete his account as essential data must
be present there.

•To what may specific users have access?

•Only aspects of business that make web access desirable and not for any other purpose.

•All above are the duties of system administrator in managing user accounts.

•Policy is established by system administrator or employer.

•Policy should be delineated i.e. in written for company for protection.

5. Backing Up and Restoring Files

•This is job of a system administrator as Linux has a built-in security.

•Make sure system is not vulnerable.

•If
you have high capacity tape drives and sets of restore disks, you can make full system backup
every few days.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•If you manage system with more users, backup user accounts and configuration files.

•Once decided what to backup than decide how frequently to backup. Eg-Series of incremental
backups, only files changed since last backup, multiple full backup and when backups should be
performed.

•Maintainbackups without need to resort them i.e. keeping multiple copies of important files in
home directory.

•In a company you are the one making decisions.

•Boss needs system works properly.

•Need to plan for bringing system backup after failure. Failure could be due to hardware or
software.

•Hardware failure caused due to improper configuration can be corrected by properly configuring
the device. It may be sometime caused due to device then replace the device.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•Software failure can be due to improper configuration of system file it can be corrected by properly
configuring system file.

•System administrator must have a disaster recovery plan.

•It
takes into account type of data and services provided and how much fault tolerance your system
requires i.e. how long your system could be down and what effect that could have on company’s
ability to conduct business.

•If 100% fault tolerance i.e. online 24x7 then disaster recovery unnecessary.
Monitoring and Tuning Performance

•System tuning is an ongoing process aided by monitoring tools.

•Proper monitoring allows you to detect application that uses more resources than it should or fails
to exit completely upon closing.

•Through use of system performance tools you can determine when hardware should be upgraded

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
for more cost-effective use of machine in enterprise or for computation of tasks.

•Carefulsystem monitoring gives an idea when system component is showing early signs of failure
so you can minimize potential downtime.

•Tomake best performance from equipment, monitor your system carefully and use Linux’s built-in
security wisely.
Configuring a Secure system

•The job of system administrator is to see that no data on machine or network is corrupted due
to hardware, power failure, misconfiguration, user error or by malicious code.

•Systems should involve levels of security permissions within the system and systems to which
it is connected, also enable firewalls.

•For machines connected to other machines, securities means hardening against attacks and

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
see that no one else uses your machine as platform for launching attacks against others.

•Make sure passwords are not easily guessed and not available to unauthorized users.

•Make sure former employees have no longer access to system and do not copy files.

•Your job as a system administrator is to strike right balance between maximum utility and
maximum safety, bearing in mind that confidence in secure machine today means nothing
about machine’s security tomorrow.
Tools to Monitor Security

•Crackers break into system due to vulnerability.

•Linux development community is quick to find exploits and create ways before crackers enter.

•Red Hat makes new, patched versions of packages in which exploits can be found.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•Firstand best security tools, make sure whenever a security advisory is issued, you download
and install repaired package.

•Preventing machine against wrong purpose and guarding against intrusion are the
responsibility of system administrator.

•Red Had equips with tools to detect and deal with unauthorized access of many kinds.
Origins of Linux

• The late 1960s and early 1970s were the dawn of the modern computing era.

•It was the period where a vendor would build a “closed” computer system and create the
operating software to run on it.

• Computers were extremely expensive and rare among businesses.

•In that period, scientists were still looking for the best way to operate a computer, and that
included developing the best programming language.

•An important step forward was the development of the general purpose programming
language C by Dennis Richie at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1969.

• This language was developed for use with the UNIX operating system.

•TheUNIX operating system was the first operating system where people from different
companies tried to work together to build.

• There was rise of another phenomenon, the Internet Protocol (IP) and the Internet.
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System Administration-Unit I
•One of the huge contributors to the success of UNIX was the spirit of openness of the
operating system.

• Everyone could contribute to it, and the specifications were freely available to anyone.

•Because of the huge success of UNIX, companies started claiming parts of this
operating system in the 1970s.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•That was the beginning of the development of different flavors of UNIX, such as BSD,
Sun Solaris, and HP AIX.

