Book Image

Linux Administration Best Practices

By : Scott Alan Miller
3.3 (3)
Book Image

Linux Administration Best Practices

3.3 (3)
By: Scott Alan Miller

Overview of this book

Linux is a well-known, open source Unix-family operating system that is the most widely used OS today. Linux looks set for a bright future for decades to come, but system administration is rarely studied beyond learning rote tasks or following vendor guidelines. To truly excel at Linux administration, you need to understand how these systems work and learn to make strategic decisions regarding them. Linux Administration Best Practices helps you to explore best practices for efficiently administering Linux systems and servers. This Linux book covers a wide variety of topics from installation and deployment through to managing permissions, with each topic beginning with an overview of the key concepts followed by practical examples of best practices and solutions. You'll find out how to approach system administration, Linux, and IT in general, put technology into proper business context, and rethink your approach to technical decision making. Finally, the book concludes by helping you to understand best practices for troubleshooting Linux systems and servers that'll enable you to grow in your career as well as in any aspect of IT and business. By the end of this Linux administration book, you'll have gained the knowledge needed to take your Linux administration skills to the next level.

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Linux Administration Best Practices
Scott Alan Miller
Mar, 2022 | 404 pages
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Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
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1
Section 1: Understanding the Role of Linux System Administrator
Section 1: Understanding the Role of Linux System Administrator
Free Chapter
2
Chapter 1: What Is the Role of a System Administrator?
Chapter 1: What Is the Role of a System Administrator?
Where are system administrators in the real world?
Wearing the administrator and engineering hats
Understanding systems in the business ecosystem
Learning system administration
Introducing the IT Professional
Summary
3
Chapter 2: Choosing Your Distribution and Release Model
Chapter 2: Choosing Your Distribution and Release Model
Understanding Linux in production
Is Linux UNIX?
Linux licensing
Key vendors and products
The myth of popularity
Releases and support: LTS, current, and rolling
Choosing your distribution
Summary
4
Section 2: Best Practices for Linux Technologies
Section 2: Best Practices for Linux Technologies
5
Chapter 3: System Storage Best Practices
Chapter 3: System Storage Best Practices
Exploring key factors in storage
Understanding block storage: Local and SAN
Surveying filesystems and network filesystems
Getting to know logical volume management (LVM)
Utilizing RAID and RAIN
Learning about replicated local storage
Analyzing storage architectures and risk
Storage example
Summary
6
Chapter 4: Designing System Deployment Architectures
Chapter 4: Designing System Deployment Architectures
Virtualization
Containerization
Cloud and VPS
On premises, hosted, and hybrid hosting
System Design Architecture
Summary
7
Chapter 5: Patch Management Strategies
Chapter 5: Patch Management Strategies
Binary, source, and script software deployments
Patching theory and strategies
Compilations for the administrator
Linux deployment and redeployment
Rebooting servers
Summary
8
Chapter 6: Databases
Chapter 6: Databases
Separating a Database from a DBMS
Comparing relational and NoSQL databases
Discovering common databases on Linux
Understanding database replication and data protection concepts
Summary
9
Section 3: Approaches to Effective System Administration
Section 3: Approaches to Effective System Administration
10
Chapter 7: Documentation, Monitoring, and Logging Techniques
Chapter 7: Documentation, Monitoring, and Logging Techniques
Modern documentation: Wiki, live docs, repos
Tooling and impact
Capacity planning
Log management and security
Alerts and troubleshooting
Summary
11
Chapter 8: Improving Administration Maturation with Automation through Scripting and DevOps
Chapter 8: Improving Administration Maturation with Automation through Scripting and DevOps
The GUI and the CLI: Administration best practices
Automation maturity
Infrastructure as code
Modern tools of automation
Summary
12
Chapter 9: Backup and Disaster Recovery Approaches
Chapter 9: Backup and Disaster Recovery Approaches
Agents and crash consistency
Backup strategies & mechanisms
Snapshots, archives, backups, and disaster recovery
Backups in a DevOps world
Triage concepts
Summary
13
Chapter 10: User and Access Management Strategies
Chapter 10: User and Access Management Strategies
Local and remote users
User management mechanisms
Remote access approaches
SSH, key management, and jump boxes
Alternative remote access approaches
Terminal servers and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)
Summary
14
Chapter 11: Troubleshooting
Chapter 11: Troubleshooting
The high cost of disaster avoidance
Sources of solutions
Triage skills and staff
Logical approaches to troubleshooting
Investigating versus fixing
Summary
Why subscribe?
15
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Infrastructure as code

Taking concepts that we have discussed here and looking at them another way, we discover the concept of infrastructure as code. Meaning that we can write code or configuration files that represent the entirety of our infrastructure. This is powerful and liberating.

It is easy to confuse infrastructure as code concepts with state machine concepts because they will, in many cases, overlap quite extensively. There are critical differences, however.

Infrastructure as code can go hand in hand with state machines, but state machines do not allow for imperative system definitions. Infrastructure as code can be used to define state, also known as a declarative approach to infrastructure as code, or an imperative approach by which operations are defined rather than final state, making it feel much more like traditional systems administration where we focus on the means rather than the ends or the how rather than the goal.

Platforms and systems

Infrastructure...

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