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)

Configuring administrator access with sudo

By now, we've already used sudo quite a few times in this book. At this point, you should already be aware of the fact that sudo allows you to execute commands as if you were logged in as root. However, we haven't had any formal discussion about it yet, nor have we discussed how to actually modify which of your user accounts are able to utilize sudo.

On all Linux systems, you should protect your root account with a strong password and limit it to be used by as few people as possible. On Ubuntu, the root account is locked anyway, so unless you unlocked it by setting a password, it cannot be used to log into the system. Using sudo is an alternative to using root, so you can give your administrators access to perform root tasks with sudo without actually giving them your root password or unlocking the root account. In fact, sudo...