Re: [PLUG] ideas for class material

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

> Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2011 19:24:09 -0400
> From: Andrew Craig<axcraig@gmail.com>
> Subject: [PLUG] ideas for class material

> I am currently in a Computer Technology program and have an upcoming Linux
> III class.  The professor is open to ideas for curriculum.
[...]
> I want to do stuff, not write about it, excluding any documentation of
> course.  I was thinking of the following ideas
>
> - fix broken stuff
> - break working stuff
> - ssh stuff
> - scripts
> - hacking
> - build an arch or BSD system
> - build up workstations and / or server

- Try different Rescue and other LiveCDs
- Try recovering deleted data from a "bad" hard drive
	Create a loop mount volume
	Damage it
	Give everyone copies
	See what they can recover

All of the above are good, though I can't say I'd suggest building BSD 
for a Linux class--they are quite different things.  :-)

And I'm shocked that Rich already replied to this and didn't say what I 
thought he'd say, which is--build a Gentoo box!  Or "Linux from scratch" 
or maybe even Slackware...  You will learn more about the guts of Linux 
using any of those than you will using Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, etc.

"Build a box" is boring though.  Build it for what?  How about building 
a general "services" server for a small business or branch office?  This 
is a single sever (also a single point of failure) that does just about 
everything:
	Linux software RAID1 or RAID5
	DHCP
	Internal DNS
	Internal email
		SMTP (authenticated?)
		IMAP (authenticated?)
		(external email relay config for extra credit)
	Samba (SMB/CIFS, WINS) for Windows clients
		& groups and permissions
	NFS for Linux clients
		& groups and permissions
	SSH (which facilitates tons of stuff, like remote admin
		sshfs, rsync, and much more)
	Local client backup (BackupPC, Duplicity, Backula, Amanda, etc.)
		Test a restore
	Off-site server backup (Box Backup, rsync.net, some cloud)
		Test a restore
	LAMP for Intranet
		Some CMS/wiki (Drupal or Mediawiki)
		MySQL database
		Write server docs in the CMS/wiki
	Print server (CUPS)
	syslog (rsyslog, syslog-ng) log aggregator
	LogCheck, swatch or other log monitoring
	Monit, Cacti, OpenNMS or similar network monitoring
	Set up cron jobs for something
		e.g. use wget to mirror a web site (get permission!)
	Caching proxy server for Internet surfing
		Write a script to run from cron to summarize logs
	Revision control server
		Subversion
		Bazaar
		Web GUI for either/both
		etckeeper or similar
	Write an acceptance test plan for all of the above

This is a pretty big project if you've never done it before.  It could 
be broken up, or limited as needed.  It also doesn't require too much in 
the way of security (firewall, separating internal and external 
services) or scripting, both of which are critical.  So maybe:
	Firewall config for services server (arguably overkill)
	VPN to HQ office?
	Find some simple tasks to automate with scripts

Pick a virtualization solution everyone can live with and build the 
server to spec in that so you can "hand in" the machines for testing. 
Yes, I know that doing software RAID in a VM is silly.  Do it anyway for 
the experience.

The no-cost VMware Player runs on Windows or Linux and would work. 
OTOH, since this server is a single point of failure, building it to run 
in a KVM or similar VM that runs on a minimal "headless" Linux host 
makes DR (disaster recovery) or hardware swaps almost trivial.  Or maybe 
build in free Amazon EC2 micro instances 
(http://aws.amazon.com/free/what-is-aws-free-usage-tier/)?  That might 
already automate too much of the above though.


Having said all of that, shell scripting is easily a whole course by 
itself but is often overlooked, especially by those with a Windows/GUI 
point-and-click perspective.  (That may be changing with Win8 that can 
be CLI/headless.  Only took 'em just under 20 years to see the light.) 
_Learning the bash Shell_ would be a good textbook, and I have a ton of 
other resources listed in http://www.bashcookbook.com/bashinfo.  I also 
have a few presos in http://www.phillylinux.org/talks.html.


This is all very system administration focused, and is arguably not 
"Linux" at all, since Linux is really just a kernel.  But to really 
focus on Linux then means mostly kernel guts, configs, compiling, etc. 
While that's interesting, it's not similar to the list at the top, and 
you probably should walk (& build some servers) before you try brain 
surgery (custom kernels).  IMO.

Hope this is useful,
JP
----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP            |:::======|      http://bashcookbook.com/
My Account, My Opinions     |=========|      http://www.jpsdomain.org/
----------------------------|=========|-------------------------------
"Microsoft Tax" = the additional hardware & yearly fees for the add-on
software required to protect Windows from its own poorly designed and
implemented self, while the overhead incidentally flattens Moore's Law.
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug