• Managing a Linux shell environment and shell scripts
• Managing Linux printers
• Creating and managing user and group accounts
• Applying security settings
• Managing SQL databases
• Configuring and troubleshooting networking
• Managing Linux time
• Working with SSH
• Managing Logging

Topic 105: Shells and Shell Scripting

105.1 Customize and use the shell environment

Description: Candidates should be able to customize shell environments to meet users’ needs. Candidates should be able to modify global and user profiles.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Set environment variables (e.g. PATH) at login or when spawning a new shell.
• Write Bash functions for frequently used sequences of commands.
• Maintain skeleton directories for new user accounts.
• Set command search path with the proper directory.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• source
• /etc/bash.bashrc
• /etc/profile
• env
• export
• set
• unset
• ~/.bash_profile
• ~/.bash_login
• ~/.profile
• ~/.bashrc
• ~/.bash_logout
• function
• alias

105.2 Customize or write simple scripts

Description: Candidates should be able to customize existing scripts, or write simple new Bash scripts.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Use standard sh syntax (loops, tests).
• Use command substitution.
• Test return values for success or failure or other information provided by a command.
• Execute chained commands.
• Perform conditional mailing to the superuser.
• Correctly select the script interpreter through the shebang (#!) line.
• Manage the location, ownership, execution and suid-rights of scripts.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• for
• while
• test
• if
• read
• seq
• exec
• ||
• &&

Topic 106: User Interfaces and Desktops

106.1 Install and configure X11

Description: Candidates should be able to install and configure X11.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understanding of the X11 architecture.
• Basic understanding and knowledge of the X Window configuration file.
• Overwrite specific aspects of Xorg configuration, such as keyboard layout.
• Understand the components of desktop environments, such as display managers and window managers.
• Manage access to the X server and display applications on remote X servers.
• Awareness of Wayland.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• /etc/X11/xorg.conf
• /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
• ~/.xsession-errors
• xhost
• xauth
• DISPLAY
• X

106.2 Graphical Desktops

Description: Candidates should be aware of major Linux desktops. Furthermore, candidates should be aware of protocols used to access remote desktop sessions.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Awareness of major desktop environments
• Awareness of protocols to access remote desktop sessions

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• KDE
• Gnome
• Xfce
• X11
• XDMCP
• VNC
• Spice
• RDP

106.3 Accessibility

Description: Demonstrate knowledge and awareness of accessibility technologies.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Basic knowledge of visual settings and themes.
• Basic knowledge of assistive technology.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• High Contrast/Large Print Desktop Themes.
• Screen Reader.
• Braille Display.
• Screen Magnifier.
• On-Screen Keyboard.
• Sticky/Repeat keys.
• Slow/Bounce/Toggle keys.
• Mouse keys.
• Gestures.
• Voice recognition.

Topic 107: Administrative Tasks

107.1 Manage user and group accounts and related system files

Description: Candidates should be able to add, remove, suspend and change user accounts.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Add, modify and remove users and groups.
• Manage user/group info in password/group databases.
• Create and manage special purpose and limited accounts.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• /etc/passwd
• /etc/shadow
• /etc/group
• /etc/skel/
• chage
• getent
• groupadd
• groupdel
• groupmod
• passwd
• useradd
• userdel
• usermod

107.2 Automate system administration tasks by scheduling jobs

Description: Candidates should be able to use cron and systemd timers to run jobs at regular intervals and to use at to run jobs at a specific time.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Manage cron and at jobs.
• Configure user access to cron and at services.
• Understand systemd timer units.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• /etc/cron.{d,daily,hourly,monthly,weekly}/
• /etc/at.deny
• /etc/at.allow
• /etc/crontab
• /etc/cron.allow
• /etc/cron.deny
• /var/spool/cron/
• crontab
• at
• atq
• atrm
• systemctl
• systemd-run

107.3 Localisation and internationalisation

Description: Candidates should be able to localize a system in a different language than English. As well, an understanding of why LANG=C is useful when scripting.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Configure locale settings and environment variables.
• Configure timezone settings and environment variables.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• /etc/timezone
• /etc/localtime
• /usr/share/zoneinfo/
• LC_*
• LC_ALL
• LANG
• TZ
• /usr/bin/locale
• tzselect
• timedatectl
• date
• iconv
• UTF-8
• ISO-8859
• ASCII
• Unicode

Topic 108: Essential System Services

108.1 Maintain system time

Description: Candidates should be able to properly maintain the system time and synchronize the clock via NTP.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Set the system date and time.
• Set the hardware clock to the correct time in UTC.
• Configure the correct timezone.
• Basic NTP configuration using ntpd and chrony.
• Knowledge of using the pool.ntp.org service.
• Awareness of the ntpq command.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• /usr/share/zoneinfo/
• /etc/timezone
• /etc/localtime
• /etc/ntp.conf
• /etc/chrony.conf
• date
• hwclock
• timedatectl
• ntpd
• ntpdate
• chronyc
• pool.ntp.org

108.2 System logging

Description: Candidates should be able to configure rsyslog. This objective also includes configuring the logging daemon to send log output to a central log server or accept log output as a central log server. Use of the systemd journal subsystem is covered. Also, awareness of syslog and syslog-ng as alternative logging systems is included.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Basic configuration of rsyslog.
• Understanding of standard facilities, priorities and actions.
• Query the systemd journal.
• Filter systemd journal data by criteria such as date, service or priority
• Configure persistent systemd journal storage and journal size
• Delete old systemd journal data
• Retrieve systemd journal data from a rescue system or file system copy
• Understand interaction of rsyslog with systemd-journald
• Configuration of logrotate.
• Awareness of syslog and syslog-ng.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• /etc/rsyslog.conf
• /var/log/
• logger
• logrotate
• /etc/logrotate.conf
• /etc/logrotate.d/
• journalctl
• systemd-cat
• /etc/systemd/journald.conf
• /var/log/journal/