•Instead of working together, these UNIX flavors worked beside one another, trying to
develop the best version for a specific solution.

•As a reaction to the closing of UNIX, Richard Stallman of MIT announced in 1984 the
GNU operating system project.

•The goal of this project was to develop “a sufficient body of free software [...] to get
along without any software that is not free.”
•During the 1980s, many common Unix commands, tools, and applications were developed.

•In1991, there was launch of the Linux kernel by a student at the University of Helsinki in
Finland, Linus Torvalds.

•The interesting fact about the Linux kernel is that it was never developed to be part of the
GNU project.

• Rather it was an independent initiative.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•Torvalds just needed a license to ensure that the Linux kernel would be free software
forever, and he chose to use the GNU,General Public License (GPL) for this purpose.

•The GPL is a copyleft license, which means that derived works can be distributed only under
the same license terms.

•Using GPL made it possible to publish open source software where others could freely add
to or modify lines of code.

•Torvalds also made an announcement on Usenet, a very popular news network that was
used to communicate information about certain projects in the early 1990s.

•In his Usenet message, Torvalds asked others to join him working on the Linux kernel, a
challenge that was very soon taken up by many programmers around the world.
Distributions

•There were many GNU utilities to choose and those tools, together with a kernel, made a complete
operating system. The only thing enthusiastic users still needed to do was to gather this software, compile it
from source code and install the working parts on a computer.

•Because this was a rather complicated task, some initiatives started soon to provide ready-to-install Linux
distributions.

•MCC Interim Linux, a distribution was made available for public download in February 1992, shortly after
the release of the Linux kernel itself.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•In 1993, Patrick Volkerding released a distribution called Slackware, a distribution that could be
downloaded to floppy disk images in the early days.

• In 1993, Marc Ewing and Bob Young founded Red Hat, the first Linux distributor operating as a business.

• Since then, Red Hat has acquired other companies to integrate specific Linux-related technologies.

• Red Hat went public in 1999, thus becoming the first Linux-based company on Wall Street.
•
•Because of the publicity, Red Hat and Linux received great exposure, and many companies started using it
for their enterprise IT environments.

• It was initially used for applications, such as intranet web servers running Apache software.

•Linux was also used for core financial applications.

•Today Linux in general and Red Hat Linux in particular is at the heart of the IT
organization in many companies.

•Large parts of the Internet operate on Linux, using popular applications such as
the Apache web server or the Squid proxy server.

• Linux has largely replaced UNIX, and Red Hat is a leading force in Linux.

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
•One reason why Red Hat has been so successful since the beginning is the level of
support the company provides.

•Red Hat offers three types of support, and this gives companies the confidence they
need to run vital business applications on Linux.
The three types of Linux support provided by Red Hat are as follows:
Hardware Support

Red Hat has agreements with every major server hardware vendor
to make sure that whatever server a customer buys, the hardware
vendor will assist them in fixing hardware issues, when Red Hat is
installed on it.

Software Support

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
Red Hat has agreements with every major enterprise software
vendor to make sure that their software runs properly on top of
the Red Hat Linux operating system and that the enterprise
software is also guaranteed to run on Red Hat Linux by the vendor
of the operating system.

Hands-on Support

This means that if a customer is experiencing problems

accomplishing tasks with Red Hat software, the Red Hat Global
Support organization is there to help them by fixing bugs and
providing technical assistance.
Fedora

•Fedora is a freely available Linux distribution that is completely comprised of open source
software, and Red Hat is providing the funds and people to tackle this project.

• Both Red Hat and Fedora are free of charge; with Red Hat you pay only for updates and support.

•Fedora is used as a development platform for the latest and greatest version of Linux, which is

Administration-Unit I
T.Y.B.Sc.I.T- Paper-IV-Linux System
provided free of charge for users who are interested.

•Fedora can be used as a test platform for features that will eventually be included in Red Hat
Enterprise Linux.

•Fedora makes an excellent choice to install on your personal computer, because it offers all the
functions you would expect from a modern operating system—even some functions that are of
interest only to home users.