Emmett Dulaney is a university professor and columnist for Certification Magazine. An expert on operating systems and certification, he is the author of CompTIA Security+ Study Guide, CompTIA A+ Complete Study Guide, and CompTIA Network+ Exam Cram.

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 3

Icons Used in This Book 4

Beyond the Book 4

Where to Go from Here 5

Book 1: Getting Started with Linux 7

Chapter 1: Introducing Linux 9

What Is Linux? 9

Linux distributions 10

Making sense of version numbers 13

Linux Standard Base (LSB) 14

Contents of a Linux Distribution 15

GNU software 15

GUIs and applications 16

Networks 19

Internet servers 19

Software development 20

Online documentation 22

Managing Your PC with Linux 23

Distribution media 23

Peripheral devices 24

File systems and sharing 25

Network 25

Getting Started 26

Step 1: Install 26

Step 2: Configure 26

Step 3: Explore 27

Step 4: Find out more 27

Chapter 2: Installing Linux 29

Following the Installation Steps 29

Checking Your PC’s Hardware 31

Setting Aside Space for Linux 33

Trying a Live CD 34

Installing Linux on a Flash Drive 35

Creating the bootable flash drive 35

Troubleshooting the workstation 36

Working daily with the new drive 37

Chapter 3: Troubleshooting and Configuring Linux 39

Using Text Mode Installation 40

Troubleshooting X 40

Resolving Other Installation Problems 42

Using Knoppix boot commands 42

Handling the fatal signal 11 error 45

Getting around the PC reboot problem 45

Using Linux kernel boot options 48

Setting Up Printers 48

Managing DVDs, CD-ROMs, and Flash Drives 51

Installing Other Software 51

Installing software in Debian and Ubuntu 52

Installing software in Fedora 54

Installing software in SUSE 55

Chapter 4: Trying Out Linux 57

Starting Linux 57

Playing with the Shell 60

Starting the bash shell 61

Understanding shell commands 62

Trying a few Linux commands 62

Shutting Down 64

Book 2: Linux Desktops 67

Chapter 1: GNOME and Its Derivatives 69

Getting to Know the GNOME Desktop 70

Understanding the GNOME Panels 72

The top panel 72

The desktop 72

The bottom panel 73

Looking at Unity 73

Looking at Cinnamon 73

Looking at MATE 74

Chapter 2: The KDE Plasma Desktop 75

Getting to Know the Plasma Desktop 75

Desktop contextual menus 77

Icon contextual menus 77

Understanding the Plasma Panel 78

The Main Menu button 79

Panel icons 80

Configuring the Plasma Bottom Panel 81

Configuring the Plasma Desktop 81

Chapter 3: Commanding the Shell 83

Opening Terminal Windows and Virtual Consoles 83

Using the bash Shell 84

Understanding the syntax of shell commands 85

Combining shell commands 86

Controlling command input and output 87

Typing less with automatic command completion 89

Going wild with asterisks and question marks 90

Repeating previously typed commands 91

Discovering and Using Linux Commands 92

Becoming root (superuser) 97

Managing processes 97

Working with date and time 99

Processing files 100

Writing Shell Scripts 102

Chapter 4: Navigating the Linux File System 105

Understanding the Linux File System 105

Navigating the File System with Linux Commands 110

Commands for directory navigation 110

Commands for directory listings and permissions 112

Commands for changing permissions and ownerships 114

Commands for working with files 116

Commands for working with directories 117

Commands for finding files 118

Commands for mounting and unmounting 119

Commands for checking disk-space use 120

Chapter 5: Introducing Linux Applications 123

Taking Stock of Linux Applications 124

Introducing Office Applications and Tools 124

LibreOffice.org office suite 125

Calendars 128

Calculators 128

Checking out Multimedia Applications 129

Using a digital camera 130

Playing audio CDs 131

Playing sound files 131

Burning a DVD or CD 132

Using Graphics and Imaging Apps 133

The GIMP 133

GNOME Ghostview 134

Chapter 6: Using Text Editors 137

Using GUI Text Editors 137

Text Editing with ed and vi 140

Using ed 141

Using vi 145

Book 3: Networking 151

Chapter 1: Connecting to the Internet 153

Understanding the Internet 154

Deciding How to Connect to the Internet 155

Connecting with DSL 156

How DSL works 156

DSL alphabet soup: ADSL, IDSL, SDSL 157

Typical DSL setup 158

Connecting with a Cable Modem 162

