Course Title: System Administration using Linux

Course No.: ICT. Ed. Nature of course: Theoretical + Practical

Level: Bachelor
Program: B.Ed. ICTE Credit Hour: 3 hours (2T+1P)
Semester: Eight Teaching Hour: 80hours (32+48)

1. Course Description
This course aims at providing a skills to the student to install, configure, and troubleshoot a computer
network and system administration using linux. The course will provide skill to the students to the
different tools and technology such as server/client installation and configuration, IP, DHCP, Name
Server, DNS, Web server, file, print and mail server configuration and troubleshooting.

2. General Objectives
The general objectives of this course are as follows:
 To make a student able to knowledgeable to system administration and computer networks,
to include components features and architecture.
 To explore the differentiate network standards, protocols, and access methods for implement
the network system.
 To make student skill able to installation, configuration, and management of IP, DHCP,
Name Server, DNS, Web server, file, print and mail server configuration and troubleshooting
within the network operating system.
 Describe the specific actions that can be taken to enforce network level security.

3. Course Outlines:

Specific Objectives Contents

Unit 1: Familiarizing with Linux and CLI Commands (30)
 Describe the basic concept of I. Introduction to free and open source software, Unix System
Linux and Unix Architecture Architecture, Unix Philosophy, Introduction to Linux. How is
 Familiarizing with basic linux Linux different? The X windows system. Run level or system
command initialization levels. Virtual consoles (terminals), Command
prompt, using a Linux System, Linux Command Line,
Logging Out, Command Syntax, Files, Creating Files with
cat, Displaying Files’ Contents with cat, Deleting Files with
rm, Copying and Renaming Files with cp and mv, Command
History.
II. Files and Directories, Examples of Absolute Paths, Current
Directory, Making and Deleting Directories, Relative Paths,
Special Dot Directories, Using Dot Directories in Paths,
Hidden Files, Paths to Home Directories, Looking for Files in
the System, Running Programs, Specifying Multiple
Files(with rm, mkdir, cat), Finding Documentation for
Programs, Specifying Files with Wildcards, Chaining
Programs Together, Graphical and Text Interfaces, Text
 Editors
III. Shells, The Bash Shell, Shell Commands, Command-Line
Arguments, Syntax of Command-Line Options, Examples of
Command-Line Options, Setting Shell Variables,
Environment Variables, Where Programs are Found, Bash
Configuration Variables, Using History , Reusing History
Items, Retrieving Arguments from the History, Bash Editing
Keys, Combining Commands on One Line, Repeating
Commands with for, Command Substitution, Finding Files
with locate, Finding Files with find, find Criteria, find
Actions: Executing Programs
IV. Process Text Streams Using Text Processing with less, wc,
sort, uniq, cut, expand, fmt, head, tail, nl, cat, od, pr, split,
tac, tr command
V. Perform Basic File Management: Filesystem Objects,
Directory and File Names, File Extensions, wildcard patterns,
cp, mv, rm, mkdir, rmdir, touch command, Searching Files
with grep,
VI. Job Control and Processes: Job Control, jobs, fb, bg, Process,
Process properties, Parent and child Processes, ps, ps options,
process monitoring with pstree, top, Signaling Processes,
Common Signals for Interactive Use, Sending Signals: kill,
Sending Signals to Daemons: pidof, Modifying process
execution priorities with nice and renice. Job Scheduling with
cron, crontab, anacron and system log
VII. Filesystem Concepts: Filesystems, The Unified Filesystem,
File Types, Inodes and Directories
VIII. Create and Change Hard and Symbolic Links, Working with
compression utilities, Archiving files.
IX. Manage File Ownership and Permissions : Users and Groups,
The Superuser: Root, Changing File Ownership with chown,
Changing File Group Ownership with chgrp, Changing the
Ownership of a Directory and Its Contents, Changing
Ownership and Group Ownership Simultaneously, Basic
Concepts: Permissions on Files, Permissions on Directories,
Permissions for Different Groups of People, Examining
Permissions: ls -l ,Preserving Permissions When Copying
Files, Changing File and Directory Permissions: chmod,
Specifying Permissions for chmod, Special Directory
Permissions: ‘Sticky’ and setgid, Special File Permissions:
Setgid and Setuid
X. Create and control Partitions and Filesystems: Concepts:
Disks and Partitions, Disk Naming, Using fdisk, Making
New Partitions, Changing Partition Types, Making
Filesystems with mkfs, Mounting Filesystems, Mounting a
Filesystem: mount, Mounting Other Filesystems,
Unmounting a Filesystem: umount, Configuring mount:
/etc/fstab, Filesystem Types, Mount Options,
Mounting/unmounting a File, flash drive, cd drive .
XI. Package management: Install, remove, upgrade package
Unit 2: Installation and Boot Process (7)
  Observing boot process i. Installation: Client and server linux installation,
 Learn to install linux OS Network based Installation
ii. Boot Sequence, Kernel Initialization, INIT Process,
Boot Loaders, LILO, Selecting What to Boot, Boot
loader components, GRUB and grub.conf ,Starting
the boot process: GRUB, Specifying Kernel
Parameters, Boot Messages, Kernel initialization, init
initialization, Kernel Modules

Unit 3:User Administration (7)

 Know how to add/ remove/ i. Adding new user account, user private group,
modify users modifying/ deleting user accounts, group
 Setting permissions administration, password aging policies, switching
accounts, network users, authentication
configuration, Default file permission, access control
lists.

