Book Image

Ubuntu Server Essentials

By : Abdelmonam Kouka
Book Image

Ubuntu Server Essentials

By: Abdelmonam Kouka

Overview of this book

Ubuntu is a Debian-based Linux operating system built on top of the Debian architecture. It is used to make operating systems for multiple platforms, including phones, desktops, TVs and mobiles. It has made some serious progress in the realms of efficiency and user friendliness. With evolving technology trends, demands on software have changed, with more and more skilled users. Over the past few years, services such as Facebook, Twitter, and push notifications on smartphones mean that users are used to being up to date with everything that happens all the time. With SignalR, the applications stay connected and will generate notifications when something happens either from the system or by other users. This provides new opportunities for the system administrators, to enter this new and exciting world of real-time application development. This is a concise and a cost-friendly guide, packed with up-to-date essentials on Ubuntu Server fundamentals. It will guide you through deploying and configuring Ubuntu servers in your office environments. You’ll start by installing Ubuntu Server, then move to the most useful aspect —the command-line interface inside it. You’ll extend your knowledge by learning how to administrate and configure Ubuntu Server. You will also see how to deploy services on Ubuntu Server and find out how to secure it. You’ll get to grips with the virtualization and cloud computing facilities provided by Ubuntu, and finally, you’ll gain some very useful tips.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)

The package management for an Ubuntu Server


Ubuntu, like other Debian-based systems, uses the Debian package format, such as .deb packages. I prefer using a .deb package when installing software instead of tarball archives because on one hand, unlike the case with tarball, we can get traceability for every piece of software installed on your system with .deb packages. On the other hand, because only a .deb package can request the package database on your server via the package manager and get information about the installed and available packages on your system, the package manager takes care of installing the missing dependencies automatically.

Package repositories

Ubuntu packages exist in repositories, which are collections of packages, in a pre-compiled binary format that can be located either on different medias, such as CD-ROMs, or on the Internet. There are four official repositories provided by Canonical (the company that created Ubuntu):

  • main: This is the repository that contains software...