Ross Brunson has more than 30 years of experience as a Linux and open-source trainer, training manager, and certification architect, and is the author of the nowclassic LPIC-1 Exam Cram 2, several iterations of the CompTIA Linux+ Cert Guide, and dozens of technical courses for major organizations.

Ross is currently the Education Architect at Grafana Labs ([...] where he focuses on building a learning framework and training offerings that help employees and customers make the best use of Grafana to observe, troubleshoot, and maintain their environments.

Previously, Ross was a Senior Technical Training Engineer for NGINX, where he completely redid the Fundamentals learning track, authored a number of Getting Started guides, and taught a number of customer engagements to help new NGINX customers take full advantage of the platform.

Before NGINX, Ross enjoyed a few years at Linux Academy/A Cloud Guru where as a Senior Training Architect, he authored the SUSE Certified Administrator and Engineer courses, did the Red Hat Certified System Administrator Labs, created many additional courses on systemd, VIM and the screen command, and wrote and reviewed way too many exam questions.

Ross has also put in a tour of duty as the Certification Architect at SUSE, where he helped redesign and modernize the entire certification program. He has also spent five years as the Director of Member Services for the Linux Professional Institute, where he contributed to placing several LPI courses into the Cisco Networking Academy, conducted dozens of train-the-trainer sessions, and provided sales enablement support for the worldwide Master Affiliate network, spanning more than 100 countries and nearly a million certified professionals.

Ross holds a number of key IT certifications and is author of several successful technical books and dozens of technical courses for major organizations (including the first U.S. LPI Certification Bootcamps). He is skilled at both contributing to and building community around IT products.

Ross lives in Paradise Valley, Montana, with his family and enjoys traveling far and wide, participating in hiking, winter sports, photography, and playing the drums with great vigor (although not everyone around him appreciates it).

Introduction xliii

Part I: System Management (Obj. 1.1 - 1.7)

Chapter 1 Understanding Linux Fundamentals 3

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 3

Foundation Topics 6

Filesystem Hierarchy Standard 6

Basic Boot Process 8

Boot Loaders and Files 14

When Kernels Panic 22

Device Types in /dev 23

Installing Software from Source 24

Storage Concepts 28

Listing Your Hardware Info 35

Summary 38

Exam Preparation Tasks 39

Review All Key Topics 39

Define Key Terms 40

Review Questions 40

Chapter 2 Managing Files and Directories 43

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 43

Foundation Topics 46

File and Directory Operations 46

File Metadata and File Types 57

Soft and Hard Links 60

File Compression, Archiving, and Backup 63

Copying Objects Between Systems 78

File Editing 82

Feeling a Bit (awk)ward 92

The printf Function 94

Summary 95

Exam Preparation Tasks 96

Review All Key Topics 96

Define Key Terms 97

Review Questions 97

Chapter 3 Configuring and Managing Storage 101

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 101

Foundation Topics 104

Determining Storage Hardware 104

Performing Disk Partitioning 108

Inspecting and Managing Software RAID 114

Using Logical Volume Manager (LVM) 114

Mounting Local and Remote Devices 118

Monitoring Storage Space and Disk Usage 123

Filesystem Management 126

Storage Area Networks/Network-Attached Storage 131

Summary 134

Exam Preparation Tasks 135

Review All Key Topics 135

Define Key Terms 136

Review Questions 136

Chapter 4 Managing Processes and Services 139

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 139

Foundation Topics 142

Managing Processes 142

systemd 159

Scheduling Services 170

Summary 180

Exam Preparation Tasks 181

Review All Key Topics 181

Define Key Terms 182

Review Questions 182

Chapter 5 Using Network Tools and Configuration Files 185

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 186

Foundation Topics 188

Interface Management 188

Name Resolution 199

Network Monitoring 207

Remote Networking Tools 217

Summary 221

Exam Preparation Tasks 222

Review All Key Topics 222

Define Key Terms 223

Review Questions 223

Chapter 6 Building and Installing Software 225

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 226

Foundation Topics 228

Package Management 228

Sandboxed Applications 268

System Updates 270

Summary 275

Exam Preparation Tasks 276

Review All Key Topics 276

Define Key Terms 277

Chapter 7 Managing Software Configurations 281

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 281

Foundation Topics 283

Updating Configuration Files 283

Configuring Kernel Options 289

Configuring Common System Services 300

Representing Locales 304

Summary 315

Exam Preparation Tasks 316

Review All Key Topics 316

Define Key Terms 317

Review Questions 317

Part II: Security (Obj. 2.1 - 2.5)

