Table Of Content,TITLE.19374 Page 3 Tuesday, October 9, 2001 2:31 PM
LPI LINUX
CERTIFICATION
IN A NUTSHELL
A Desktop Quick Reference
Jeffrey Dean
Beijing •Cambridge •Farnham •Köln •Paris •Sebastopol •Taipei •Tokyo
,Copyright.19230 Page 1 Tuesday, October 9, 2001 2:31 PM
LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell
by Jeffrey Dean
Copyright © 2001 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O’Reilly & Associates, Inc., 101 Morris Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472.
Editor: Chuck Toporek
Production Editor: Mary Brady
Cover Designer: Ellie Volckhausen
Printing History:
June 2001: First Edition.
Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered
trademarks of O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. The association between the image of a Texas
longhorn cow and LPI Linux certification is a trademark of O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Manyofthedesignationsusedbymanufacturersandsellerstodistinguishtheirproductsare
claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly &
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The Glossary is copyrighted by the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) and is used with
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Whileeveryprecautionhasbeentakeninthepreparationofthisbook,thepublisherassumes
no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the
information contained herein.
ISBN: 1-56592-748-6
[M] [8/01]
,COLOPHON.19095 Page 1 Tuesday, October 9, 2001 2:31 PM
About the Author
Jeffrey Dean is a freelance author, editor, and consultant in Philadelphia, Pennsyl-
vania. Jeffrey has professional experience in IT management, training delivery, and
system administration of Linux, Solaris, VMS, AS/400, and Windows NT/2000.
Jeffrey holds an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the Univer-
sity of Pittsburgh and a master’s degree in engineering with emphasis in computer
design from Penn State. He holds the Linux Professional Institute Level 1 (LPIC-1)
and Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certifications.
Colophon
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Mary Brady was the production editor and proofreader, and Norma Emory was the
copyeditor for LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell. Nicole Arigo and Claire
Cloutier provided quality control. Edith Shapiro and Sada Preisch provided
production assistance. John Bickelhaupt wrote the index.
,COLOPHON.19095 Page 2 Tuesday, October 9, 2001 2:31 PM
Ellie Volckhausen designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by
Edie Freedman. The cover image is an original illustration created by Lorrie
LeJeune. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using
Adobe’s ITC Garamond font.
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Table of Contents
Preface ....................................................................................................... xi
Part 1: General Linux Exam 101
Exam 101 Overview ............................................................................. 3
Exam 101 Study Guide ....................................................................... 6
Exam Preparation ................................................................................... 6
GNU and Unix Commands (Topic 1.3) ........................................ 9
Work Effectively on the Unix Command Line .................................... 10
Process Text Streams Using Text-Processing Filters ........................... 19
Perform Basic File Management .......................................................... 33
Use Unix Streams, Pipes, and Redirects .............................................. 41
Create, Monitor, and Kill Processes ..................................................... 45
Modify Process Execution Priorities .................................................... 56
Making Use of Regular Expressions .................................................... 59
Devices, Linux Filesystems, and the Filesystem
Hierarchy Standard (Topic 2.4) ............................................. 70
Create Partitions and Filesystems ........................................................ 71
Maintain the Integrity of Filesystems ................................................... 82
Control Filesystem Mounting and Unmounting .................................. 89
Set and View Disk Quotas ................................................................... 95
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Use File Permissions to Control Access to Files ............................... 104
Manage File Ownership ..................................................................... 114
Create and Change Hard and Symbolic Links .................................. 116
Find System Files and Place Files in the Correct Location ............... 122
Boot, Initialization, Shutdown, and Runlevels
(Topic 2.6) ..................................................................................... 134
Boot the System .................................................................................. 135
Change Runlevels and Shutdown or Reboot the System ................. 137
Documentation (Topic 1.8) .......................................................... 146
Use and Manage Local System Documentation ................................ 147
Find Linux Documentation on the Internet ...................................... 155
Write System Documentation ............................................................ 160
Provide User Support ......................................................................... 163
Administrative Tasks (Topic 2.11) ............................................. 164
Manage Users and Group Accounts .................................................. 165
Tune the User Environment ............................................................... 174
Configure and Use System Log Files ................................................. 176
Automate System Administration Tasks ............................................ 180
Maintain an Effective Data Backup Strategy ..................................... 184
Exam 101 Review Questions and Exercises ........................... 198
GNU and Unix Commands (Topic 1.3) ............................................. 198
Devices, Linux Filesystems, and the Filesystem
Hierarchy Standard (Topic 2.4) ......................................................... 202
Boot, Initialization, Shutdown, and Runlevels (Topic 2.6) .............. 205
Documentation (Topic 1.8) ................................................................ 206
Administrative Tasks (Topic 2.11) ..................................................... 210
Exam 101 Practice Test ................................................................... 212
Exam 101 Highlighter’s Index ..................................................... 227
GNU and Unix Commands (Topic 1.3) ............................................. 227
Devices, Linux Filesystems, and the Filesystem
Hierarchy Standard (Topic 2.4) ......................................................... 234
Boot, Initialization, Shutdown, and Runlevels (Topic 2.6) .............. 240
Documentation (Topic 1.8) ................................................................ 242
Administrative Tasks (Topic 2.11) ..................................................... 245
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Part 2: General Linux Exam 102
Exam 102 Overview ........................................................................ 251
Exam 102 Study Guide .................................................................. 254
Exam Preparation ............................................................................... 254
Hardware and Architecture (Topic 1.1) ................................... 258
Configure Fundamental System Hardware ....................................... 258
Set Up SCSI and NIC Devices ............................................................ 262
