Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software in Africa
ict@innovation:
Training Guide on Linux System Administration
LPI Certification Level 1
Supporting African IT-Enterprises to get Open Source Skills by Getting Certified on Level 1 of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification
The map shows the number of active LPIC-1 Certifications in Africa as at September 2012
- Published by
- Version 1.1, November 2012
[ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration – LPI Certification Level 1. Supporting African IT-Enterprises to get Open Source Skills and Certification on Level 1 of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification] Created during the initiative "ict@innovation – Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software in Africa", a programme of FOSSFA and GIZ. For more information see www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net. Provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License. Copyright: FOSSFA & GIZ.
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[ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration – LPI Certification Level 1. Supporting African IT-Enterprises to get Open Source Skills and Certification on Level 1 of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification] Created during the initiative "ict@innovation – Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software in Africa", a programme of FOSSFA and GIZ. For more information see www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net. Provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License. Copyright: FOSSFA & GIZ.
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Imprint
Published by GIZ – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH
Competence Center Human Capacity Development (HCD) Africa Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 40 53113 Bonn Germany Phone +49 (228) 4460-0
FOSSFA – Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa
Secretariat hosted at Advanced Information Technology Institute (AITI) of the The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT PMB, State House, Accra Ghana Phone +233 (244) 954 413
For more information, please contact:
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
FOSSFA Secretariat FOSSFA Community Empowerment Manager (CEM) GIZ Division Economic Development & Employment, ICT Advisor, Sector Project ICT4D
Funding
This Training Guide was produced with the financial assistance of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The content of this document are the sole responsibility of the authors and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the BMZ, GIZ, or FOSSFA.
License
This Training Guide is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License. Copyright: FOSSFA & GIZ.
[ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration – LPI Certification Level 1. Supporting African IT-Enterprises to get Open Source Skills and Certification on Level 1 of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification] Created during the initiative "ict@innovation – Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software in Africa", a programme of FOSSFA and GIZ. For more information see www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net. Provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License. Copyright: FOSSFA & GIZ.
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Introduction by FOSSFA and GIZ
“How do I know that this IT company from Kampala will be able to maintain my IT server infrastructure?”, asks a contract-giving government agency in Uganda. The answer lies in a trust-building certification – a crucial ingredient of any economic development agenda. Therefore, the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) are proud to
present "ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration – LPI Certification Level 1. Supporting African IT-Enterprises to get Open Source Skills and Certification on Level 1 of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification."
This Training Guide is part of the programme "ict@innovation – Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in Africa". ict@innovation is a capacity building
programme of FOSSFA and GIZ which supports small and medium enterprises in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), aiming to encourage the growth of African ICT industries. ict@innovation promotes
•••
Free and Open Source business models: Free your IT Business in Africa!
Linux Administration Certification Coding FOSS in Africa
ꢀ
This Training Guide is part of the pillar "Linux Administration Certification". In the format of a Train-the-
Trainer programme, this pillar builds capacities of African SMEs in offering high quality FOSS services to improve the level of trust of customers through certification of their FOSS skills.
We hope that the “ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration – LPI Certification Level 1”, together with the associated Train-the-Trainer scheme, will contribute to removing a major barrier against the adoption and deployment of FOSS in Sub-Saharan Africa: the lack of human resources with FOSS skills demonstrated by recognized certificates.
In order to address a wide range of capacity needs and training environments in Africa, the Training Guide and the Train-the-Trainer programme builds on the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification as a world-wide recognized distribution- and vendor-neutral standard for evaluating the competency of Linux professionals with the possibility to hold low-cost paper-based examinations.
The “ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration – LPI Certification Level 1” is released under an open license (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License) which allows free distribution, remixing and updating of the material. Our goal is thereby to empower local African training institutions to offer low-cost trainings. And we are looking forward to seeing further development and updating of this Training Guide in the spirit of sharing and mutual capacity building.
We would like to thank and attribute the authors of the commons resources, which form the basis of this manual (for full acknowledgement, please see section “Authors, Attribution and Licensing”).