108.3 Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) basics

Description: Candidates should be aware of the commonly available MTA programs and be able to perform basic forward and alias configuration on a client host. Other configuration files are not covered.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Create e-mail aliases.
• Configure e-mail forwarding.
• Knowledge of commonly available MTA programs (postfix, sendmail, exim) (no configuration)

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• ~/.forward
• sendmail emulation layer commands
• newaliases
• mail
• mailq
• postfix
• sendmail
• exim

108.4 Manage printers and printing

Description: Candidates should be able to manage print queues and user print jobs using CUPS and the LPD compatibility interface.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Basic CUPS configuration (for local and remote printers).
• Manage user print queues.
• Troubleshoot general printing problems.
• Add and remove jobs from configured printer queues.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• CUPS configuration files, tools and utilities
• /etc/cups/
• lpd legacy interface (lpr, lprm, lpq)

Topic 109: Networking Fundamentals

109.1 Fundamentals of internet protocols

Description: Candidates should demonstrate a proper understanding of TCP/IP network fundamentals.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Demonstrate an understanding of network masks and CIDR notation.
• Knowledge of the differences between private and public “dotted quad” IP addresses.
• Knowledge about common TCP and UDP ports and services (20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 53, 80, 110, 123, 139, 143, 161, 162, 389, 443, 465, 514, 636, 993, 995).
• Knowledge about the differences and major features of UDP, TCP and ICMP.
• Knowledge of the major differences between IPv4 and IPv6.
• Knowledge of the basic features of IPv6.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• /etc/services
• IPv4, IPv6
• Subnetting
• TCP, UDP, ICMP

109.2 Persistent network configuration

Description: Candidates should be able to manage the persistent network configuration of a Linux host.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand basic TCP/IP host configuration
• Configure ethernet and wi-fi network configuration using NetworkManager
• Awareness of systemd-networkd

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• /etc/hostname
• /etc/hosts
• /etc/nsswitch.conf
• /etc/resolv.conf
• nmcli
• hostnamectl
• ifup
• ifdown

109.3 Basic network troubleshooting

Description: Candidates should be able to troubleshoot networking issues on client hosts.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Manually configure network interfaces, including viewing and changing the configuration of network interfaces using iproute2.
• Manually configure routing, including viewing and changing routing tables and setting the default route using iproute2.
• Debug problems associated with the network configuration.
• Awareness of legacy net-tools commands.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• ip
• hostname
• ss
• ping
• ping6
• traceroute
• traceroute6
• tracepath
• tracepath6
• netcat
• ifconfig
• netstat
• route

109.4 Configure client side DNS

Description: Candidates should be able to configure DNS on a client host.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Query remote DNS servers.
• Configure local name resolution and use remote DNS servers.
• Modify the order in which name resolution is done.
• Debug errors related to name resolution.
• Awareness of systemd-resolved

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• /etc/hosts
• /etc/resolv.conf
• /etc/nsswitch.conf
• host
• dig
• getent

Topic 110: Security
 

110.1 Perform security administration tasks

Description: Candidates should know how to review system configuration to ensure host security in accordance with local security policies.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Audit a system to find files with the suid/sgid bit set.
• Set or change user passwords and password aging information.
• Being able to use nmap and netstat to discover open ports on a system.
• Set up limits on user logins, processes and memory usage.
• Determine which users have logged in to the system or are currently logged in.
• Basic sudo configuration and usage.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• find
• passwd
• fuser
• lsof
• nmap
• chage
• netstat
• sudo
• /etc/sudoers
• su
• usermod
• ulimit
• who, w, last

110.2 Setup host security

Description: Candidates should know how to set up a basic level of host security.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Awareness of shadow passwords and how they work.
• Turn off network services not in use.
• Understand the role of TCP wrappers.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• /etc/nologin
• /etc/passwd
• /etc/shadow
• /etc/xinetd.d/
• /etc/xinetd.conf
• systemd.socket
• /etc/inittab
• /etc/init.d/
• /etc/hosts.allow
• /etc/hosts.deny

110.3 Securing data with encryption

Description: The candidate should be able to use public key techniques to secure data and communication.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Perform basic OpenSSH 2 client configuration and usage.
• Understand the role of OpenSSH 2 server host keys.
• Perform basic GnuPG configuration, usage and revocation.
• Use GPG to encrypt, decrypt, sign and verify files.
• Understand SSH port tunnels (including X11 tunnels).

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• ssh
• ssh-keygen
• ssh-agent
• ssh-add
• ~/.ssh/id_rsa and id_rsa.pub
• ~/.ssh/id_dsa and id_dsa.pub
• ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa and id_ecdsa.pub
• ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 and id_ed25519.pub
• /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key and ssh_host_rsa_key.pub
• /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key and ssh_host_dsa_key.pub
• /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key and ssh_host_ecdsa_key.pub
• /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key and ssh_host_ed25519_key.pub
• ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
• ssh_known_hosts
• gpg
• gpg-agent
• ~/.gnupg/

• This course is for IT staff that want to acquire Linux skills.
• Typical functions for attendees of this course include support staff and junior system administration.

To attend this course, participants need to attend the LPIC-101 course or have experience at a comparable level.