Configure Modems and Sound Cards ................................................ 267
Linux Installation and Package Management
(Topic 2.2) .................................................................................... 270
Design a Hard Disk Layout ................................................................ 271
Install a Boot Manager ....................................................................... 274
Make and Install Programs from Source ........................................... 277
Manage Shared Libraries .................................................................... 284
Use Debian Package Management .................................................... 287
Use Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) .............................................. 293
Kernel (Topic 1.5) ............................................................................. 300
Manage Kernel Modules at Runtime ................................................. 300
Reconfigure, Build, and Install a Custom Kernel and Modules ....... 310
Text-Editing, Processing, and Printing (Topic 1.7) .............. 320
Perform Basic File Editing Operations Using vi ............................... 320
Manage Printers and Print Queues .................................................... 324
Print Files ............................................................................................ 331
Install and Configure Local and Remote Printers ............................. 332
Shells, Scripting, Programming, and Compiling
(Topic 1.9) ..................................................................................... 339
Customize and Use the Shell Environment ....................................... 340
Customize or Write Simple Scripts .................................................... 351
Table of Contents vii
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X (Topic 2.10) ..................................................................................... 367
An Overview of X .............................................................................. 367
Install and Configure XFree86 ........................................................... 368
Set Up xdm ......................................................................................... 380
Identify and Terminate Runaway X Applications ............................. 383
Install and Customize a Window Manager Environment ................. 384
Networking Fundamentals (Topic 1.12) ................................. 389
Fundamentals of TCP/IP .................................................................... 389
TCP/IP Troubleshooting and Configuration ..................................... 400
Configure and Use PPP ...................................................................... 414
Networking Services (Topic 1.13) ............................................... 424
Configure and Manage inetd and Related Services .......................... 425
Operate and Perform Basic Configuration of sendmail ................... 429
Operate and Perform Basic Configuration of Apache ...................... 432
Properly Manage the NFS, SMB, and NMB Daemons ...................... 434
Set Up and Configure Basic DNS Services ........................................ 439
Security (Topic 1.14) ........................................................................ 446
Perform Security Administration Tasks ............................................. 446
Set Up Host Security .......................................................................... 458
Set Up User-Level Security ................................................................. 460
Exam 102 Review Questions and Exercises ........................... 462
Hardware and Architecture (Topic 1.1) ............................................ 462
Linux Installation and Package Management (Topic 2.2) ................ 464
Kernel (Topic 1.5) .............................................................................. 465
Text Editing, Processing, and Printing (Topic 1.7) ........................... 466
Shells, Scripting, Programming, and Compiling (Topic 1.9) ............ 467
X (Topic 2.10) ..................................................................................... 467
Networking Fundamentals (Topic 1.12) ............................................ 469
Networking Services (Topic 1.13) ..................................................... 470
Security (Topic 1.14) .......................................................................... 471
viii Table of Contents
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Exam 102 Practice Test ................................................................... 472
Exam 102 Highlighter’s Index ..................................................... 490
Hardware and Architecture ................................................................ 490
Linux Installation and Package Management ................................... 492
Kernel .................................................................................................. 493
Text-Editing, Processing, and Printing .............................................. 494
Shells, Scripting, Programming, and Compiling ............................... 497
X .......................................................................................................... 499
Networking Fundamentals ................................................................. 501
Networking Services ........................................................................... 504
Security ................................................................................................ 506
Glossary ................................................................................................ 509
Index ...................................................................................................... 537
Table of Contents ix
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Preface
Objective certification of professionals is a time-honored tradition in many fields,
including medicine and law. As small computer systems and networks proliferated
over the last decade, Novell and Microsoft produced extremely popular certifica-
tion products for their respective operating system and network technologies.
These two programs are often cited as having popularized a certification market
where products that had previously been highly specialized and relatively rare.
These programs have become so popular that a huge training and preparation
industry has formed to service a constant stream of new certification candidates.
Certification programs, offered by vendors such as Sun and Hewlett-Packard, have
existed in the Unix world for some time. However, since Solaris and HP-UX aren’t
commodity products, those programs don’t draw the crowds that the PC platform
does. Linux, however, is different. Linux is both a commodity operating system
and is PC-based, and its popularity continues to grow at a rapid pace. As Linux
deployment increases, so too does the demand for qualified and certified Linux
system administrators.
Anumberofprograms—theLinuxProfessionalInstitute,SairLinuxandGNUCerti-
fication,theRedHatCertifiedEngineer(RHCE)program,andCompTIA’sLinux+—
have formed over the last few years to service this new market. Each of these
programs seeks to provide objective measurements of a Linux administrator’s
skills, but they approach the problem in different ways.
The RHCE program requires that candidates pass a hands-on practical skills test,
solving problems and performing configuration tasks. Though more involved from
an exam delivery point of view, this type of test is very thorough and difficult to
beat using purely good study habits. The Sair program is provided by Sair, Inc., a
for-profit company that is also a vendor for courseware and texts. The Linux+
exam, scheduled for deployment in 2001, is an entry-level certification, which
brings us to the LPI.
xi
