1. Introduction to
System and Network
Administration

2. Section Overview
What is a System Administrator?
Why UNIX?
Why Linux?
UNIX System Administration
Resources

3. Job of administrator

4. Job of administrator

5. Job of administrator

6. Job of administrator

7. Job of administrator

8. Job of administrator

9. Job of administrator

10. Job of administrator

11. Job of administrator

12. Job of administrator

13. Job of administrator

14. Job of administrator

15. Job of administrator

16. Job of administrator

17. Job of administrator

18. What is a System Administrator?
Someone who takes care of the
systems others are using.
System Running Users able to work in
Smoothly and Efficiently Easy and Efficient Manner

19. Sysadmin .sig file
“My job is like an airplane pilot's --
When I'm doing it well, you might
not even notice me, but my
mistakes are often quite
spectacular.”
Source: Unknown

20. System Administration
Tasks
User Management
Hardware Management
Software Management
System Monitoring & Troubleshooting
Documentation & Help Desk
Backups
Automation, Planning, Policies, and Auditing
Firefighting!!!

25. The Good…
Lots of variety
Challenging
Fulfilling
Pays well
Very employable

26. The Bad…
Annoying at times
Users
Management
Vendor Tech Support
Long hours
May not be your only job

27. And the Ugly…
Most people don’t understand the
job
When things go well…
Go unnoticed
“They don’t do anything”
 Game players
 Web Surfers
Important to document everything

28. And the Ugly (Con’t.)…
When there is a problem…
Everyone is looking for you
Highly stressful
Some blame you for the problem
May graduate to “Miracle Worker”
status once problem is fixed 

29. Sage Advice…
Kirk: “Scotty, Do you
always multiply your repair
estimates by a factor of
four?”
Scotty: “How else to
maintain my reputation as
a miracle worker?” ~Star
Trek IV
“Starship captains are like children. They want
everything right now and they want it their way.
The secret is to give them what they need, not
what they want.”
~Star Trek: The Next Generation

30. SAGE/LOPSA Code of
Ethics
Professionalism System Integrity
Personal Integrity Education
Privacy Responsibility to
Laws and Policies Computing
Community
Communication
Social Responsibility
Ethical Responsibility
“The greater the power, the more dangerous the
abuse”
~Edmund Burke

31. Why UNIX/Linux?
Focus on Practice not Tech
Howtos
SW/Tools either included and
downloadable
Can see “under the hood”
Open architecture
GUI and command line interfaces

32. History of UNIX
1969 – Birth of UNIX at AT&T Labs
1971 – Version 1 created
1976 – Made available to Universities
1977 – Berkeley distribution (BSD)
1983 – USL created (AT&T)
1991 – Birth of Linux
1994 – USL sold to Novell
1999 – Mac OS X
2003 – SCO vs. IBM, Novell, …

33. Lab Projects
Based on RH Fedora 11 ?
Virtualized Systems
Projects include
OS Installation
Manage
accounts/permissions/programs
Install/configure services
Shell scripting
“System Emergencies”

34. Documentation
Enables you to recreate system
Contents include
Configuration information
Policies and procedures
Useful commands and resources
Daily log of modifications

35. Resources
Linux Administration Handbook
RedHat Fedora Documentation
Linux Documentation Project
Google Search Engine

36. Scoring
Quiz, LAB 30%
Midterm exam 30%
Final exam 40%

37. Rules
Communication
 Elect the class leader for communication
 Class leader creates a mailing list so that I
can contact you, send document, software,
…
 Of course, you can send me email for the
eventual questions

38. Rules(2)
 Your score is based on
– Your attendance to class/LAB
– How good your assignment and exams
are.
IDO NOT accept any excuse to raise
your score.