How a cable modem works 162

Typical cable modem setup 164

Chapter 2: Setting Up a Local Area Network 167

Understanding TCP/IP 167

IP addresses 169

Internet services and port numbers 170

Setting Up an Ethernet LAN 172

How Ethernet works 173

Ethernet cables 174

Configuring TCP/IP Networking 176

Connecting Your LAN to the Internet 178

Chapter 3: Going Wireless 181

Understanding Wireless Ethernet Networks 181

Understanding infrastructure and ad hoc modes 183

Understanding Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) 183

Setting Up Wireless Hardware 184

Configuring the Wireless Access Point 185

Configuring Wireless Networking 186

Chapter 4: Managing the Network 191

Discovering the TCP/IP Configuration Files 191

/etc/hosts 192

/etc/networks 193

/etc/host.conf 193

/etc/resolv.conf 193

/etc/hosts.allow 194

/etc/hosts.deny 195

/etc/nsswitch.conf 195

Checking Out TCP/IP Networks 196

Checking the network interfaces 196

Checking the IP routing table 196

Checking connectivity to a host 197

Checking network status 198

Sniffing network packets 199

Using GUI tools 200

Configuring Networks at Boot Time 201

Book 4: The Internet 203

Chapter 1: Browsing the Web 205

Surfing the Web 205

Like a giant spider’s web 206

Links and URLs 206

Web servers and web browsers 209

Web Browsing in Linux 209

Checking out web browsers for Linux 210

Introducing Firefox’s user interface 210

Changing your home page 213

Surfing the Internet with Firefox 214

Chapter 2: Using FTP 217

Using Graphical FTP Clients 218

Using gFTP 218

Introducing FileZilla 220

Using a web browser as an FTP client 221

Using the Command-Line FTP Client 223

Chapter 3: Hosting Internet Services 229

Understanding Internet Services 229

TCP/IP and sockets 230

Internet services and port numbers 233

Using the Internet Super Server 235

Using inetd 236

Using xinetd 237

Running Stand-Alone Servers 239

Starting and stopping servers manually 240

Starting servers automatically at boot time 240

Chapter 4: Managing Mail Servers 245

Installing the Mail Server 245

Using sendmail 245

A mail-delivery test 246

The mail-delivery mechanism 247

The sendmail configuration file 247

Syntax of the sendmail.cf file 253

Other sendmail files 254

The .forward file 256

The sendmail alias file 257

Chapter 5: Managing DNS 259

Understanding the Domain Name System (DNS) 259

What is DNS? 260

Discovering hierarchical domain names 261

Exploring BIND 262

Configuring DNS 266

Configuring the resolver 266

Configuring a caching name server 267

Configuring a primary name server 278

Book 5: Administration 281

Chapter 1: Introducing Basic System Administration 283

Taking Stock of System Administration Tasks 284

Becoming root 285

Using the su - command 285

Recovering from a forgotten root password 286

Understanding How Linux Boots 287

Understanding the init process 288

Examining the /etc/inittab file 289

Trying a new run level with the init command 291

Understanding the Linux startup scripts 291

Manually starting and stopping servers 292

Automatically starting servers at system startup 293

Taking Stock of Linux System Configuration Files 294

Monitoring System Performance 296

Using the top utility 297

Using the uptime command 298

Using the vmstat utility 299

Checking disk performance and disk usage 300

Viewing System Information with the /proc File System 302

Understanding Linux Devices 305

Device files 305

Persistent device naming with udev 307

Managing Loadable Driver Modules 308

Loading and unloading modules 308

Understanding the /etc/modprobed files 309

Scheduling Jobs in Linux 310

Scheduling one-time jobs 310

Scheduling recurring jobs 312

Introducing Some GUI System Administration Tools 316

Chapter 2: Managing Users and Groups 319

Adding User Accounts 320

Managing user accounts by using a GUI user manager 320

Managing user accounts by using commands 322

Understanding the /etc/passwd File 323

Managing Groups 324

Setting Other User and Group Administration Values 325

Exploring the User Environment 326

Changing User and Group Ownership of Files 328

Chapter 3: Managing File Systems 331

Exploring the Linux File System 331

Understanding the file-system hierarchy 333

Mounting a device on the file system 336

