Topic 105: Shells, Scripting and Data Management
105.1 Customize and use the shell environment

• Set environment variables (e.g. PATH) at login or when spawning a new shell
• Write Bash functions for frequently used sequences of commands
• Maintain skeleton directories for new user accounts
• Set command search path with the proper directory

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

• .
• source
• /etc/bash.bashrc
• /etc/profile
• env
• export
• set
• unset
• ~/.bash_profile
• ~/.bash_login
• ~/.profile
• ~/.bashrc
• ~/.bash_logout
• function
• alias
• lists
105.2 Customize or write simple scripts

• Use standard sh syntax (loops, tests)
• Use command substitution
• Test return values for success or failure or other information provided by a command
• Perform conditional mailing to the superuser
• Correctly select the script interpreter through the shebang (#!) line
• Manage the location, ownership, execution and suid-rights of scripts

Terms and Utilities:

• for
• while
• test
• if
• read
• seq
• exec

105.3 SQL data management

• Use of basic SQL commands
• Perform basic data manipulation

Terms and Utilities:

• insert
• update
• select
• delete
• from
• where
• group by
• order by
• join

Topic 106: User Interfaces and Desktops
106.1 Install and configure X11

• Verify that the video card and monitor are supported by an X server
• Awareness of the X font server
• Basic understanding and knowledge of the X Window configuration file

Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/X11/xorg.conf
• xhost
• DISPLAY
• xwininfo
• xdpyinfo
• X

106.2 Setup a display manager

• Basic configuration of LightDM
• Turn the display manager on or off
• Change the display manager greeting
• Awareness of XDM, KDM and GDM

Terms and Utilities:

• lightdm
• /etc/lightdm/

106.3 Accessibility

• Basic knowledge of keyboard accessibility settings (AccessX)
• Basic knowledge of visual settings and themes
• Basic knowledge of assistive technology (ATs)

Terms and Utilities:

• Sticky/Repeat Keys
• Slow/Bounce/Toggle Keys
• Mouse Keys
• High Contrast/Large Print Desktop Themes
• Screen Reader
• Braille Display
• Screen Magnifier
• On-Screen Keyboard
• Gestures (used at login, for example GDM)
• Orca
• GOK
• emacspeak

Topic 107: Administrative Tasks
107.1 Manage user and group accounts and related system files

• Add, modify and remove users and groups
• Manage user/group info in password/group databases
• Create and manage special purpose and limited accounts

Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/passwd
• /etc/shadow
• /etc/group
• /etc/skel/
• chage
• getent
• groupadd
• groupdel
• groupmod
• passwd
• useradd
• userdel
• usermod

107.2 Automate system administration tasks by scheduling jobs

• Manage cron and at jobs
• Configure user access to cron and at services
• Configure anacron

Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/cron.{d,daily,hourly,monthly,weekly}/
• /etc/at.deny
• /etc/at.allow
• /etc/crontab
• /etc/cron.allow
• /etc/cron.deny
• /var/spool/cron/
• crontab
• at
• atq
• atrm
• anacron
• /etc/anacrontab

107.3 Localisation and internationalisation

• Configure locale settings and environment variables
• Configure timezone settings and environment variables

Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/timezone
• /etc/localtime
• /usr/share/zoneinfo/
• LC_*
• LC_ALL
• LANG
• TZ
• /usr/bin/locale
• tzselect
• timedatectl
• date
• iconv
• UTF-8
• ISO-8859
• ASCII
• Unicode

Topic 108: Essential System Services
108.1 Maintain system time

• Set the system date and time
• Set the hardware clock to the correct time in UTC
• Configure the correct timezone
• Basic NTP configuration
• Knowledge of using the pool.ntp.org service
• Awareness of the ntpq command

Terms and Utilities:

• /usr/share/zoneinfo/
• /etc/timezone
• /etc/localtime
• /etc/ntp.conf
• date
• hwclock
• ntpd
• ntpdate
• pool.ntp.org

108.2 System logging

• Configuration of the syslog daemon
• Understanding of standard facilities, priorities and actions
• Configuration of logrotate
• Awareness of rsyslog and syslog-ng

Terms and Utilities:

