Linux Essentials

Prerequisites:

The delegate should be familiar with basic computer concepts and terminology e.g. hardware, software, files and directories.

Course Description:

This highly practical instructor led Linux Essentials (LPI) course introduces the delegate to the main concepts of the Linux operating system. Targeted to closely follow the official LPI curriculum (generic Linux), this course together with the Linux System Administration and the Linux Advanced System Administration course will enable the delegate to work towards achieving the LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 certification qualifications.

The most commonly used commands are described in detail as are the command line wildcard and redirection facilities. The mechanisms by which a user acquires a login environment are discussed and the main features of the Bash Shell are introduced.The Desktop environment will also be explored.

The delegate will practise:

• Using basic Shell commands
• Using and customising the desktop systems
• Accessing help and documentation facilities
• Printing and viewing files
• Creating, copying, renaming, moving and deleting files and directories
• Listing and changing access permissions on files
• Using the Shell's redirection and pipe facilities
• Editing text files using the vi/vim editors
• Monitoring and controlling processes
• Managing the contents of files
• Using the basic file and text searching utilities
• Customising their own login BASH shell environment
• Creating Shell scripts
• Use basic network commands to access remote systems

This course includes the following modules:

Introduction to Linux

• A brief history of UNIX and LINUX
• GNU project
• GPL - GNU General Public license (Copyleft)
• The LINUX kernel
• Common Distributions of LINUX available
• Common Shells
• Login sessions
• Entering commands in the Shell
• Basic syntax rules
• Essential keyboard shortcuts
• Basic commands and utilities

The Graphical Environment

• The X Window System
• The GNOME Desktop
• Configuring the Desktop

Basic Commands

• Getting Help - man pages, info, /usr/share/doc
• Sources of information available on the WEB
• Basic File handling commands
• Printing and locating files
• Filename wildcard characters
• Command Aliases
• Command line history, viewing and re-executing

The Linux File System

• The file system structure
• Standard Linux directories and files
• Pathnames : relative and absolute
• Navigating the file system using shell commands
• Managing files and directories
• Links
• Graphical file managers
• Backup using tar

File Access Control

• File access criteria
• Users and groups
• Basic file access permissions
• List permissions
• Changing file permissions
• Default file permissions
• Extended permissions and file attributes
• Switching users and user groups

Redirection and Pipes

• Input and Output redirection
• Overwriting and appending output redirection
• Using pipes to connect processes together
• Teeing output within pipelines

The vi/vim Editors

• Introduction to text file editing
• Basic commands
• Copying and moving text
• Search and replace features
• Reading and writing from files

Processes

• Time-sharing
• What is a process?
• System and user processes
• Monitoring processes
• Killing processes
• Managing background processes
• Using Job control
• Altering Process scheduling priorities
• Desktop tools to monitor and manage processes

More Basic Commands

• Finding files
• Searching the contents of text files
• Sorting files
• Miscellaneous file handling commands

The Bash Environment

• What is an environment?
• Environmental variables
• The system/user profiles
• The shell start up file
• Using variables
• Bash shell options

Bash Shell Scripting Basics

• What is a shell script?
• Creating and executing shell scripts
• User interaction
• Command line arguments
• Decision constructs using the 'if' statement

Bash Shell Scripting

• Case statement
• Looping constructs: for/while/until
• Functions

Basic Networking Commands

• Remote login
• Using the secure shell: ssh
• Copying files with scp
• Using ftp and sftp
• Displaying networking information
• Testing access to a remote host