Linux troubleshooting

Special note

The RedHat versions of the course covers the following Linux distributions:

• RedHat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server 4.0
• RedHat Enterprise Linux Enterprise Server 4.0
• Fedora Core 3.0

The SUSE versions of the course covers the following Linux distributions:

• SUSE Enterprise Linux 9.0
• SUSE Linux 9.3

Students will receive workbooks for Fedora Core 3.0 and SUSE Professional 9.3 and select which distribution to perform the labs on.

"RAIL" Linux courses will be run on (RedHat) Fedora Core 3.0 only with SUSE Professional 9.3 coming soon.

Course overview

This 5-day course covers topics of interest to experienced Linux system and network administrators wishing to increase their troubleshooting skills and understanding to effectively administer the Linux operating systems in an enterprise computing environments. Leveraging the student's existing troubleshooting skill set, the student will quickly learn methodologies, tools and techniques to troubleshoot many real-world Linux administration issues with plenty of hands-on laboratory exercises to enhance skill development during the course.

Prerequisites

• Accelerated Linux administration for experienced HP-UX or Sun Solaris administrators (U2794S) -or-
• Linux administration I (H7091S) AND
  Linux administration II (H7092S) OR
  Equivalent Linux administration experience

Audience

• Linux system administrators wanting to increase their skills in troubleshooting.

Ways to save

Course Objectives

At the conclusion of this course you will be able to:

• Effectively use the Rescue CD to recovery a Linux system
• Troubleshoot the boot process to get a unbootable Linux system up and running
• Troubleshoot a variety of network issues
• Troubleshoot RPM installation issues
• Troubleshoot a host of network services
• Troubleshoot LVM on Linux
• Troubleshoot kernel builds and module integration

Benefits to you

This course addresses a wide range of interesting topics to experienced Linux system administrators that are responsible for troubleshooting Linux. The course focuses on teaching the student practical Linux troubleshooting methodologies as well as introducing students to a wide variety of administration tools and techniques to assist in troubleshooting with plenty of real-world hands-on laboratory exercises to enhance skill development during the course.

Next Steps

• View our Linux system administrator curriculum path

Course outline

Troubleshooting Methodology

Linux troubleshooting tools

• Tools
• Common troubleshooting tools
• RPM queries
• RPM verification
• .src packages and spec files
• strace and ltrace
• lsof and fuser
• ipcs and ipcrm
• vmstat, iostat, mpstat
• sar
• ifconfig and ip
• arp and route
• Name resolution
• netstat and rpcinfo
• nmap and nc
• tcpdump and ethereal
• Lab

Linux rescue environments

• Rescue environments
• Rescue procedures
• Recovery examples
• Lab

Boot process troubleshooting

• Linux boot process
• Booting Linux
• Boot process troubleshooting
• Process management
• Process management troubleshooting
• File systems concepts
• File system troubleshooting
• Backups concepts
• Backups troubleshooting
• Lab

Network troubleshooting

• Networking
• Networking commands review
• Networking troubleshooting
• IP aliases vs virtual interfaces
• xinetd concepts
• xinetd troubleshooting
• TCP wrappers concepts
• TCP wrappers troubleshooting
• iptables concepts
• iptables troubleshooting
• Lab

System and installation troubleshooting

• X11 concepts
• X11 server operation
• X11 troubleshooting
• Syslog concepts
• Syslog troubleshooting
• RPM concepts
• RPM troubleshooting
• Common Unix Printing System (CUPS)
• CUPS troubleshooting
• at & cron
• at & cron troubleshooting
• LAB

Security troubleshooting

• Users and groups
• Users and groups troubleshooting
• PAM concepts
• PAM troubleshooting
• Filesystem quotas
• Quotas troubleshooting
• File access control lists
• FACL troubleshooting
• Lab

Network services troubleshooting

• DNS concepts
• DNS troubleshooting
• Apache concepts
• Apache troubleshooting
• FTP concepts
• FTP troubleshooting
• Squid concepts
• Squid troubleshooting
• Lab

SAMBA and electronic mail troubleshooting

• Samba concepts
• Samba troubleshooting
• Sendmail concepts
• Sendmail troubleshooting
• Postfix concepts
• Postfix troubleshooting
• IMAP & POP concepts
• IMAP / POP troubleshooting
• LAB

Kernel, LVM/RAID and LDAP troubleshooting

• Kernel modules
• Kernel modules troubleshooting
• Logical volume management
• Creating logical volumes
• LVM deployment issues
• LVM troubleshooting
• RAID concepts
• RAID troubleshooting
• Lightweight directory access protocol
• LDAP troubleshooting
• Lab