• syslog.conf
• syslogd
• klogd
• /var/log/
• logger
• logrotate
• /etc/logrotate.conf
• /etc/logrotate.d/
• journalctl
• /etc/systemd/journald.conf
• /var/log/journal/

108.3 Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) basics

• Create e-mail aliases
• Configure e-mail forwarding
• Knowledge of commonly available MTA programs (postfix, sendmail, qmail, exim) (no configuration)

Terms and Utilities:

• ~/.forward
• sendmail emulation layer commands
• newaliases
• mail
• mailq
• postfix
• sendmail
• exim
• qmail
• ~/.forward
• sendmail emulation layer commands
• newaliases

108.4 Manage printers and printing

• Basic CUPS configuration (for local and remote printers)
• Manage user print queues
• Troubleshoot general printing problems
• Add and remove jobs from configured printer queues

Terms and Utilities:

• CUPS configuration files, tools and utilities
• /etc/cups/
• lpd legacy interface (lpr, lprm, lpq)

Topic 109: Networking Fundamentals
109.1 Fundamentals of internet protocols

• Demonstrate an understanding of network masks and CIDR notation
• Knowledge of the differences between private and public “dotted quad” IP addresses
• Knowledge about common TCP and UDP ports and services (20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 53, 80, 110, 123, 139, 143, 161, 162, 389, 443, 465, 514, 636, 993, 995)
• Knowledge about the differences and major features of UDP, TCP and ICMP
• Knowledge of the major differences between IPv4 and IPv6
• Knowledge of the basic features of IPv6

Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/services
• IPv4, IPv6
• Subnetting
• TCP, UDP, ICMP

109.2 Basic network configuration

• Manually and automatically configure network interfaces
• Basic TCP/IP host configuration
• Setting a default route

Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/hostname
• /etc/hosts
• /etc/nsswitch.conf
• ifconfig
• ifup
• ifdown
• ip
• route
• ping

109.3 Basic network troubleshooting

• Manually and automatically configure network interfaces and routing tables to include adding, starting, stopping, restarting, deleting or reconfiguring network interfaces
• Change, view, or configure the routing table and correct an improperly set default route manually
• Debug problems associated with the network configuration

Terms and Utilities:

• ifconfig
• ip
• ifup
• ifdown
• route
• host
• hostname
• dig
• netstat
• ping
• ping6
• traceroute
• traceroute6
• tracepath
• tracepath6
• netcat

109.4 Configure client side DNS

• Query remote DNS servers
• Configure local name resolution and use remote DNS servers
• Modify the order in which name resolution is done

Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/hosts
• /etc/resolv.conf
• /etc/nsswitch.conf
• host
• dig
• getent

Topic 110: Security
110.1 Perform security administration tasks

• Audit a system to find files with the suid/sgid bit set
• Set or change user passwords and password aging information
• Being able to use nmap and netstat to discover open ports on a system
• Set up limits on user logins, processes and memory usage
• Determine which users have logged in to the system or are currently logged in
• Basic sudo configuration and usage

Terms and Utilities:

• find
• passwd
• fuser
• lsof
• nmap
• chage
• netstat
• sudo
• /etc/sudoers
• su
• usermod
• ulimit
• who, w, last

110.2 Setup host security

• Awareness of shadow passwords and how they work
• Turn off network services not in use
• Understand the role of TCP wrappers
Terms and Utilities:

• /etc/nologin
• /etc/passwd
• /etc/shadow
• /etc/xinetd.d/
• /etc/xinetd.conf
• /etc/inetd.d/
• /etc/inetd.conf
• /etc/inittab
• /etc/init.d/
• /etc/hosts.allow
• /etc/hosts.deny

110.3 Securing data with encryption

• Perform basic OpenSSH 2 client configuration and usage
• Understand the role of OpenSSH 2 server host keys
• Perform basic GnuPG configuration, usage and revocation
• Understand SSH port tunnels (including X11 tunnels)

Terms and Utilities:

• ssh
• ssh-keygen
• ssh-agent
• ssh-add
• ~/.ssh/id_rsa and id_rsa.pub
• ~/.ssh/id_dsa and id_dsa.pub
• /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key and ssh_host_rsa_key.pub
• /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key and ssh_host_dsa_key.pub
• ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
• ssh_known_hosts
• gpg
• ~/.gnupg/