Topic 200: Capacity Planning
200.1 Measure and Troubleshoot Resource Usage

• Measure CPU usage
• Measure memory usage
• Measure disk I/O
• Measure network I/O
• Measure firewalling and routing throughput
• Map client bandwidth usage
• Match / correlate system symptoms with likely problems
• Estimate throughput and identify bottlenecks in a system including networking

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• iostat
• netstat
• w
• top
• sar
• processes blocked on I/O
• blocks out
• vmstat
• pstree, ps
• Isof
• uptime
• swap
• blocks in

200.2 Predict Future Resource Needs

• Use collectd to monitor IT infrastructure usage
• Predict capacity break point of a configuration
• Observe growth rate of capacity usage
• Graph the trend of capacity usage
• Awareness of monitoring solutions such as Nagios, MRTG and Cacti

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• diagnose
• predict growth
• resource exhaustion

Topic 201: Linux Kernel
201.1 Kernel Components

• Kernel 2.6.x documentation
• Kernel 3.x documentation

Terms and Utilities:

• /usr/src/linux/
• zImage
• /usr/src/linux/Documentation/
• bzImage

201.2 Compiling a kernel

• /usr/src/linux/
• Kernel Makefiles
• Kernel 2.6.x/3.x make targets
• Customize the current kernel configuration.
• Build a new kernel and appropriate kernel modules.
• Install a new kernel and any modules.
• Ensure that the boot manager can locate the new kernel and associated files.
• Module configuration files
• Awareness of dracut

Terms and Utilities:

• mkinitrd
• mkinitramfs
• make
• bzip2
• make targets (all, config, xconfig, menuconfig, gconfig, oldconfig, mrproper, zImage, bzImage, modules, modules_install, rpm-pkg, binrpm-pkg, deb-pkg)
• gzip
• module tool
• /usr/src/linux/.confi
• /lib/modules/kernel-version/
• depmod

201.3 Kernel runtime management and troubleshooting

• Use command-line utilities to get information about the currently running kernel and kernel modules
• Manually load and unload kernel modules
• Determine when modules can be unloaded
• Determine what parameters a module accepts
• Configure the system to load modules by names other than their file name.
• /proc filesystem
• Content of /, /boot/ , and /lib/modules/
• Tools and utilities to analyze information about the available hardware
• udev rules

Terms and Utilities:

• /lib/modules/kernel-version/modules.dep
• module configuration files in /etc/
• /proc/sys/kernel/
• /sbin/depmod
• /sbin/rmmod
• /sbin/modinfo
• /bin/dmesg
• /sbin/lspci
• /usr/bin/lsdev
• /sbin/lsmod
• /sbin/modprobe
• /sbin/insmod
• /bin/uname
• /usr/bin/lsusb
• /etc/sysctl.conf, /etc/sysctl.d/
• /sbin/sysctl
• udevmonitor
• udevadm monitor
• /etc/udev/

Topic 202: System Startup
202.1 Customizing SysV-init system startup

• Linux Standard Base Specification (LSB)
• SysV init environment

Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/inittab
• /etc/init.d/
• /etc/rc.d/
• chkconfig
• update-rc.d
• init and telinit

202.2 System Recovery

• GRUB version 2 and Legacy
• Grub shell
• Boot loader start and hand off to kernel
• Kernel loading
• Hardware initialization and setup
• Daemon/service initialization and setup
• Know the different boot loader install locations on a hard disk or removable device
• Overwriting standard boot loader options and using boot loader shells
• Awareness of UEFI

Terms and Utilities:

• mount
• fsck
• inittab, telinit and init with SysV init
• the contents of /boot/ and /boot/grub/
• GRUB
• grub-install
• initrd, initramfs
• Master boot record

202.3 Alternate Bootloaders

• LILO
• SYSLINUX, ISOLINUX, PXELINUX
• Understanding of PXE

Terms and Utilities:

• lilo, /etc/lilo.conf
• syslinux
• extlinux
• isolinux.bin
• isolinux.cfg
• pxelinux.0
• pxelinux.cfg/

Topic 203: Filesystem and Devices
203.1 Operating the Linux filesystem

• The concept of the fstab configuration
• Tools and utilities for handling SWAP partitions and files
• Use of UUIDs

Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/fstab
• /etc/mtab
• /proc/mounts
• mount and umount
• sync
• swapon
• swapoff

203.2 Maintaining a Linux filesystem

• Tools and utilities to manipulate and ext2, ext3 and ext4
• Tools and utilities to manipulate xfs
• Awareness of Btrfs

