Book Image

Mastering Ubuntu Server - Second Edition

By : Jay LaCroix
Book Image

Mastering Ubuntu Server - Second Edition

By: Jay LaCroix

Overview of this book

Ubuntu Server has taken the data centers by storm. Whether you're deploying Ubuntu for a large-scale project or for a small office, it is a stable, customizable, and powerful Linux distribution that leads the way with innovative and cutting-edge features. For both simple and complex server deployments, Ubuntu's flexible nature can be easily adapted to meet to the needs of your organization. With this book as your guide, you will learn all about Ubuntu Server, from initial deployment to creating production-ready resources for your network. The book begins with the concept of user management, group management, and filesystem permissions. Continuing into managing storage volumes, you will learn how to format storage devices, utilize logical volume management, and monitor disk usage. Later, you will learn how to virtualize hosts and applications, which will cover setting up KVM/QEMU, as well as containerization with both Docker and LXD. As the book continues, you will learn how to automate configuration with Ansible, as well as take a look at writing scripts. Lastly, you will explore best practices and troubleshooting techniques when working with Ubuntu Server that are applicable to real-world scenarios. By the end of the book, you will be an expert Ubuntu Server administrator who is well-versed in its advanced concepts.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)

Installing Ubuntu Server on Raspberry Pi 3

The Raspberry Pi 3 has become quite a valuable asset in the industry. These tiny computers, now with four cores and 1 GB of RAM, are extremely useful in running one-off tasks and even offering a great place to test code without disrupting existing infrastructure. In my lab, I have several Pis on my network, each one responsible for performing specific tasks or functions. It's a very useful platform.

Thankfully, Ubuntu Server is quite easy to install on a Raspberry Pi. In fact, it's installed in much the same way as Raspbian, which is the distribution most commonly used on the Pi. Ubuntu Server is available for Raspberry Pi models 2 and 3. All you'll need to do is download the SD card image and then write it directly to your microSD card (your SD card needs to be at least 4 GB). Once you've done that, you can boot the Pi and log in. The default username and password is ubuntu for both.

To get started, you'll first download the SD card image from here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/RaspberryPi.

Then, check that it is compatible with your model of Raspberry Pi. The image will be in a compressed .xz format, which you'll need to extract with your operating system's decompressing utility (in Linux you can use the unxz command, which you get from the xz-utils package).

Next, we do the actual writing of the SD card. For this, we return to our old friend Etcher, which we used earlier in this chapter to master our USB media. Another feature of Etcher is that it allows us to master SD cards for the Raspberry Pi as well. Go ahead and open Etcher, and select the Ubuntu Server Pi image in much the same way as you selected the Ubuntu Server ISO file earlier. Next, make sure your SD card is inserted, and click Flash! and you should be good to go as soon as the process concludes. Once the process finishes, simply insert the SD card into your Pi and power it on. That's all there is to it!