Linux Fundamentals Training in New Zealand

At the end of this course you will be able to:

• work with Linux main shell:BASH
• navigate the filesystem and manage files and directories
• understand the client/server nature of X Window System and X applications
• edit files using vi and GUI editors
• manipulate data with a selection of filter tools
• use redirection and piping techniques
• perform basic administrative tasks, controlling processes, filesystems, job scheduling, and simple networking and backups
• reading and writing simple BASH scripts

1. 'Just For Fun'

• Linux? Why?
• Hardware, software, operating system...
• UNIX Market and place for Linux within it
• OSS (Open Source Software) principles
• GNU GPL, Linux philosophy and distributors
• Linux for networking and developers
• Introduction to objectives and coverage

2. Linux Session

• Gaining access to the system
• Ordinary users vs. the superuser
• Login process, shells and line interpreters
• Command line structure, control and examples
• Simple system interrogation utilities
• Simple file reading utilities
• File system layout and navigation
• System and user directories
• Using filenames with absolute and relative pathnames
• Getting help

3. Using Files and Directories

• File system - the user's perspective
• Directory structure
• FSH standard
• File and directory manipulation commands
• Copy, move, remove, etc
• File system - the system's perspective
• I-nodes and file attributes
• Hard links and symbolic links

4. Editing Text

• Operational modes of vi
• Command mode vs. Insert mode
• 'Colon', or 'ex' mode
• Useful vi commands
• Navigation and editing command
• Search and substitute
• Extended vi commands and vim configuration
• Alternative editors
• GUI and text choices

5. BASH - Your Interpreter

• Shell as Interpreter and command line scan
• Generating filenames with wildcards (globbing)
• Quoting (protecting special characters from the shell)
• Variable and command substitutions
• Protecting special characters for the shell
• Bash Command History
• Bash Command Line Editing

6. BASH Environment

• Shell definitions
• Creating, recalling and sharing shell variables
• Shell aliases and functions
• Character sets and localisation
• Bash variables to control these
• Controlling shell behaviour with set -o and shopt
• Interactive Start-up Files
• Start-up files for login and non-login shells

7. Who is the Boss

• The su command
• su interactive session
• Running one-off commands
• Checking who you are
• Understanding id and who am i tools
• The sudo tool
• Typical sudo session
• sudo configuration file

8. Processes

• What is a Process?
• How a process starts
• How a process ends
• The kill command and signals
• Command exit status
• Identifying Processes
• ps, top and GUI process monitors

9. Job Control

• Background jobs
• One-off deferral with at
• Daemon and job manipulation
• User access configuration files
• Spool directory
• Scheduling repeated tasks with crontab
• The cron daemon and configuration tables
• User access configuration files

10. Data Streams

• Standard data streams
• Standard output stream (stdout)
• Standard error stream (stderr)
• Standard input (stdin)
• Redirecting streams
• Redirecting standard output, error and input
• Synchronising (merging) streams
• Other methods of handling data streams
• Collecting data with sub-shells
• Using command substitution

11. Pipes and Filters

• Sending stdout to a process
• Pipes
• Multistage Pipes
• Simple Filters
• Why Use Filters?
• Problem Solving Approach
• The cut, sort, uniq, grep and tr commands
• Filter Examples

12. Basic Regular Expressions (and SED)

• Regular expressions
• What is sed
• Specifying simple instructions
• Understanding sed addressing
• Using a sed command file
• More sed editing commands

13. File Management Tools

• Using PATH to identify command origins
• The which and type commands
• Locating files
• The locate command and mlocate database
• Identifying filenames with find
• Specifying search criteria and requesting actions
• Backups with cpio, and dd and tar
• Compression tools

14. Filesystem Access

• Files, directories and filesystems
• File and directory access
• Read/write/execute permissions
• User types
• Additional permission bits
• Set user/group ID bits and sticky bit
• Using chmod, chown and chgrp to manipulate access attributes

15. Working in a Network Environment

• Basic network card configuration
• Using ifconfig tool
• GUI configuration programs exist
• Basic routing configuration
• Using route commands
• Network diagnostics
• With ping, traceroute and netstat
• Using ssh for remote shell logins

16. X Window System

• X Window System as Linux GUI Interface
• Origins and implementation
• X Window System Architecture
• Client-server communication
• Setting display access rights
• Selecting destination display
• Window managers / desktop systems
• Gnome, KDE and more…
• X Window resources
• Fonts, colours, geometry

17. Writing Shell Scripts

• Simple scripts
• Positional parameters
• Command exit status
• Selection commands
• Looping commands
• Interactive input