Christopher Negus has been teaching and writing about Linux and UNIX for more than 25 years. He is an instructor and principal technical writer for Red Hat, Inc., and the author of dozens of Linux and UNIX books, including Red Hat Linux Bible (all editions), CentOS Bible, Fedora Bible, Ubuntu Linux Toolbox, Linux Troubleshooting Bible, Linux Toys, and Linux Toys II.

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xxxv

Part I: Getting Started 1

Chapter 1: Starting with Linux 3

Understanding What Linux Is 4

Understanding How Linux Differs from Other Operating Systems 6

Exploring Linux History 7

Free-flowing UNIX culture at Bell Labs 7

Commercial UNIX 9

GNU transitions UNIX to freedom 11

BSD loses some steam 12

Linus builds the missing piece 13

OSI open source definition 14

Understanding How Linux Distributions Emerged 16

Choosing a Red Hat distribution 16

Choosing Ubuntu or another Debian distribution 19

Finding Professional Opportunities with Linux Today 19

Understanding how companies make money with Linux 20

Becoming Red Hat certified 21

Summary 25

Chapter 2: Creating the Perfect Linux Desktop 27

Understanding Linux Desktop Technology 28

Starting with the Fedora GNOME Desktop Live image 30

Using the GNOME 3 Desktop 31

After the computer boots up 31

Setting up the GNOME 3 desktop 38

Extending the GNOME 3 desktop 39

Starting with desktop applications 41

Stopping the GNOME 3 desktop 46

Using the GNOME 2 Desktop 46

Using the Metacity window manager 48

Changing GNOME's appearance 49

Using the GNOME panels 50

Adding 3D effects with AIGLX 54

Summary 57

Exercises 57

Part II: Becoming a Linux Power User 59

Chapter 3: Using the Shell 61

About Shells and Terminal Windows 62

Using the shell prompt 63

Using a Terminal window 63

Using virtual consoles 65

Choosing Your Shell 65

Running Commands 66

Understanding command syntax 67

Locating commands 70

Recalling Commands Using Command History 72

Command-line editing 73

Command-line completion 75

Command-line recall 76

Connecting and Expanding Commands 78

Piping between commands 78

Sequential commands 79

Background commands 79

Expanding commands 80

Expanding arithmetic expressions 80

Expanding variables 80

Using Shell Variables 81

Creating and using aliases 81

Exiting the shell 83

Creating Your Shell Environment 84

Configuring your shell 84

Setting your prompt 85

Adding environment variables 87

Getting Information about Commands 88

Summary 90

Exercises 90

Chapter 4: Moving Around the Filesystem 93

Using Basic Filesystem Commands 96

Using Metacharacters and Operators 98

Using file-matching metacharacters 98

Using file-redirection metacharacters 99

Using brace expansion characters 101

Listing Files and Directories 101

Understanding File Permissions and Ownership 105

Changing permissions with chmod (numbers) 106

Changing permissions with chmod (letters) 107

Setting default file permission with umask 108

Changing file ownership 109

Moving, Copying, and Removing Files 109

Summary 111

Exercises 111

Chapter 5: Working with Text Files 113

Editing Files with vim and vi 113

Starting with vi 115

Skipping around in the file 119

Searching for text 119

Using ex mode 120

Learning more about vi and vim 120

Finding Files 120

Using locate to find files by name 121

Searching for files with find 122

Searching in files with grep 128

Summary 129

Exercises 129

Chapter 6: Managing Running Processes 131

Understanding Processes 131

Listing Processes 132

Listing processes with ps 132

Listing and changing processes with top 134

Listing processes with System Monitor 136

Managing Background and Foreground Processes 137

Starting background processes 138

Using foreground and background commands 139

Killing and Renicing Processes140

Killing processes with kill and killall 140

Setting processor priority with nice and renice 142

Limiting Processes with cgroups 143

Summary 144

Exercises 145

Chapter 7: Writing Simple Shell Scripts 147

Understanding Shell Scripts 147

Executing and debugging shell scripts 148

Understanding shell variables 149

Performing arithmetic in shell scripts 152

Using programming constructs in shell scripts 153

Trying some useful text manipulation programs 159

Using simple shell scripts 161

Summary 163

Exercises 163

Part III: Becoming a Linux System Administrator 165

