AfNOG 2009 Workshop on Network Technology

Track SA-E — Unix System Administration

Detailed Course Outline

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[ SA-E links: Index | Details | Summary | External links ]


General Objectives

After attending this track students will be able to:

In addition they will be taught concepts such as:

Instructors

(HA) Hervey Allen (Chile/USA)
(PO) Patrick Okui (Uganda)

MONDAY TOPICS GOALS
Session 1 Welcome and logistics (HA)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint]

Survey (HA)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | MS Word]

Unix Concepts (HA)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint]

Workshop opening
  • Introduce insructors and attendees introduce themselves.
  • Discuss what topics we plan on covering during the week.
  • Take a survey of class knowledge.
  • Discuss why FreeBSD is cool
  • Unix concepts
    • The kernel
    • Processes
    • File system
    • Shells
    • Command line
    • Permissions
Session 2 FreeBSD Installation (HA)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint]
FreeBSD Installation
  • Get FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE installed on the machines
Session 3 Package Systems (PO) Installing software in FreeBSD
  • A look at the options in other operating systems
  • compiling from source, and how ports help
  • from ports to binary packages
  • portupgrade
Session 4 Hands-On Unix (PO) Hands on Unix exercises
  • Keystrokes
  • Directory Commands
  • System Commands
  • File Commands
  • Networking Commands
  • More Command line
TUESDAY TOPICS CONTENTS
Session 1 Scripting (PO)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint]
A breif introduction to mostly bash scripting
  • Automating repetitive tasks/commands
  • Help from the shell (environment et al)
  • Control structures
  • An example of using C to do a binary option.
Session 2 IP & IPv6 Basics (PO)
  • The OSI/IP models
  • The network stack
  • IP addresses, masks, prefixes
  • The end-to-end principle
  • tcpdump, ping, route, arp, ndp, traceroute, mtr, netstat
Session 3 DNS Concepts (JA)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint ]
Exercises:
  • What is DNS ?
  • How is DNS built and how does it work?
  • How does a query work ?
  • Record types
  • Caching and Authoritative
  • Delegation: domains vs zones
  • Finding the error: where is it broken
Session 4 DNS Concepts cont. (JA)
     
WEDNESDAY TOPICS CONTENTS
Session 1 DNS Delegation cont. & (JA) [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint]
Exercises:
  • Zone replication
  • Zone format
  • Delegation
  • Common mistakes
Session 2 Apache & Virtual Sites (HA)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint]

Exercises
      [OpenOffice | PDF | Word]

Sample Configurations
      [Sample Virtual Hosts | php redirect]

Apache + Virtual Hosts + SSL
  • What is Apache
  • Installing Apache from ports
  • - portinstall apache
  • - pkg_add -r apache22
  • What is Apache+mod_ssl+Vhosts
  • Digital Signatures
Session 3 Security & Cryptographic Methods (HA) The cryptography behind secure services, including:
  • Do we need to know this?
  • History
  • Terminology
  • Symmetric Ciphers
  • Public/Private key systems
  • Hybrid systems
  • Hashing functions
  • Passphrases
  • Digital signatures
Session 4 Security & Cryptographic Methods Continued (HA) We continue with the cryptography behind secure services:
  • Man in the Middle Attacks
  • TLS/SSL
  • SSH and Man in the Middle Attacks
  • PGP and PGP trust model
THURSDAY TOPICS CONTENTS
Session 1 Apache w/SSL (cert gen)(HA)
Apache with SSL (HA)
Finish up Security discussing Digital Certificates and CA's.
  • Apache with SSL
  • Installing Apache+mod_ssl
  • Configuring Apache+Vhosts+ssl
Session 2 Log Management (PO)
  • Syslog, facility, level
  • Centralized logging
  • Storing logs properly using syslog-ng and analyzing them
  • SWATCH (not covered)
Session 3 Log Management cont. (PO)
Session 4 Keeping Up-to-date
Presentation [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint]
Updating FreeBSD
  • Binary upgrades of system software
  • Upgrading the system using source (cvsup)
  • Upgrading ports tree with portsnap
  • Using portaudit to keep track of security updates
FRIDAY TOPICS CONTENTS
Session 1 Mirrors vs. RAID & Backup (HA) Discuss various backup methods, including:
  • dd
  • dump & remote dump
  • tar
  • rsync
  • Amanda
  • bacula
  • No backups or limited backups
Finish up discussing various RAID strategies, including:
  • Redundancy with RAID 1, 3 and 5
  • Hardware vs. Software RAID
  • FreeBSD's gmirror facility
  • Possible live demo using geom
Session 3 Email Overview (PO)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint]

How Email Works
  • How Email Appears to Work
  • How Email Really Works
  • Mail User Agent (MUA)
  • Message Format
  • Mail Delivery Agent (MDA)/ Mail Transfer Agent (MTA)
  • Network Cloud
  • Email Queue
  • MTA to MTA Transfer
  • DNS resolution and transfer process
  • Firewalls, Spam and Virus Filters
  • Delivery
  • RFCs
Session 4 Exim Mailserver (PO)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | Word]

Installing Exim
  • Exim's phillosophy and syntax
  • Installing Exim
  • Replacing Sendmail with Exim
  • Minor post installation tasks
Session 4 Webmail (HA)
Squirrelmail Exercise [OpenOffice | PDF | MS Word]

Exam (HA)
Refresher Exam [OpenOffice | PDF | MS Word]
Updating FreeBSD
  • Binary upgrades of system software
  • Upgrading the system using source (cvsup)
  • Upgrading ports tree with portsnap
  • Using portaudit to keep track of security updates