We would also like to thank all those who played a major role in the production of this Training Guide: First and foremost, our thanks go to the lead editor Evans Ikua, the ict@innovation FOSS Certification Manager (Kenya), who oversaw the entire production process. We thank the content editors, Mark Clarke of Jumping Bean (South Africa), Brian Ssennoga of the University of Health Sciences (Uganda), and Dr Chris Brown of Stay
Awake Training Ltd (UK). We also thank the co-editors John Matogo (Kenya), Ken Mutua (Kenya), Bernard Adongo (Kenya), and Trust Zifa (Zimbabwe). Many thanks also go to George Nyambuya, the ict@innovation
Africa Coordinator (South Africa), Petra Hagemann, GIZ Project Manager and David Paulus, editor for GIZ (Germany). Finally, we thank all those who participated in the first regional LPI training of trainers held in Nairobi for their initial review, especially Sisay Adugna (Ethiopia), and all the people who contributed to making this manual a reality.
ict@innovation hopes that this Training Guide will indeed support the acquisition of adequate FOSS skills by a large population of Linux System Administrators in Sub-Saharan Africa. We believe that this will help achieve the goal of promoting the socio-economic development of Africa by supporting the growth of the ICT industries in the SME sector through the implementation of quality FOSS services through certification. May a thousand more local innovative IT solutions and services blossom on the continent!
Nnenna Nwakanma, FOSSFA Council Chair and CEO, NNENNA.ORG
Balthas Seibold, Petra Hagemann, Steffi Meyer, GIZ Project Management Team
[ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration – LPI Certification Level 1. Supporting African IT-Enterprises to get Open Source Skills and Certification on Level 1 of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification] Created during the initiative "ict@innovation – Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software in Africa", a programme of FOSSFA and GIZ. For more information see www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net. Provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License. Copyright: FOSSFA & GIZ.
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Who this Training Guide is for
This Training Guide was mainly written for African experts and institutions wanting to become qualified trainers on the subject of Linux System Administration. It is geared towards trainers who want to incorporate FOSS certification training based on the Linux Professionals Institute (LPI) community certification programme into their institution's curriculum and/or developing FOSS certification training as a new revenue stream.
This open Training Guide provides a set of learning modules with learning objectives, key knowledge areas, introductions and concrete learning steps and handouts as well as a module on how to be a FOSS trainer. The guide is therefore particularly suitable for use in Training-of-Trainers settings and the development of advanced courses within ICT-associations, their member organisations, ICT- training institutions and universities. It can be used in tutored learning environments (e.g. 2-week courses preparing for the certification exams) or settings such as peer-to-peer learning, self-study, blended learning and e-learning.
In addition, any learner anywhere in the world will find this guide useful for study and preparation of the LPI level 1 certification. S/he will learn how to fulfil the first essential steps in becoming a Linux System Administrator charged with installing, supporting, and maintaining Linux-based computer systems.
The Training Guide builds on LPI community certification as a world-wide recognized distributionneutral and vendor-neutral standard for evaluating the competency of Linux professionals with the possibility to hold low-cost paper-based examinations. It has three levels. The LPIC-1 (exams 101 and 102) level taught in this training guide covers the fundamental Linux system administration skills. Like the LPI curriculum itself, the course is "distribution neutral", that is, it does not favour a specific Linux distribution. Learners can therefore use this manual not only to pass the LPIC-1 exams but also be in a position to operate a range of different Linux distributions. The detailed objectives of LPI EXAM
101 AND 102 are online at:http://www.lpi.org/eng/certification/the_lpic_program/lpic_1
Learners are expected to have
•••
Extensive experience (several years) in using computers, including a strong knowledge of hardware components and their interaction with basic Operating System (OS) components. A general knowledge of computing and networking basics such as binary and hexadecimal maths, file-system structures, Ethernet and Internet networking operations and hardware, etc. More than three cumulative months of practical experience using a GNU/Linux, BSD or Unix OS, working at the command-line (in a text terminal or console) either locally or remotely.
Those with less experience, however, should not be discouraged from using this guide, if (and only if) they are willing to spend extra time catching up on the prerequisite background skills and knowledge; a challenging task, but not an impossible one.
[ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration – LPI Certification Level 1. Supporting African IT-Enterprises to get Open Source Skills and Certification on Level 1 of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification] Created during the initiative "ict@innovation – Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software in Africa", a programme of FOSSFA and GIZ. For more information see www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net. Provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License. Copyright: FOSSFA & GIZ.
