RH124

Welcome to Section 3
Redhat System Administration (RH124)
By: Imran Afzal

www.utclisolutions.com
Get started with Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Linux is everywhere, cloud, smart phones, airplanes, smart

TV, gadgets etc.
We will learn…
• Open source
• Linux distributions
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
By: Imran Afzal

• Open source
• Open-source software is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright
holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to
anyone and for any purpose (Wikipedia)
• Open source software is developed in a decentralized and collaborative way, relying on peer review
and community production. Open source software is often cheaper, more flexible, and has more
longevity than its proprietary peers because it is developed by communities rather than a single
author or company
• Linux is a free, open source operating system (OS), released under the GNU General Public License
(GPL). It’s also become the largest open source software project in the world
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux is built from open source components. The kernel itself and the
supporting software are all open source. However, Red Hat has built infrastructure, support, and a
suite of services that will let you license their branded version of enterprise Linux and use it in
production. By: Imran Afzal
• Linux distribution
• A Linux distribution is an operating system composed of the Linux kernel, GNU tools, additional
software and a package manager.
Example of Linux distribution OS
By: Imran Afzal

• Red hat Linux

• Red Hat is one of the leading contributors to the Linux kernel and associated
technologies in the greater open source community
• IBM acquired Red hat in 2018 for $34billion
• Red hat Linux current version is 8
• Product Lifecycle of 10 years
• Download and use any supported version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux software,
meaning that you may upgrade to the latest version for no additional cost
• Allows live kernel patching, avoiding the need for a system reboot
• Access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux documentation
• Access to Red Hat Customer Portal Labs.
By: Imran Afzal

Linux System Access (Command Line and GUI)
Console
By: Imran Afzal

Manage Files From The Command Line
Introduction to Filesystem
• What is a Filesystem?
• It is a system used by an operating system to manage files. The system
controls how data is saved or retrieved
Closet
Shirts Jackets
Accessories Shoes
Pants
Skirts
By: Imran Afzal

• What is a Filesystem?
• It is a system used by an operating system to manage files. The system
controls how data is saved or retrieved
Closet
Shirts Jackets
Accessories Shoes
Pants
Skirts
By: Imran Afzal

• Operating system stores files and directories in an organized and

structured way
• System configuration file = Folder A
• User files = Folder B
• Log files = Folder C
• Commands or scripts = Folder D and so on
• There are many different types of filesystems. In general, improvements

have been made to filesystems with new releases of operating systems and
each new filesystem has been given a different name
• e.g. ext3, ext4, xfs, NTFS, FAT etc.
By: Imran Afzal

Directory Listing Attributes
Total columns = 9
Type # of Links Owner Group Size Month Day Time Name
drwxr-xr-x. 21 root root 4096 Feb 27 13:33 var
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 7 Feb 27 13:15 bin
-rw-r—r-- 1 root root 0 Mar 2 11:15 testfile
The second column is the number of hard links to the file. For a
directory, the number of hard links is the number of immediate
subdirectories it has plus its parent directory and itself
By: Imran Afzal

Creating Files and Directories
• Creating Files
✓ touch
✓ cp
✓ vi
• Creating Directories
✓ mkdir
By: Imran Afzal

File Maintenance Commands
• cp
• rm
• mv
• mkdir
• rmdir or rm -r
• chgrp
• chown
By: Imran Afzal

Soft and Hard Links
• inode = Pointer or number of a file on the hard disk

• Soft Link = Link will be removed if file is removed or renamed
• Hard Link = Deleting renaming or moving the original file will not affect the
hard link
• ln
• ln -s
By: Imran Afzal

Input and Output Redirects
• There are 3 redirects in Linux
1. Standard input (stdin) and it has file descriptor number as 0
2. Standard output (stdout) and it has file descriptor number as 1
3. Standard error (stderr) and it has file descriptor number as 2
• Output (stdout) - 1
• By default when running a command its output goes to the terminal
• The output of a command can be routed to a file using > symbol
• E.g. ls -l > listings
pwd > findpath
• If using the same file for additional output or to append to the same file then use >>
• E.g. ls –la >> listings
echo “Hello World” >> findpath.
By: Imran Afzal

Input and Output Redirects
• Input (stdin) - 0
• Input is used when feeding file contents to a file
• E.g. cat < listings
mail –s “Office memo” [email protected] < memoletter
• Error (stderr) - 2
• When a command is executed we use a keyboard and that is also considered (stdin -0)
• That command output goes on the monitor and that output is (stdout – 1)
• If the command produced any error on the screen then it is considered (stderr – 2)
• We can use redirects to route errors from the screen
• E.g ls –l /root 2> errorfile
telnet localhost 2> errorfile.
By: Imran Afzal

