Book Image

Oracle Linux Cookbook

By : Erik Benner, Erik B. Thomsen, Jonathan Spindel
Book Image

Oracle Linux Cookbook

By: Erik Benner, Erik B. Thomsen, Jonathan Spindel

Overview of this book

Discover the power of Oracle Linux 8, the free and enterprise-grade Linux distribution designed for use in any environment, with this recipe-style book. Starting with instructions on how to obtain Oracle Linux for both X86 and ARM-based platforms, this book walks you through various installation methods, from running it as a Windows service to installing it on a Raspberry Pi. It unravels advanced topics such as system upgrades using Leapp for major version transitions and using a PXE server and kickstart files for more advanced installations. The book then delves into swapping kernels to take advantage of Oracle’s UEK, exploring boot options, managing software with DNF, and achieving high availability. Detailed recipes involving security topics will assist with tasks such as data encryption, both at rest and in motion. For developers, it offers guidance on building RPM files, using Docker and Podman in a containerized environment, working with AppStreams, and more. For large-scale deployments, the book introduces Oracle Linux Automation Manager for enterprise-level Ansible utilization, from setting up the Ansible server to basic playbook writing. Finally, you’ll discover strategies for cloud migration. By the end of this book, you’ll possess a comprehensive toolkit that will elevate your skills as a Linux administrator.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)

Set it and forget it

In Ansible playbooks, loops provide flexibility and efficiency to automate Oracle Linux environments or any Linux environment through OLAM. Users can define dictionaries in their playbooks and use loop statements. Dictionaries are like books, with all your infrastructure or applications in lists, and they can be used to describe variables in an automation. This allows a set of tasks to be executed for each item in the loop, reducing the need for repetitive coding and making playbooks more concise and manageable.

For instance, if you want to install multiple packages on a group of Oracle Linux servers without loops, you would need to write separate tasks for each package and server. However, by using loops in OLAM with Ansible, you can define a list of packages and a list of servers and iterate over them, installing the packages on each server in a single task.

Getting ready

In the previous recipe, we’ve shown that OLAM has additional features and...