Overview
The GL120 is a challenging course that focuses on the fundamental tools and concepts of Linux and Unix. Students gain proficiency using the command line. Beginners develop a solid foundation in Unix, while advanced users discover patterns and fill in gaps in their knowledge. Like all Guru Labs courses, the course material is designed to provide extensive hands-on experience. Topics include: basic file manipulation; basic and advanced filesystem features; I/O redirection and pipes; text manipulation and regular expressions; managing jobs and processes; vi, the standard Unix editor; automating tasks with shell scripts; managing software; secure remote administration; and more.
Prerequisites
Students should be comfortable with computers. No familiarity with Linux or other Unix operating systems is required.
Course Outline
Course Content
Lesson 1: What is Linux
- Unix and its Design Principles
- FSF and GNU
- GPL – General Public License
- The Linux Kernel
- Linux Kernel and Versioning
- Components of a Distribution
- Slackware
- SUSE Linux Products
- Debian
- Ubuntu
- Red Hat Linux Products
- Oracle Linux
Lesson 2: Login and Exploration
- Logging In
- Running Programs
- Interacting with Command Line
- The X Window System
- Starting X
- Gathering Login Session Info
- Gathering System Info
- uptime
- got root?
- Switching User Contexts
- sudo
- Help from Commands and Documentation
- whereis
- Getting Help Within the Graphical Desktop
- Getting Help with man & info
Lesson 3: The Linux Filesystem
- Filesystem Support
- Unix/Linux Filesystem Features
- Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
- Navigating the Filesystem
- Displaying Directory Contents
- Filesystem Structures
- Determining Disk Usage With df and du
- Determining Disk Usage (GUI)
- Disk Usage with Quotas
- File Ownership
- Default Group Ownership
- File and Directory Permissions
- File Creation Permissions with umask
- SUID and SGID on files
- SGID and Sticky Bit on Directories
- Changing File Permissions
- User Private Group Scheme
Lesson 4: Manipulating Files
- Directory Manipulation
- File Manipulation
- Deleting and Creating Files
- Physical Unix File Structure
- Filesystem Links
- File Extensions and Content
- Displaying Files
- Previewing Files
- Producing File Statistics
- Displaying Binary Files
- Searching the Filesystem
- Alternate Search Method
Lesson 5: Shell Basics
- Role of Command Shell
- Communication Channels
- File Redirection
- Piping Commands Together
- Filename Matching
- File Globbing and Wildcard Patterns
- Brace Expansion
- Shell and Environment Variables
- Key Environment Variables
- Which and Type
- General Quoting Rules
- Nesting Commands
Lesson 6: Archiving and Compression
- Archives with tar
- Archives with cpio
- The gzip Compression Utility
- The bzip2 Compression Utility
- The XZ Compression Utility
- The PKZIP Archiving/Compression format
- GNOME File Roller
Lesson 7: Text Processing
- Searching Inside Files
- The Streaming Editor
- Text Processing with Awk
- Replacing Text Characters
- Text Sorting
- Duplicate Removal Utility
- Extracting Columns of Text
- Combining Files and Merging Text
- Comparing File Changes
Lesson 8: Regular Expressions
- Regular Expression Overview
- Regular Expressions
- RE Character Classes
- Regex Quantifiers
- RE Parenthesis
Lesson 9: Text Editing
- Text Editing
- Pico/GNU Nano
- Pico/Nano Interface
- Nano configuration
- Pico/Nano Shortcuts
- vi and Vim
- Learning Vim
- Basic vi
- Intermediate vi
Lesson 10: Messaging
- System Messaging Commands
- Controlling System Messaging
- Internet Relay Chat
- Instant Messenger Clients
- Electronic Mail
- Sending Email with sendmail
- Sending and Receiving Email with mailx
- Sending and Receiving Email with mutt
- Sending Email with Pine
- Evolution
Lesson 11: Command Shells
- Shells
- Identifying the Shell
- Changing the Shell
- Configuration Files
- Script Execution
- Shell Prompts
- Bash: Bourne-Again Shell
- Bash: Configuration Files
- Bash: Command Line History
- Bash: Command Editing
- Bash: Command Completion
- Bash:
shortcuts
- Bash: prompt
- Setting Resource Limits via ulimit
Lesson 12: Introduction to Shell Scripting
- Shell Script Strengths and Weaknesses
- Example Shell Script
- Positional Parameters
- Input & Output
- Doing Math
- Comparisons with test
- Exit Status
- Conditional Statements
- Flow Control: case
- The for Loop
- The while and until Loops
Lesson 13: Process Management and Job Control
- What is a Process?
- Process Lifecycle
- Process States
- Viewing Processes
- Signals
- Tools to Send Signals
- nohup and disown
- Managing Processes
- Tuning Process Scheduling
- Job Control Overview
- Job Control Commands
- Persistent Shell Sessions with Screen
- Using screen
- Advanced Screen
Lesson 14: At and Cron
- Automating Tasks
- at/batch
- cron
- The crontab Command
- crontab Format
- /etc/cron./ Directories
- Anacron
Lesson 15: Managing Software
- Downloading with FTP
- FTP
- lftp
- Command Line Internet – Non-interactive
- Command Line Internet – Interactive
- Managing Software Dependencies
- Using the Yum command
- YUM package groups
- Configuring Yum
- yumdownloader
- Popular Yum Repositories
- Using the Zypper command
- Zypper Services and Catalogs
- The dselect & APT Frontends to dpkg
- Aptitude
- Configuring APT
Lesson 16: The Secure Shell (SSH)
- Secure Shell
- ssh and sshd Configuration
- Accessing Remote Shells
- Transferring Files
- Alternative sftp Clients
- SSH Key Management
- ssh-agent
Lesson 17: Mounting Filesystems & Managing Removable Media
- Filesystems Concept Review
- Mounting Filesystems
- NFS
- SMB
- Filesystem Table (/etc/fstab)
- AutoFS
- Removable Media
Lesson 18: Printing
- Legacy Print Systems
- Common UNIX Printing System
- Defining a Printer
- Standard Print Commands
- Format Conversion Utilities
- ens