Examining the /etc/fstab file 337

Sharing Files with NFS 339

Exporting a file system with NFS 340

Mounting an NFS file system 341

Backing Up and Restoring Files 341

Selecting a backup strategy and media 342

Commercial backup utilities for Linux 343

Using the tape archiver: tar 343

Accessing a DOS or Windows File System 348

Mounting a DOS or Windows disk partition 348

Mounting those ancient DOS floppy disks 349

Mounting an NTFS partition 351

Chapter 4: Working with Samba and NFS 353

Sharing Files with NFS 353

Exporting a file system with NFS 354

Mounting an NFS file system 357

Setting Up a Windows Server Using Samba 357

Installing Samba 359

Configuring Samba 359

Trying out Samba 360

Book 6: Security 363

Chapter 1: Introducing Linux Security 365

Why Worry about Security? 366

Establishing a Security Framework 366

Determining business requirements for security 368

Performing risk analysis 368

Establishing a security policy 370

Implementing security solutions (mitigation) 371

Managing security 372

Securing Linux 372

Understanding the host-security issues 373

Understanding network-security issues 374

Delving Into Computer Security Terminology and Tools 375

Keeping Up with Security News and Updates 379

Chapter 2: Securing Linux 381

Securing Passwords 382

Shadow passwords 382

Pluggable authentication modules (PAMs) 383

Protecting Files and Directories 384

Viewing ownerships and permissions 385

Changing file ownerships 385

Changing file permissions 385

Setting default permission 386

Checking for set user ID permission 388

Encrypting and Signing Files with GnuPG 389

Understanding public key encryption 389

Understanding digital signatures 390

Using GPG 391

Monitoring System Security 396

Securing Internet Services 397

Turning off stand-alone services 397

Configuring the Internet super server 398

Configuring TCP wrapper security 398

Using Secure Shell for Remote Logins 399

Setting Up Simple Firewalls 402

Using NAT 405

Enabling packet filtering on your Linux system 406

Security Files to Be Aware Of 411

Chapter 3: Vulnerability Testing and Computer Security Audits 413

Understanding Security Audits 414

Nontechnical aspects of security audits 414

Technical aspects of security audits 415

Implementing a Security Test Methodology 416

Some common computer vulnerabilities 417

Host-security review 418

Network-security review 422

Vulnerability Testing Types 424

Exploring Security Testing Tools 425

Book 7: Scripting 429

Chapter 1: Introductory Shell Scripting 431

Trying Out Simple Shell Scripts 432

Exploring the Basics of Shell Scripting 433

Storing stuff 434

Calling shell functions 435

Controlling the flow 435

Exploring bash’s built-in commands 439

Chapter 2: Working with Advanced Shell Scripting 443

Trying Out sed 443

Working with awk and sed 446

Step 1: Pull out the ISBN 447

Step 2: Calculate the 13th digit 448

Step 3: Add the 13th digit to the other 12 449

Step 4: Finish the process 450

Final Notes on Shell Scripting 450

Chapter 3: Programming in Linux 451

An Overview of Programming 452

Exploring the Software-Development Tools in Linux 453

GNU C and C++ compilers 454

The GNU make utility 458

The GNU debugger 466

Understanding the Implications of GNU Licenses 473

The GNU General Public License 473

The GNU Library General Public License 474

Book 8: Linux Certification 477

Chapter 1: Studying for the Linux Essentials Certification Exam 479

Overview of Linux Essentials 479

The Linux Community and a Career in Open Source 480

Finding Your Way on a Linux System 482

The Power of the Command Line 483

The Linux Operating System 485

Security and File Permissions 486

Chapter 2: Studying for the CompTIA Linux+ Powered by LPI Certification Exams 489

Overview of the CompTIA Linux+ Exams 489

System Architecture 490

Linux Installation and Package Management 492

GNU and Unix Commands 494

Devices, Linux File Systems, Filesystem Hierarchy Standard 495

Shells, Scripting, and Data Management 497

User Interfaces and Desktops 498

Administrative Tasks 500

Essential System Services 501

Networking Fundamentals 502

Security 504

Chapter 3: Other Linux Certifications 507

Vendor-Neutral Certifications 507

Vendor-Specific Certifications 508

Index 509

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