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What you can learn through this Training Guide
I) In the LPI 101 Module you will learn how to:
••••••••••
Install Linux, making appropriate choices for disk partitioning Boot the system, change run levels, shut-down and reboot Work effectively at the shell command prompt Install and manage packages using both RedHat and Debian tools Manage, find, copy, delete, archive and compress files and directories Process text streams using pipes, filters and re-direction Manage processes and modify process execution priorities Search text files with regular expressions and edit files with vi Create partitions and filesystems, and maintain their integrity Control file access permissions
II) In the LPI 102 Module you will learn how to:
••••••••••
Customise the shell and write simple shell scripts Query databases and manipulate data using SQL Install and configure the X server and set up a display manager Manage user accounts and groups Schedule jobs at regular intervals using cron Localise the system for a language other than English Keep your system clock correct Manage printers and printing Understand IP networking and set up a basic network configuration Maintain host security and enable secure login with ssh
III) In the FOSS Trainer Module you will learn how to become a trainer in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS):
••••
Understand some of the requirements for becoming a FOSS trainer Be able to identify and seize the opportunities that exist for FOSS training as a business Gain the knowledge and skills required to organise and provide FOSS training Appreciate the benefits of peer production of Open Educational Resources and Open Content
[ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration – LPI Certification Level 1. Supporting African IT-Enterprises to get Open Source Skills and Certification on Level 1 of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification] Created during the initiative "ict@innovation – Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software in Africa", a programme of FOSSFA and GIZ. For more information see www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net. Provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License. Copyright: FOSSFA & GIZ.
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Outline and Timeline
The modules of the first two chapters are structured closely around the topics in the LPI curriculum. Topics 101, 102, 103 and 104 relate to the LPIC 101 exam. Topics 105 through 110 relate to the LPIC 102 exams. This guide covers all 10 topics. Each sub-topic is assigned a weight. For each exam the total weight is 60. There are 60 questions on each exam, so the weight gives an indication of how many questions you can expect to receive on that topic.
This manual covers the new LPI syllabus (as of 2010/2011). It is thus up to date, which also means that it covers the most current issues pertaining to the Linux Operating System. The writers assumed that the learner would be using the Centos 5.0 Operating System. This is because this is a more stable Linux distro that does not change much over the years being a server based distro, as opposed to other distros whose release cycle is faster.
The tables below lists the topics and gives their weighting in the LPI certification. The classroom times given for each topic are approximate and are based on a total duration of 40 hours for each course. For page numbers of the topics, please see the full table of content.
LPIC 101
- Topic
- Weight
- Time
- 101
- System Architecture
101.1 Determine and configure hardware settings 101.2 Boot the system
233
1h 20m 2h 00m
- 2h 00m
- 101.3 Change run levels and shutdown or reboot the system
- 102
- Linux installation and package management
- 102.1 Design hard disk layout
- 2
2133
1h 20m 1h 20m 0h 40m 2h 00m 2h 00m
102.2 Install a boot manager 102.3 Manage shared libraries 102.4 Use Debian package management 102.5 Use RPM and YUM package management
- 103
- GNU and Unix Commands
- 103.1 Work on the command line
- 4
3444223
2h 40m 2h 00m 2h 40m 2h 40m 2h 40m 1h 20m 1h 20m 2h 00m
103.2 Process text streams using filters 103.3 Perform basic file management 103.4 Use streams, pipes and redirects 103.5 Create, monitor and kill processes 103.6 Modify process execution priorities 103.7 Search text files using regular expressions 103.8 Perform basic file editing operations using vi
- 104
- Devices, Linux Filesystems, Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
- 104.1 Create partitions and filesystems
- 2
- 1h 20m
[ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration – LPI Certification Level 1. Supporting African IT-Enterprises to get Open Source Skills and Certification on Level 1 of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification] Created during the initiative "ict@innovation – Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software in Africa", a programme of FOSSFA and GIZ. For more information see www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net. Provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License. Copyright: FOSSFA & GIZ.
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- 104.2 Maintain the integrity of filesystems
- 2
31322
1h 20m 2h 00m 0h 40m 2h 00m 1h 20m 1h 20m
104.3 Control mounting and unmounting of filesystems 104.4 Manage disk quotas 104.5 Manage file permissions and ownership 104.6 Create and change hard and symbolic links 104.7 Find system files and place files in the right location
LPIC 102
- Topic
- Weight
- Time
- 105
- Shells, scripting and data management