Pipes (|)
• A pipe is used by the shell to connect the output of one command directly to
the input of another command.
The symbol for a pipe is the vertical bar ( | ). The command syntax is:
command1 [arguments] | command2 [arguments]
By: Imran Afzal

Pipes (|)
ls -l | more
By: Imran Afzal

Get Help in Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• There are 3 types of help commands
• whatiscommand
• command --help
• man command
By: Imran Afzal

Create, View, and Edit Text Files
Linux File Editor
• A text editor is a program which enables you to create and manipulate data
(text) in a Linux file
• There are several standard text editors available on most Linux systems
• vi - Visual editor
• ed - Standard line editor
• ex - Extended line editor
• emacs - A full screen editor
• pico - Beginner’s editor
• vim - Advance version of vi
• Our editor = vi (available in almost every Linux distribution) By: Imran Afzal
Create, View, and Edit Text Files
Introduction to vi Editor
• vi supplies commands for:
• Inserting and deleting text
• Replacing text
• Moving around the file
• Finding and substituting strings
• Cutting and pasting text
• Most common keys:

• i – insert
• Esc – Escape out of any mode
• r – replace
• d – delete
• :q! – quit without saving
• :wq! – quit and save
By: Imran Afzal
Manage Local Users and Groups
User Account Management
Commands
• useradd
• groupadd
• userdel
• groupdel
• usermod
Files
• /etc/passwd
• /etc/group
• /etc/shadow
Example:
useradd –g superheros –s /bin/bash –c “user description” –m –d
/home/spiderman spiderman By: Imran Afzal
The /etc/login.def File

• The chage command – per user
• Example
chage [-m mindays] [-M maxdays] [-d lastday] [-I inactive] [-E
expiredate] [-W warndays] user
• File = /etc/login.def
• PASS_MAX_DAYS 99999
• PASS_MIN_DAYS 0
• PASS_MIN_LEN 5
• PASS_WARN_AGE 7
By: Imran Afzal

The chage Command
• The chage command – per user
• Example
chage [-d lastday] [-m mindays] [-M maxdays] [-W warndays] [-I
inactive] [-E expiredate] user
-d = 3. Last password change (lastchanged) : Days since Jan 1, 1970 that password was last changed
-m = 4. Minimum : The minimum number of days required between password changes i.e. the number of days left
before the user is allowed to change his/her password
-M = 5. Maximum : The maximum number of days the password is valid (after that user is forced to change his/her
password)
-W = 6. Warn : The number of days before password is to expire that user is warned that his/her password must be
changed
-I = 7. Inactive : The number of days after password expires that account is disabled
-E = 8. Expire : days since Jan 1, 1970 that account is disabled i.e. an absolute date specifying when the login may no
longer be used. By: Imran Afzal
Switch Users and sudo Access

Commands
• su – username
• sudo command
• visudo
File
• /etc/sudoers
By: Imran Afzal
Control Access to Files
File Permissions
• UNIX is a multi-user system. Every file and directory in your account can be protected
from or made accessible to other users by changing its access permissions. Every user has
responsibility for controlling access to their files.
• Permissions for a file or directory may be restricted to by types

• There are 3 type of permissions
• r - read
• w - write
• x - exeawke = running a program
• Each permission (rwx) can be controlled at three levels:

• u - user = yourself
• g - group = can be people in the same project
• o - other = everyone on the system
• File or Directory permission can be displayed by running ls –l command

• -rwxrwxrwx
• Command to change permission

• chmod
By: Imran Afzal
Monitor and Manage Processes
• When an operating system boots up many programs get loaded into system memory.
These processes or programs need to be managed and monitored because they consume
mainly 3 system resources like CPU, memory and disk space
• Here are a few monitoring commands to manage system resources
• df
• du
• uptime
• top
• free
• lsof
• tcpdump
• netstat
• ps
• kill
• Some other commands are vmstat, iostat, iftop etc.
By: Imran Afzal

Control Services and Daemons
• Service or application when started creates processes and when those processes run
continuously in the background, they become daemons
• Most services are daemons
• Services are controlled by systemctl
• systemctl is a systemd utility that is responsible for controlling the systemd system and
service manager
• systemd is a collection of system management daemons, utilities, and libraries which serves
as a replacement of System V init daemon
• systemd is the parent process of most of the daemons
• The command to control services = systemctl.
By: Imran Afzal