Chapter 8 Understanding Linux Security Best Practices 321

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 321

Foundation Topics 323

Public Key Infrastructure 323

Certificate Use Cases 325

Authentication 326

Linux Hardening 333

Summary 348

Exam Preparation Tasks 349

Review All Key Topics 349

Define Key Terms 350

Review Questions 350

Chapter 9 Implementing Identity Management 353

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 353

Foundation Topics 355

Account Creation and Deletion 355

Summary 374

Exam Preparation Tasks 375

Review All Key Topics 375

Define Key Terms 375

Review Questions 376

Chapter 10 Implementing and Configuring Firewalls 379

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 379

Foundation Topics 382

Common Firewall Technologies 382

Understanding iptables 385

Additional Firewall Technologies 398

Summary 400

Exam Preparation Tasks 401

Review All Key Topics 401

Define Key Terms 401

Review Questions 402

Chapter 11 Using Remote Connectivity for System Management 405

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 405

Foundation Topics 408

SSH (Secure Shell) 408

Executing Commands as Another User 416

Summary 421

Exam Preparation Tasks 422

Review All Key Topics 422

Define Key Terms 423

Review Questions 423

Chapter 12 Understanding and Applying Access Controls 427

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 427

Foundation Topics 429

File Permissions 429

File and Directory Ownership 434

Understanding and Using umask 437

Permission Granularity Issues 437

Finding Files by Permission 444

Access Control Lists 445

Context-Based Access 448

Command-Line Utilities 457

Summary 457

Exam Preparation Tasks 458

Review All Key Topics 458

Define Key Terms 458

Review Questions 459

Part III: Scripting, Containers and Automation (Obj. 3.1 - 3.5)

Chapter 13 Automating Tasks via Shell Scripting 463

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 463

Foundation Topics 466

Shell Script Elements 466

Environment Variables and Settings 469

Working with Input/Output Streams 475

Shell Script Elements 487

Summary 517

Exam Preparation Tasks 518

Review All Key Topics 518

Define Key Terms 519

Review Questions 519

Chapter 14 Performing Basic Container Operations 523

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 523

Foundation Topics 525

Container Management 525

Container Image Operations 533

Summary 534

Exam Preparation Tasks 535

Review All Key Topics 535

Define Key Terms 535

Review Questions 536

Chapter 15 Performing Basic Version Control Using Git 539

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 539

Foundation Topics 541

Version Control Concepts 541

Using Git for Version Control 546

Summary 568

Exam Preparation Tasks 569

Review All Key Topics 569

Define Key Terms 569

Review Questions 570

Chapter 16 Understanding Infrastructure as Code 573

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 573

Foundation Topics 576

File Formats 576

Infrastructure as Code Concepts 579

Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment 588

Advanced Git Topics 590

Summary 591

Exam Preparation Tasks 592

Review All Key Topics 592

Define Key Terms 593

Review Questions 593

Chapter 17 Understanding Containers, Cloud, and Orchestration 597

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 597

Foundation Topics 600

Kubernetes Benefits and Application Use Cases 600

Single-Node Multicontainer Use Cases 604

Container Persistent Storage 605

Container Networks 608

Service Mesh 611

Bootstrapping 612

Container Registries 613

Summary 614

Exam Preparation Tasks 615

Review All Key Topics 615

Define Key Terms 616

Review Questions 616

Part IV: Troubleshooting (Obj. 4.1 - 4.5)

Chapter 18 Analyzing and Troubleshooting Storage Issues 619

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 619

Foundation Topics 623

High Latency Issues 623

Low Throughput Issues 627

Input/Output Operations per Second Scenarios 631

Capacity Issues 633

Filesystem Issues 638

I/O Scheduler Issues 643

Device Issues 647

LVM Issues 656

Mount Option Issues 659

Exam Preparation Tasks 663

Review All Key Topics 663

Define Key Terms 664

Review Questions 664

Chapter 19 Analyzing and Troubleshooting Network Resource Issues 667

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 667

Foundation Topics 670

Network Configuration Issues 670

Firewall Issues 674

Interface Errors 679

Bandwidth Limitations 686

Name Resolution Issues 687

Testing Remote Systems 689

Summary 696

Exam Preparation Tasks 697

Review All Key Topics 697

Define Key Terms 698

Review Questions 698

Chapter 20 Analyzing and Troubleshooting CPU and Memory Issues 701

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 701

Foundation Topics 704

Runaway and Zombie Processes 704

High CPU Utilization/Load Average/Run Queues 707

CPU Times and CPU Process Priorities 711

Memory Exhaustion and Out of Memory 713

Swapping 717

Hardware 719

Summary 720

Exam Preparation Tasks 721

Review All Key Topics 721

Define Key Terms 721

Review Questions 721

Chapter 21 Analyzing and Troubleshooting User and File Permissions 725

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 725

Foundation Topics 728

User Login Issues 728

User File Access Issues 731

Password Issues 735

Privilege Elevation Issues 736

Quota Issues 736

Summary 738

Exam Preparation Tasks 739

Review All Key Topics 739

Define Key Terms 739

Review Questions 739

Chapter 22 Analyzing and Troubleshooting Common Problems Using Systemd 743

Do I Know This Already? Quiz 743

Foundation Topics 745

Unit Files 745

Common Problems 756

Summary 761

Exam Preparation Tasks 762

Review All Key Topics 762

Define Key Terms 762

Review Questions 763

Chapter 23 Final Preparation 765

Exam Information 765

Getting Ready 767

Tools for Final Preparation 768

Suggested Plan...