Book Image

Linux for System Administrators

By : Viorel Rudareanu, Daniil Baturin
Book Image

Linux for System Administrators

By: Viorel Rudareanu, Daniil Baturin

Overview of this book

Linux system administration is an essential aspect of maintaining and managing Linux servers within an organization. The role of a Linux system administrator is pivotal in ensuring the smooth functioning and security of these servers, making it a critical job function for any company that relies on Linux infrastructure. This book is a comprehensive guide designed to help you build a solid foundation in Linux system administration. It takes you from the fundamentals of Linux to more advanced topics, encompassing key areas such as Linux system installation, managing user accounts and filesystems, networking fundamentals, and Linux security techniques. Additionally, the book delves into the automation of applications and infrastructure using Chef, enabling you to streamline and optimize your operations. For both newcomers getting started with Linux and professionals looking to enhance their skills, this book is an invaluable hands-on guide with a structured approach and concise explanations that make it an effective resource for quickly acquiring and reinforcing Linux system administration skills. With the help of this Linux book, you’ll be able to navigate the world of Linux administration confidently to meet the demands of your role.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Linux Basics
7
Part 2: Configuring and Modifying Linux Systems
13
Part 3: Linux as a Part of a Larger System

Package repositories and high-level package managers

Online collections of packages for Linux distributions have existed for almost as long as the distributions themselves. They saved users’ time searching for compiled packages or building software from source, but if a package had dependencies, the user would still need to download them all one by one.

The next step for distribution maintainers was to create a format for machine-readable metadata from the entire package collection and a tool that would automate that process. Since every package contains information about its dependencies, in the simplest case, you just need to download them all.

In reality, it’s more complicated. Packages may conflict (for example, because they provide an executable with the same name) and there must be a safeguard against attempts to install conflicting packages. If a user tries to install a package from outside the repository, the repository may not have the right versions of...