Terms and Utilities:

• fsck (fsck.*)
• mkfs (mkfs.*)
• dumpe2fs, xfsdump, xfsrestore
• debugfs
• tune2fs
• mkswap
• xfs_info, xfs_check and xfs_repair
• smartd, smartctl

203.3 Creating and configuring filesystem options

• autofs configuration files
• UDF and ISO9660 tools and utilities
• Awareness of CD-ROM filesystems (UDF, ISO9660, HFS)
• Awareness of CD-ROM filesystem extensions (Joliet, Rock Ridge, El Torito)
• Basic feature knowledge of encrypted filesystems

Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/auto.master
• /etc/auto.[dir]
• mkisofs

Topic 204: Advanced Storage Device Administration
204.1 Configuring RAID

• Software raid configuration files and utilities

Terms and Utilities:

• mdadm.conf
• mdadm
• /proc/mdstat
• partition type 0xFD

204.2 Adjusting Storage Device Access

• Tools and utilities to configure DMA for IDE devices including ATAPI and SATA
• Tools and utilities to manipulate or analyze system resources (e.g. interrupts)
• Awareness of sdparm command and its uses
• Tools and utilities for iSCSI

Terms and Utilities:

• hdparm, sdparm
• tune2fs
• sysctl
• /dev/hd*, /dev/sd*
• iscsiadm, scsi_id, iscsid and iscsid.conf
• WWID, WWN, LUN numbers

204.3 Logical Volume Manager

• Tools in the LVM suite
• Resizing, renaming, creating, and removing logical volumes, volume groups, and physical volumes
• Creating and maintaining snapshots
• Activating volume groups

Terms and Utilities:

• /sbin/pv*
• /sbin/lv*
• /sbin/vg*
• mount
• /dev/mapper/

Topic 205: Network Configuration
205.1 Basic networking configuration

• Utilities to configure and manipulate ethernet network interfaces
• Configuring basic access to wireless networks with iw, iwconfig and iwlist

Terms and Utilities:

• /sbin/route
• /sbin/ifconfig
• /sbin/ip
• /usr/sbin/arp
• /sbin/iwconfig
• /sbin/iwlist

205.2 Advanced Network Configuration and Troubleshooting

• Utilities to manipulate routing tables
• Utilities to configure and manipulate ethernet network interfaces
• Utilities to analyze the status of the network devices
• Utilities to monitor and analyze the TCP/IP traffic

Terms and Utilities:

• /sbin/route
• /sbin/ifconfig
• /bin/netstat
• /bin/ping
• /usr/sbin/arp
• /usr/sbin/tcpdump
• /usr/sbin/lsof
• /usr/bin/nc
• /sbin/ip
• nmap

205.3 Troubleshooting Network Issues

• Location and content of access restriction files
• Utilities to configure and manipulate ethernet network interfaces
• Utilities to manage routing tables
• Utilities to list network states.
• Utilities to gain information about the network configuration
• Methods of information about the recognized and used hardware devices
• System initialization files and their contents (SysV init process)
• Awareness of NetworkManager and its impact on network configuration

Terms and Utilities:

• /sbin/ifconfig
• /sbin/route
• /bin/netstat
• /etc/network/, /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/
• /bin/ping
• System log files such as /var/log/syslog & /var/log/messages
• /etc/resolv.conf
• /etc/hosts
• /etc/hostname, /etc/HOSTNAME
• /bin/hostname
• /usr/sbin/traceroute
• /bin/dmesg
• /etc/hosts.allow, /etc/hosts.deny

Topic 206: System Maintenance
206.1 Make and install programs from source

• Unpack source code using common compression and archive utilities
• Understand basics of invoking make to compile programs
• Apply parameters to a configure script
• Know where sources are stored by default

Terms and Utilities:

• /usr/src/
• gunzip
• gzip
• bzip2
• tar
• configure
• make
• uname
• install
• patch

206.2 Backup operations

• Knowledge about directories that have to be include in backups
• Awareness of network backup solutions such as Amanda, Bacula and BackupPC
• Knowledge of the benefits and drawbacks of tapes, CDR, disk or other backup media
• Perform partial and manual backups
• Verify the integrity of backup files
• Partially or fully restore backups

Terms and Utilities:

• /bin/sh
• dd
• tar
• /dev/st* and /dev/nst*
• mt
• rsync

206.3 Notify users on system-related issues

• Automate communication with users through logon messages
• Inform active users of system maintenance

Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/issue
• /etc/issue.net
• /etc/motd
• wall
• /sbin/shutdown