GL120 - Linux Fundamentals

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The GL120 is a challenging course that focuses on the fundamental tools and concepts of Linux and Unix. Students gain proficiency using the command line. Beginners develop a solid foundation in Unix, while advanced users discover patterns and fill in gaps in their knowledge. Like all Guru Labs courses, the course material is designed to provide extensive hands-on experience. Topics include: basic file manipulation; basic and advanced filesystem features; I/O redirection and pipes; text manipulation and regular expressions; managing jobs and processes; vi, the standard Unix editor; automating tasks with shell scripts; managing software; secure remote administration; and more.

Prerequisites:

Students should be comfortable with computers. No familiarity with Linux or other Unix operating systems is required.

Supported Distributions:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
SUSE Linux Enterprise 11
Recommended Class Length:
5 days
Detailed Course Outline:
  1. What is Linux?
    1. UNIX Origins and Design Principles
    2. Unix Timeline
    3. FSF and GNU
    4. GPL - General Public License
    5. The Linux Kernel
    6. Linux Timeline
    7. Linux Features
    8. Popular Uses of Linux
    9. What is a Distribution?
    10. Components of a Distribution
    11. Specialized Distributions
    12. Standardization
    13. Red Hat Linux Products
    14. Mandriva
    15. Slackware
    16. SUSE Linux Products
  2. Multi-user Concepts
    1. Multi-user Concepts
    2. got root?
    3. Logging In
    4. Switching User Contexts
    5. Gathering Login Session Info
    6. Gathering System Info
    7. Help from Commands and Documentation
    8. Getting Help with man & info
    9. $MANPATH, whatis and apropos
    Lab Tasks
    1. Login and Discovery
    2. Help with Commands
    3. Switching Users With su
  3. The X Window System
    1. The X Window System
    2. Starting X
    3. Display Manager Concepts
    4. Customizing X Sessions
    5. Window Manager Concepts
    6. Desktop Environments
    7. KDE
    8. KDE Control Center
    9. KDE Panel
    10. KDE Applications
    11. GNOME
    12. GNOME Preferences
    13. GNOME Panel
    14. GNOME Applications
    Lab Tasks
    1. Customize X Components
  4. The Linux Filesystem
    1. Filesystem Support
    2. Unix/Linux Filesystem Features
    3. Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
    4. Navigating the Filesystem
    5. Displaying Directory Contents
    6. Two Types of Disk Space
    7. Determining Disk Usage With df and du
    8. Determining Disk Usage With baobab
    9. Disk Usage with Quotas
    10. File Ownership
    11. Default Group Ownership
    12. File and Directory Permissions
    13. File Creation Permissions with umask
    14. Changing File Permissions
    15. SUID and SGID on files
    16. SGID and Sticky Bit on Directories
    17. User Private Group Scheme
    Lab Tasks
    1. Files and Directories
    2. Disk and Filesystem Usage
    3. File and Directory Ownership and Permissions
  5. Manipulating Files
    1. Directory Manipulation
    2. File Manipulation
    3. Deleting and Creating Files
    4. Physical Unix File Structure
    5. Filesystem Links
    6. File Extensions and Content
    7. Displaying Files
    8. Previewing Files
    9. Displaying Binary Files
    10. Searching the Filesystem
    11. Alternate Search Method
    12. Producing File Statistics
    Lab Tasks
    1. File and Directory Manipulation Commands
    2. File Examination & Search Commands
  6. Shell Basics
    1. Role of Command Shell
    2. Communication Channels
    3. File Redirection
    4. Piping Commands Together
    5. Filename Matching
    6. File Globbing and Wildcard Patterns
    7. Brace Expansion
    8. Shell and Environment Variables
    9. Key Environment Variables
    10. General Quoting Rules
    11. Nesting Commands
    12. Multiple and Multi-line Commands
    Lab Tasks
    1. Connecting Commands
    2. Wildcard File Matching
    3. Shell Variables
    4. Shell Meta-Characters
    5. Command Substitution
  7. Archiving and Compression
    1. Archives with tar
    2. Archives with cpio
    3. The gzip Compression Utility
    4. The bzip2 Compression Utility
    5. The XZ Compression Utility
    6. The PKZIP Archiving/Compression format
    Lab Tasks