Control Services and Daemons
• Check if systemd installed in your system
systemctl –-version
• Check if systemd is running

ps –ef | grep system
• Check all running services

systemctl --all
• To check the status, start, stop and restart a service

systemctl status|start|stop|restart application.service
• To reload the configuration of a service

systemctl reload application.service
• To enable or disable a service at boot time

systemctl enable|disable application.service
• To enable or disable a service completely (upon another service dependency)

systemctl mask|unmask application.service
By: Imran Afzal
Configure and Secure SSH
• SSH
• SSH stands for secure shell
provides you with an interface to the Linux system. It takes in
your commands and translate them to kernel to manage hardware
pwd
$ bash
csh ksh
# ls
Hardware
cp
• Open SSH is a package/software Kernel
• Its service daemon is sshd

Shell
• SSH port # 22
Utilities
By: Imran Afzal
• SSH itself is secure, meaning communication through SSH is always encrypted, but there
should be some additional configuration can be done to make it more secure
• Following are the most common configuration an administrator should take to secure SSH
✓ Configure Idle Timeout Interval

Avoid having an unattended SSH session, you can set an Idle timeout interval
▪ Become root
▪ Edit your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and add the following line:
▪ ClientAliveInterval 600
▪ ClientAliveCountMax 0
▪ # systemctl restart sshd
The idle timeout interval you are setting is in seconds (600 secs = 10 minutes). Once the interval
has passed, the idle user will be automatically logged out
By: Imran Afzal
✓ Disable root login
Disabling root login should be one of the measures you should take when setting up
the system for the first time. It disable any user to login to the system with root
account
▪ Become root
▪ Edit your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and replace PermitRootLogin yes to no
▪ PermitRootLogin no
By: Imran Afzal

✓ Disable Empty Passwords
You need to prevent remote logins from accounts with empty passwords for
added security.
▪ Become root
▪ Edit your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and remove # from the following line
▪ PermitEmptyPasswords no
By: Imran Afzal

✓ Limit Users’ SSH Access
To provide another layer of security, you should limit your SSH logins to only certain
users who need remote access
▪ Become root
▪ Edit your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and add
▪ AllowUsers user1 user2
By: Imran Afzal

✓ Use a different port
By default SSH port runs on 22. Most hackers looking for any open SSH servers will
look for port 22 and changing can make the system much more secure
▪ Become root
▪ Edit your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and remove # from the following line and
change the port number
▪ Port 22
By: Imran Afzal

✓ SSH-Keys - Access Remote Server without Password
Watch the next video
By: Imran Afzal

Access Remote Server without Password (SSH-Keys)
• Two reasons to access a remote machine

• Repetitive logins
• Automation through scripts
• Keys are generated at user level

• iafzal
• root
By: Imran Afzal
Access Remote Server without Password (SSH-Keys)
Server = LinuxCentOS7
Client = MyFirstLinuxVM
SSH
Username?
Password?
Generate Keys Copy over the Keys from

client to server Username?
Password?
Client = MyFirstLinuxVM SSH

Step 1 — Generate the Key
# ssh-keygen
Step 2 — Copy the Key to the server

# ssh-copy-id [email protected]
Step 3 — Login from client to server

# ssh [email protected]
# ssh –l root 192.168.1.x
By: Imran Afzal
Analyze and Store logs
Log Monitoring
Another and most important way of system administration is log monitor
Log Directory = /var/log

• boot
• chronyd = NTP
• cron
• maillog
• secure
• messages
• httpd
By: Imran Afzal
Maintaining Accurate Time
• Maintaining accurate system time is critical for log file analysis across multiple systems
• Also having accurate time on a system is requirement for sensitive applications such as
database in production environment
• The network time protocol (NTP) is a standard way for machines to provide and
synchronize the time to the NTP server
• An NTP server is a dedicated machine/computer which responds to clients for time
synchronization
• chronyd is a NTP service used for time synchronization in the newer Linux versions.
By: Imran Afzal

Maintaining Accurate Time
• Command to show system time/date
• date
• Command for time/date and NTP setting
• timedatectl
• To get help
• timedatectl --help
• To view list of time zones
• timedatectl list-timezones
• To set a time zone
• timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York
• To set time or to set time and date
• timedatectl set-time HH:MM:SS
• timedatectl set-time ‘2021-08-18 20:15:50’
• To enable NTP synchronization
• timedatectl set-ntp true
By: Imran Afzal
chronyd
• Purpose? = Time synchronization

• Package name = chronyd
• Configuration file = /etc/chronyd.conf
• Log file = /var/log/chrony
• Service = systemctl start/restart chronyd
• Program command = chronyd.
By: Imran Afzal

Manage Linux Networking
What we will learn in this lecture…
• Static vs. dynamic IP

