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

FUSE filesystem

As a user, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about the underlying implementation when interacting with files and directories in user space. It is common practice for processes to make use of system calls to the kernel in order to read or write to a mounted filesystem. However, you do have access to data from the filesystem that doesn’t seem to belong in the user’s domain. The stat() system call in particular returns inode numbers and link counts.

Do you have to worry about inode numbers, link counts, and other implementation details even when you’re not maintaining a filesystem? No (in most cases). This information is made available to user-mode programs for the primary purpose of maintaining backward compatibility. In addition, these filesystem internals aren’t present in every Linux filesystem because they’re not standardized. The VFS interface layer is responsible for ensuring that system calls always return inode numbers...