    1. Archiving and Compression
  8. Text Processing
    1. Searching Inside Files
    2. The Streaming Editor
    3. Text Processing with awk
    4. Replacing Text Characters
    5. Text Sorting
    6. Duplicate Removal Utility
    7. Extracting Columns of Text
    8. Combining Files and Merging Text
    9. Comparing File Changes
    Lab Tasks
    1. Text Processing
  9. Regular Expressions
    1. Regular Expression Overview
    2. Regular Expressions
    3. RE Character Classes
    4. RE Quantifiers
    5. RE Parenthesis
    Lab Tasks
    1. Pattern Matching with Regular Expressions
    2. Extended Regular Expressions
    3. Using Regular Expressions With sed
  10. Text Editing
    1. Text Editing
    2. Pico/GNU Nano
    3. Pico/Nano Interface
    4. Pico/Nano Shortcuts
    5. vi and Vim
    6. Learning vi
    7. Basic vi
    8. Intermediate vi
    9. Emacs
    10. The Emacs Interface
    11. Basic Emacs
    12. More Emacs Commands
    Lab Tasks
    1. Text Editing with Nano
    2. Text Editing with Vim
    3. Text Editing with Emacs
  11. Command Shells
    1. Shells
    2. Identifying the Shell
    3. Changing the Shell
    4. Bourne sh: Configuration Files
    5. Script Execution
    6. Bourne sh: Prompts
    7. bash: Bourne-Again Shell
    8. bash: Configuration Files
    9. bash: Command Line History
    10. bash: Command Editing
    11. bash: Command Completion
    12. bash: "shortcuts"
    13. bash: prompt
    Lab Tasks
    1. Linux Shells
    2. Bash History
    3. Aliases
    4. Bash Login Scripts
    5. The Z Shell
  12. Introduction to Shell Scripting
    1. Shell Script Strengths and Weaknesses
    2. Example Shell Script
    3. Positional Parameters
    4. Input & Output
    5. Doing Math
    6. Comparisons with test
    7. Exit Status
    8. Conditional Statements
    9. Flow Control: case
    10. The for Loop
    11. The while and until Loops
    Lab Tasks
    1. Writing a Shell Script
  13. Process Management and Job Control
    1. What is a Process?
    2. Process Lifecycle
    3. Process States
    4. Viewing Processes
    5. Signals
    6. Tools to Send Signals
    7. Job Control Overview
    8. Job Control Commands
    9. Persistent Shell Sessions with Screen
    10. Using screen
    11. Advanced Screen
    Lab Tasks
    1. Job Control Basics
    2. Process Management and Job Control Basics
    3. Screen Basics
    4. Using Screen Regions
  14. Managing Software
    1. Downloading with FTP
    2. FTP
    3. lftp
    4. Command Line Internet - Non-interactive
    5. Command Line Internet - Interactive
    6. Managing Software Dependencies
    7. Using the YUM command
    8. YUM package groups
    9. Configuring YUM
    10. Popular Yum Repositories
    11. Using the Zypper command
    12. Zypper Services and Catalogs
    Lab Tasks
    1. Command Line File Transfers
    2. Managing YUM Repositories
    3. Managing Zypper Repositories
  15. Messaging
    1. System Messaging Commands
    2. Controlling System Messaging
    3. Internet Relay Chat
    4. Instant Messenger Clients
    5. Electronic Mail
    6. Sending Email with sendmail
    7. Sending and Receiving Email with mail
    8. Sending and Receiving Email with mutt
    9. Sending Email with Pine
    10. Evolution
    Lab Tasks
    1. Command Line Messaging
    2. Command Line Email
  16. Printing
    1. Linux Printer Sub-systems
    2. Legacy Print Systems
    3. Common UNIX Printing System
    4. Defining a Printer
    5. Standard Print Commands
    6. Format Conversion Utilities
    7. Ghostscript
    8. enscript and mpage
    Lab Tasks
    1. Printing
  17. The Secure Shell (SSH)
    1. Secure Shell
    2. ssh and sshd Configuration
    3. Accessing Remote Shells
    4. Transferring Files
    5. Alternative sftp Clients
    6. SSH Key Management
    7. ssh-agent
    Lab Tasks
    1. Introduction to ssh and scp
    2. SSH Key-based User Authentication
    3. Using ssh-agent
  18. Mounting Filesystems & Managing Removable Media
    1. Filesystems Concept Review
    2. Mounting Filesystems
    3. NFS
    4. SMB
    5. Filesystem Table (/etc/fstab)
    6. AutoFS
    7. Removable Media
    Lab Tasks
    1. Accessing NFS Shares
    2. On-demand filesystem mounting with AutoFS
  1. Managing Floppy Disks
    1. Preparing Floppy Diskettes
    2. The mtools Package
    Lab Tasks
    1. Managing floppy disks
    2. Using Mtools with FAT/FAT32 formatted media