The Fedora Project is in constant need for administrators with better skills. In a yet-to-be-named initiative, the Fedora Project wishes to help as many contributors as possible improve their basic system administration skills. This study guide is to help those pursuing additional goals, including higher-pay, certifications and more.
The study guide is intended to be printed by those who wish to study common tasks performed by many system administrators. This study guide is based upon the Red Hat Certified System Administrator Exam Objectives. Other useful study components will be added here. Community contributions are always welcome.
Understand and Use Essential Tools
Access a shell prompt and issue commands with correct syntax
Use input-output redirection (>, >>, |, 2>, etc.)
Use grep and regular expressions to analyze text
Access remote systems using ssh and VNC
Log in and switch users in multi-user runlevels
Archive, compress, unpack and uncompress files using tar, star, gzip, and bzip2
Create and edit text files
Create, delete, copy and move files and directories
Create hard and soft links
List, set and change standard ugo/rwx permissions
Locate, read and use system documentation including man, info, and files in /usr/share/doc .
Operate Running Systems
Boot, reboot, and shut down a system normally
Boot systems into different runlevels manually
Use single-user mode to gain access to a system
Identify CPU/memory intensive processes, adjust process priority with renice, and kill processes
Locate and interpret system log files
Access a virtual machine's console
Start and stop virtual machines
Start, stop and check the status of network services
Configure Local Storage
List, create, delete and set partition type for primary, extended, and logical partitions
Create and remove physical volumes, assign physical volumes to volume groups, create and delete logical volumes
Create and configure LUKS-encrypted partitions and logical volumes to prompt for password and mount a decrypted file system at boot
Configure systems to mount file systems at boot by Universally Unique ID (UUID) or label
Add new partitions, logical volumes and swap to a system non-destructively
Create and Configure File Systems
Create, mount, unmount and use ext2, ext3 and ext4 file systems
Mount, unmount and use LUKS-encrypted file systems
Mount and unmount CIFS and NFS network file systems
Configure systems to mount ext4, LUKS-encrypted and network file systems automatically
Extend existing unencrypted ext4-formatted logical volumes
Create and configure set-GID directories for collaboration
Create and manage Access Control Lists (ACLs)
Diagnose and correct file permission problems
Deploy, Configure and Maintain Systems
Configure networking and hostname resolution statically or dynamically
Schedule tasks using cron
Configure systems to boot into a specific runlevel automatically
Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux automatically using Kickstart
Configure a physical machine to host virtual guests
Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems as virtual guests
Configure systems to launch virtual machines at boot
Configure network services to start automatically at boot
Configure a system to run a default configuration HTTP server
Configure a system to run a default configuration FTP server
Install and update software packages from a remote repository, or from the local filesystem
Update the kernel package appropriately to ensure a bootable system
Modify the system bootloader
Configure a system to run a default configuration NTP server and synchronize time using other NTP peers
Manage Users and Groups
Create, delete, and modify local user accounts
Change passwords and adjust password aging for local user accounts
Create, delete and modify local groups and group memberships
Configure a system to use an existing LDAP directory service for user and group information
Manage Security
Configure firewall settings using system-config-firewall or iptables
Set enforcing and permissive modes for SELinux
List and identify SELinux file and process context
Restore default file contexts
Use boolean settings to modify system SELinux settings
Diagnose and address routine SELinux policy violations