Book Image

Mastering Linux Administration

By : Alexandru Calcatinge, Julian Balog
Book Image

Mastering Linux Administration

By: Alexandru Calcatinge, Julian Balog

Overview of this book

Linux plays a significant role in modern data center management and provides great versatility in deploying and managing your workloads on-premises and in the cloud. This book covers the important topics you need to know about for your everyday Linux administration tasks. The book starts by helping you understand the Linux command line and how to work with files, packages, and filesystems. You'll then begin administering network services and hardening security, and learn about cloud computing, containers, and orchestration. Once you've learned how to work with the command line, you'll explore the essential Linux commands for managing users, processes, and daemons and discover how to secure your Linux environment using application security frameworks and firewall managers. As you advance through the chapters, you'll work with containers, hypervisors, virtual machines, Ansible, and Kubernetes. You'll also learn how to deploy Linux to the cloud using AWS and Azure. By the end of this Linux book, you'll be well-versed with Linux and have mastered everyday administrative tasks using workflows spanning from on-premises to the cloud. If you also find yourself adopting DevOps practices in the process, we'll consider our mission accomplished.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
1
Section 1: Linux Basic Administration
7
Section 2: Advanced Linux Server Administration
13
Section 3: Cloud Administration

Understanding disks and partitions

Understanding disks and partitions is a key asset for any system administrator. Formatting and partitioning disks is critical, starting with system installation. Knowing the type of hardware available on your system is important, and it is therefore imperative to know how to work with it.

Common disk types used

A disk is a hardware component that stores your data. It comes in various types and uses different interfaces. The main disk types are the well-known spinning hard drives (or HDDs), SSDs, and Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe). SSDs and NVMes use RAM-like technologies, with better energy consumption and higher transfer rates than original spinning hard drives. The interfaces used are as follows:

  • Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) – This is an old standard used on consumer hardware with small transfer rates; now deprecated.
  • Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) – Replaced IDEs; with transfer rates of...