Chapter 8: Learning System Administration 167

Understanding System Administration 167

Using Graphical Administration Tools 169

Using the root User Account 174

Exploring Administrative Commands, Configuration Files, and Log Files 178

Administrative commands 178

Administrative configuration files 179

Using Other Administrative Accounts 185

Checking and Configuring Hardware 186

Checking your hardware 187

Managing removable hardware 189

Working with loadable modules 191

Summary 193

Exercises 193

Chapter 9: Installing Linux 195

Choosing a Computer 196

Installing Fedora from Live Media 198

Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux from Installation Media 201

Understanding Cloud-Based Installations 204

Installing Linux in the Enterprise 205

Exploring Common Installation Topics 207

Upgrading or installing from scratch 207

Dual booting 208

Installing Linux to run virtually 209

Using installation boot options 210

Using specialized storage 213

Partitioning hard drives 214

Using the GRUB boot loader 217

Summary 219

Exercises 219

Chapter 10: Getting and Managing Software 221

Managing Software on the Desktop 221

Going Beyond the Software Window 223

Understanding Linux RPM and DEB Software Packaging 224

Understanding DEB packaging 225

Understanding RPM packaging 226

Managing RPM Packages with YUM 229

Transitioning from yum to dnf 229

Understanding how yum works 229

Using YUM with third-party software repositories 233

Managing software with the yum command 233

Installing, Querying, and Verifying Software with the rpm Command 241

Installing and removing packages with rpm 241

Querying rpm information 242

Verifying RPM packages 244

Managing Software in the Enterprise 245

Summary 246

Exercises 247

Chapter 11: Managing User Accounts 249

Creating User Accounts 249

Adding users with useradd 252

Setting user defaults 255

Modifying users with usermod 257

Deleting users with userdel 258

Understanding Group Accounts 259

Using group accounts 259

Creating group accounts 260

Managing Users in the Enterprise 261

Setting permissions with Access Control Lists 262

Centralizing User Accounts 269

Summary 270

Exercises 270

Chapter 12: Managing Disks and Filesystems 273

Understanding Disk Storage 273

Partitioning Hard Disks 275

Understanding partition tables 275

Viewing disk partitions 276

Creating a single-partition disk 277

Creating a multiple-partition disk 281

Using Logical Volume Manager Partitions 285

Checking an existing LVM 286

Creating LVM logical volumes 289

Growing LVM logical volumes 290

Mounting Filesystems 291

Supported filesystems 291

Enabling swap areas 293

Disabling swap area 294

Using the fstab file to define mountable file systems 295

Using the mount command to mount file systems 297

Mounting a disk image in loopback 298

Using the umount command 299

Using the mkfs Command to Create a Filesystem 300

Managing Storage with Cockpit 301

Summary 303

Exercises 303

Part IV: Becoming a Linux Server Administrator 305

Chapter 13: Understanding Server Administration 307

Starting with Server Administration 308

Step 1: Install the server 308

Step 2: Configure the server 310

Step 3: Start the server 311

Step 4: Secure the server 312

Step 5: Monitor the server 314

Checking and Setting Servers 316

Managing Remote Access with the Secure Shell Service 316

Starting the openssh-server service 317

Using SSH client tools 318

Using key-based (passwordless) authentication 324

Configuring System Logging 326

Enabling system logging with rsyslog 326

Watching logs with logwatch 331

Checking System Resources with sar 332

Checking System Space 334

Displaying system space with df 334

Checking disk usage with du 334

Finding disk consumption with find 335

Managing Servers in the Enterprise 336

Summary 336

Exercises 337

Chapter 14: Administering Networking 339

Configuring Networking for Desktops 340

Checking your network interfaces 342

Configuring network interfaces 349

Configuring a network proxy connection 352

Configuring Networking from the Command Line 353

Configure networking with nmtui 354

Editing a NetworkManager TUI connection 354

Understanding networking configuration files 355

Setting alias network interfaces 360

Setting up Ethernet channel bonding 361

Setting custom routes 363

Configuring Networking in the Enterprise 364

Configuring Linux as a router 364