• OS network components (Network interface, subnet mask, gateway, MAC address etc.)
• Getting started with NetworkManager
• Network configuration methods
• nmtui, nmcli, nm-connection-editor and GNOME Settings
• Network files and basic commands.
By: Imran Afzal

✓ Static IP vs. DHCP

• IP stands for internet protocol which is assigned to your computer so it can access the network. Private
IP is assigned for internal communication and public is for the internet/external communication
• Static → does not change

• Dynamic → changes after system reboot
• Let’s look at our Linux machine…
By: Imran Afzal

✓ OS Network Components
• Network interface
• MAC address
• Subnet mask
• Gateway
• DNS (Domain name system)
• Let’s look at our Linux machine…
By: Imran Afzal

✓ Getting started with NetworkManager

• NetworkManager is a service and set of tools designed specifically to make it easier to manage
the networking configuration on Linux systems and is the default network management service
on RHEL 8
• It makes network management easier
• It provides easy setup of connection to the user
• NetworkManager offers management through different tools such as GUI, nmtui, and
nmcli
• Let’s practice in our Linux machine…
By: Imran Afzal

✓ Network configuration methods
• nmcli – Short for network manager command line interface. This tool is useful when access to a
graphical environment is not available and can also be used within scripts to make network
configuration changes
• nmtui – Short for network manager text user interface. This tool can be run within any terminal
window and allows changes to be made by making menu selections and entering data
• nm-connection-editor - A full graphical management tool providing access to most of the
NetworkManager configuration options. It can only be accessed through the desktop or console
• GNOME Settings - The network screen of the GNOME desktop settings application allows basic
network management tasks to be performed
By: Imran Afzal

✓ Network Files and Basic Commands
Files:
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
/etc/hosts
/etc/hostname
/etc/resolv.conf
/etc/nsswitch.conf

Commands:
ping
ifconfig or ip
ifup or ifdown
netstat
traceroute
tcpdump
nslookup or dig
ethtool
By: Imran Afzal

Archive and Transfer Files
✓ tar, compress and uncompress

✓ ftp
✓ scp
By: Imran Afzal

Compress and un-Compress Files
• tar
• gzip
• gzip –d OR gunzip
FTP – File Transfer Protocol
• The File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used for the transfer of computer
files between a client and server on a computer network. FTP is built on a client-server
model architecture using separate control and data connections between the client and the
server. (Wikipedia)
• Protocol = Set of rules used by computers to communicate
• Default FTP Port = 21
• For this lecture we need 2 Linux machines

• Client = MyFirstLinuxVM
• Server = LinuxCentOS7
By: Imran Afzal

Client = A Server = B
FTP
ftpd = 21
By: Imran Afzal

• Install and Configure FTP on the remote server

• # Become root
• # rpm –qa | grep ftp
• # ping www.google.com
• # yum install vsftpd
• # vi /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf (make a copy first)
• Find the following lines and make the changes as shown below:
• ## Disable anonymous login ##
• anonymous_enable=NO
• ## Uncomment ##
• ascii_upload_enable=YES
• ascii_download_enable=YES
• ## Uncomment - Enter your Welcome message - This is optional ##

• ftpd_banner=Welcome to UNIXMEN FTP service.
• ## Add at the end of this file ##

• use_localtime=YES
• # systemctl start vsftpd

• # systemctl enable vsftpd
• # systemctl stop firewalld
• # systemctl disable firewalld
• # useradd iafzal (if the user does not exist). By: Imran Afzal
• Install FTP client on the client server

• # Become root
• # yum install ftp
• # su – iafzal
• $ touch kruger
• Commands to transfer file to the FTP server:

• ftp 192.168.1.x
• Enter username and password
• bi
• hash
• put kruger
• bye.
By: Imran Afzal

SCP – Secure Copy Protocol
• The Secure Copy Protocol or “SCP” helps to transfer computer files securely
from a local to a remote host. It is somewhat similar to the File Transfer Protocol
“FTP”, but it adds security and authentication
• Protocol = Set of rules used by computers to communicate
• Default SCP Port = 22 (same as SSH)
• For this lecture we need 2 Linux machines

• Client = MyFirstLinuxVM
• Server = LinuxCentOS7
By: Imran Afzal

Client = A Server = B
ssh
scp
sshd = 22
By: Imran Afzal

• SCP commands to transfer file to the remote server:
• Login as yourself (iafzal)

• touch jack
• scp jack [email protected]:/home/iafzal
• Enter username and password
By: Imran Afzal

Install and Update Software Packages
• Software is any application that you run on your computer

