Last update: March 23, 2001

Secrets I learned... about Linux

Work in Progress
The following documents will hopefully come together to provide some learning tools. Here's what there is so far.

Backup & Restore Originally designed for XWN-740, this document formed the basis of a class presentation on the subject of Disaster Recovery. (This document also includes a link to an email message received from Enhanced Software Technologies - the BRU folks)
What goes on here? This document deals with comparative techniques for User Administration. Perhaps more important than that singular exercise in particular, this document demonstrates an important concept. There are often alternative ways of doing things in Unix. You need to know what's going on regardless of which tool you use.
Basic Installation and concepts This document, which needs to be revisited, addresses Linux installation issues that arose in SYA-710. There's a good deal of conceptual stuff here.
Public Key Encryption It's a challenge. The whole concept of encryption/decryption suggests "secrecy". Yet this technique is quite open about how it works... and yet it does!
The Unix File System This document never got terribly far off the ground. I lacked proper focus. After a certain point, I realized I didn't really know the proper direction in which to take it. I also ran out of available time.
Standard input, output and pipes This document explores the Unix mantra of Do one thing and do it well. stdin, stdout and pipes are the glue that makes it all come together.
Creating a CDROM image This document describes the process of burning a CDROM.
The Apache Web Server This document describes what a daemon is, what a web server does and (once I get it written) some particulars of the Apache Web Server.
LILO, partitioning, multiple OSs There are 2 documents here.
  • The first is the more conceptual approach. It describes LILO and how to go about putting multiple operating systems on the same computer.
  • The second discusses more specific nuts and bolts issues having to do with Linux and Windows dual-boot.
Building a new kernel This document was almost entirely written by Jerry Lue, SYA810 instructor. Thanks Jerry!
Understanding how IP networks are defined There are over 4 billion IP addresses. This document attempts to explain how the Internet -- a network of networks -- carves up networks, and how you, as a System Administrator create your own sub-networks.
When all hell breaks loose. You just booted up the machine. There are disk errors all over the place. What do you do?