Book Image

Mastering Ubuntu Server

By : Jay LaCroix
Book Image

Mastering Ubuntu Server

By: Jay LaCroix

Overview of this book

Ubuntu is a Debian-based Linux operating system, and has various versions targeted at servers, desktops, phones, tablets and televisions. The Ubuntu Server Edition, also called Ubuntu Server, offers support for several common configurations, and also simplifies common Linux server deployment processes. With this book as their guide, readers will be able to configure and deploy Ubuntu Servers using Ubuntu Server 16.04, with all the skills necessary to manage real servers. The book begins with the concept of user management, group management, as well as file-system permissions. To manage your storage on Ubuntu Server systems, you will learn how to add and format storage and view disk usage. Later, you will also learn how to configure network interfaces, manage IP addresses, deploy Network Manager in order to connect to networks, and manage network interfaces. Furthermore, you will understand how to start and stop services so that you can manage running processes on Linux servers. The book will then demonstrate how to access and share files to or from Ubuntu Servers. You will learn how to create and manage databases using MariaDB and share web content with Apache. To virtualize hosts and applications, you will be shown how to set up KVM/Qemu and Docker and manage virtual machines with virt-manager. Lastly, you will explore best practices and troubleshooting techniques when working with Ubuntu Servers. By the end of the book, you will be an expert Ubuntu Server user well-versed in its advanced concepts.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Mastering Ubuntu Server
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Getting started with SSH key management


When you connect to a host via SSH, you'll be asked for your password, and after you authenticate you'll be connected. Instead of using your password though, you can authenticate via Public Key Authentication instead. The benefit to this is added security, as your system password is never transmitted during the process of connecting to the server. When you create an SSH key-pair, you are generating two files, a Public Key and a Private Key. These two files are mathematically linked, so if you connect to a server that has your public key, it will know it's you because you (and only you), have the private key that matches it. While public key cryptography as a whole is beyond the scope of this book, this method is far more secure than password authentication, and I highly recommend that you use it. To get the most out of the security benefit of authentication via keys, you can actually disable password-based authentication on your server so that your...