• Package is a container that contain the software related programs, files and executables
We will learn…
✓ Linux package management using yum/dnf and rpm command
✓ System update and patch management (yum update vs. upgrade)
✓ Advance package management
By: Imran Afzal

System Updates and Repos
• yum (CentOS), apt-get (other Linux)

• rpm (Redhat Package Manager)
By: Imran Afzal

System Upgrade/Patch Management
• Two type of upgrades yum update vs. upgrade

Major version = 5, 6, 7
Minor version = 7.3 to 7.4 upgrade = delete packages
Major version = yum command update = preserve
Minor version = yum update
Example:
yum update –y By: Imran Afzal
Access Linux files systems
• Filesystem is a structured way where all files and directories are stored
• To access those files, we need navigation tools
• Following are the basic tools or commands to access Linux file system
• ls
• cd
• pwd
• df
• du
• fdisk
• Absolute and relative path (absolute path always begins with /)
• Tilde ~
• . and ..
By: Imran Afzal

Analyze Servers and get Support
• Anytime you have an issue with your Linux Redhat server you will have to through the
monitoring commands such as top, free, df, du etc. A system administrator should also review
the system logs in /var/log directory and then reach out to Redhat technical support for
more help
• Redhat has made it easier for system administrator to use a web-based application named
Cockpit to manage and analyze server
• To get support from Redhat, a system administrator can run the utility sosreport or in newer
version ”sos report” on Linux system as root which will collect the logs and configuration
file and then transfer them over to Redhat support server. Now with Cockpit application, the
report can be generated at the web-based portal
• Cockpit web-based interface provides many other functionality aside from monitoring and
getting support from Redhat
• Let’s deep dive into Cockpit in the next slide…
By: Imran Afzal

Cockpit
• Cockpit is a server administration tool sponsored by Red Hat, focused on providing a

modern-looking and user-friendly interface to manage and administer servers
• Cockpit is the easy-to-use, integrated, glanceable, and open web-based interface for your
servers
• The application is available in most of the Linux distributions such as, CentOS, Redhat,
Ubuntu and Fedora
• It is installed in Redhat 8 by default and it is optional in version 7
• It can monitor system resources, add or remove accounts, monitor system usage, shut
down the system and perform quite a few other tasks all through a very accessible web
connection
By: Imran Afzal

Install, Configure and Manage Cockpit
• Check for network connectivity

• ping www.google.com
• Install cockpit package as root

• yum/dnf install cockpit –y (For RH or CentOS)
• apt-get install cockpit (For Ubuntu)
• Start and enable the service

• systemctl start|enable cockpit
• Check the status of the service

• systemctl status cockpit
• Access the web-interface

• https://192.168.1.x:9090
By: Imran Afzal


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Welcome to Section 3

Redhat System Administration (RH124)

By: Imran Afzal

Linux is everywhere, cloud, smart phones, airplanes, smart

By: Imran Afzal

Example of Linux distribution OS

By: Imran Afzal

• Red hat Linux

By: Imran Afzal

By: Imran Afzal

By: Imran Afzal

By: Imran Afzal

• Operating system stores files and directories in an organized and

• There are many different types of filesystems. In general, improvements

By: Imran Afzal

Type # of Links Owner Group Size Month Day Time Name

drwxr-xr-x. 21 root root 4096 Feb 27 13:33 var

lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 7 Feb 27 13:15 bin

-rw-r—r-- 1 root root 0 Mar 2 11:15 testfile

By: Imran Afzal

By: Imran Afzal

By: Imran Afzal

• inode = Pointer or number of a file on the hard disk

By: Imran Afzal

By: Imran Afzal

By: Imran Afzal

command1 [arguments] | command2 [arguments]

By: Imran Afzal

By: Imran Afzal

• There are 3 types of help commands

By: Imran Afzal

• Most common keys:

The /etc/login.def File

By: Imran Afzal

• The chage command – per user

Switch Users and sudo Access

• Permissions for a file or directory may be restricted to by types

• Each permission (rwx) can be controlled at three levels:

• File or Directory permission can be displayed by running ls –l command

• Command to change permission

By: Imran Afzal

By: Imran Afzal

• Check if systemd is running

• Check all running services

• To check the status, start, stop and restart a service

• To reload the configuration of a service

• To enable or disable a service at boot time

• To enable or disable a service completely (upon another service dependency)

• Open SSH is a package/software Kernel

• Its service daemon is sshd

✓ Configure Idle Timeout Interval

✓ Disable root login

By: Imran Afzal

✓ Disable Empty Passwords

By: Imran Afzal

✓ Limit Users’ SSH Access

By: Imran Afzal

✓ Use a different port

By: Imran Afzal

✓ SSH-Keys - Access Remote Server without Password