Red Hat Linux Troubleshooting Techniques and Tools

Prerequisites:

Has successfully completed RH131 or RH133 or holds a current RHCT certification or has equivalent system administration knowledge under Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This knowledge includes: installation, service management (using service and chkconfig, for example), basic system monitoring (using ps and top, and perhaps meminfo and the /proc filesystem), filesystem management (using fdisk and mkfs), and basic troubleshooting (including managing log files and perhaps the use of hardware probing tools such as ethtool and lspci).

Course Description:

Troubleshooting is both an art and a science, an instinct (typically informed by experience) and a technique. In RH142 Linux Troubleshooting Techniques and Tools, participants will learn techniques for troubleshooting a Linux system and will learn to use a variety of troubleshooting tools available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

RH142 Linux Troubleshooting Techniques and Tools is a 4 day heavily lab-oriented class designed to help participants learn (or improve) their troubleshooting skills using tools available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Labs will offer a range of problems from RHCT level and up to allow participants to extend their knowledge and techniques.

Participants will have the opportunity to debug live systems, exercising their new troubleshooting skills on a working system so that they can start to (or continue to) develop troubleshooting experience.

This course includes the following modules:

Troubleshooting Techniques

• An introduction to troubleshooting methods, best practices, and tools.

Troubleshooting Boot Issues

• Working with advanced GRUB features
• Rescue and GRUB CDs
• Advanced ext2/ext3 filesystem repair
• Rescuing RAID and LVM volumes.

Local Configuration

• Tools to identify configuration problems.

Hardware

• Preempting hardware failures (looking for the signs)Protecting against hardware failures
• Redundant configurations
• Tools to help identify hardware failures and intermittent problems.

Applications

• An overview of tools and techniques for troubleshooting applications.
• Some common application problems and how to solve them.

Network

• Manual configuration of network cards, troubleshooting advanced setups (bonded interfaces, virtual interfaces)
• Connectivity issues
• Network diagnostic tools.

Security

• Working effectively with (and not against) security tools, including SELinux, SSL, and authentication.

Red Hat Resources and Reporting Problems

• Support options
• Knowledgebase
• Certified training
• Initiating support calls
• TAM support
• Developer support
• Bugzillas
• Support workflow
• Diagnostic and information-gathering tools.