Unit 4: Set and View Disk Quotas: (6)

 Implementing quota i. What are Quotas, Hard and Soft Limits, Per-User and
 Managing disk and logical
Per-Group Quotas, Block and Inode
volumes
Limits ,Displaying Quota Limits: quota, Options in
/etc/fstab, Enabling Quota: quotaon ,Changing Quota
Limits: setquota, edquota and repquota, Software
RAID implementation, Creating Logical volumes
with LVM.

Unit 5:Network Configuration : (5)

 Know to configure IPV4 and i. Introduction to IPv4 and IPv6 address, Dynamic and
IPV6 addresses static IP address configuration, Network Interface
 Troubleshooting and Configuration, verifying IP connectivity, Defining a
configuring network localhost name, Setting Default gateway, routes,
Diagnosing Network startup issues, Network
troubleshooting commands

Unit 6: Organizing Network system (6)

 Configure DHCP and DNS i. Configuring DNS: Host name resolution, The Stub
resolver, DNS-Specific Resolvers, Trace a DNS
query, Forward lookups, Reverse Lookups,
Implementing a DNS server, Adding data to the
Name server, adding slave DNS.
ii. Configuring DHCP: Services of DHCP, Configuring
an IPv4 DHCP server.

Unit 7: Network File Sharing Services (6)

 To understand cross platform
i. Introduction to FTP server, NFS server, Client-side
implementation for file sharing NFS, Samba.
ii. Implementation of: File transport protocol (FTP)
services, Network File Sharing (NFS) services,
 Samba server.
iii. Providing access to a group directory

Unit 8: Web, Email and database Services (7)

 Configure and implement
i. Implementing web (HTTP and HTTPS) services:
web mail and database Introduction to Apache, HTTPD, Server installation
services and basic configuration, using .htaccess files ,Using
CGI, Securing Access website.
ii. Email: Essential of Email operation, SMTP protocol,
MTA, Implementation and configuration email:
Sendmail configuration (incoming and outgoing),
Postfix(incoming and outgoing) Procmail MTA
configuration, Dovecot setup.
iii. Setting up and Administering Database Server
(MySQL)

Unit 9: Securing Data and Network (6)

 Assessing network security
i. Introduction to cryptography, symmetric encryption,
and securing data in network asymmetric encryption, PKI, Digital certificates,
generation of Digital certificates, Open SSH
overview, SSH authentication, using SSH keys
with/without passphrase, using an SSH tunnel
ii. Configuring a Firewall, Applying ACL

9 Instructional Techniques
The instructional techniques for this course are divided into two groups. First group consists of
general instructional techniques applicable to most of the units. The second group consists of specific
instructional techniques applicable to particular units.

4.1 General Techniques

Reading materials will be provided to students in each unit. Lecture, Discussion, use of multi-media
projector, brain storming are used in all units.

4.2 Specific Instructional Techniques

Demonstration is an essential instructional technique for all units in this course during teaching
learning process. Specifically, demonstration with practical works will be specific instructional
technique in this course.

5. Evaluation :

Internal External Semester Total Marks

Assessment Practical Examination
Exam/Viva

40 Points 20 Points 40 Points 100 Points

 Note: Students must pass separately in internal assessment, external practical exam and semester
examination.
5.1 Internal Evaluation (40 Points):
Internal evaluation will be conducted by subject teacher based on following criteria:
1) Class Attendance 5 points
2) Learning activities and class performance 5 points
3) First assignment ( written assignment) 10 points
4) Second assignment (Case Study/project work with presentation ) 10 points
5) Terminal Examination 10 Points

Total 40 points

5.2 Semester Examination (40 Points)

Examination Division, Dean office will conduct final examination at the end of semester.
1) Objective question (Multiple choice 10 questions x 1mark) 10 Points
2) Subjective answer questions (6 questions x 5 marks) 30 Points

Total 40 points

5.3 External Practical Exam/Viva (20 Points):

Examination Division, Dean Office will conduct final practical examination at the end of
semester.

10 Recommended books and References materials (including relevant published articles in

national and international journals)

Recommended books:
 Limoncelli, T., Hogan, C. J., & Chalup, S. R. (2007). The practice of system and network
administration (2nd ed., Updated and rev). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley.
 Tony Bautts, Terry Dawson, Gregor N. Purdy,O'Reilly (2005). Linux Network Administrator's
Guide, Third Edition,

 Æleen Frisch (2002), Essential System Administration: Tools and Techniques for Linux and Unix
Administration, 3rd Edition, O'Reilly

References materials:

 Rankin, K., & Hill, B. M. (2010). The official Ubuntu server book (2nd ed). Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall.

 Wale Soyinka (2009).Linux Administration: A Beginners Guide. Mcgraw Hill.

 Richard Fox. Linux with Operating system concepts

 Roderick W. Smith (2002). Advanced Linux Networking, Addison-Wesley Professional (Pearson
Education)

 Christopher Negus (2015), Linux Bible (10th Ed.), Wiley

 Æleen Frisch (2002), Essential System Administration: Tools and Techniques for Linux and Unix
Administration, 3rd Edition, O'Reilly