Unit 2 Worksheet - Essential Tools

Instructions

Fill out the worksheet as you progress through the lab and discussions. Hold your worksheets until the end to turn them in as a final submission packet.

Resources / Important Links

Downloads

The worksheet has been provided below. The document(s) can be transposed to the desired format so long as the content is preserved. For example, the .txt could be transposed to a .md file.

Unit 2 Recording

Unit 2 Discussion Post #1

Think about how week 1 went for you.

  1. Do you understand everything that needs to be done?

  2. Do you need to allocate more time to the course, and if so, how do you plan to do it?

  3. How well did you take notes during the lecture? Do you need to improve this?

Unit 2 Discussion Post #2

Read a blog, check a search engine, or ask an AI about SELinux.
What is the significance of contexts? What are the significance of labels?

Scenario:

You follow your company instructions to add a new user to a set of 10 Linux servers. They cannot access just one of the servers.

When you review the differences in the servers you see that the server they cannot access is running SELINUX. On checking other users have no problem getting into the system.

You find nothing in the documentation (typical) about this different system or how these users are accessing it.

What do you do?
Where do you check?

You may use any online resources to help you answer this. This is not a trick and it is not a “one answer solution”. This is for you to think through.

Submit your input by following the link below.

The discussion posts are done in Discord threads. Click the 'Threads' icon on the top right and search for the discussion post.

Start thinking about your project ideas (more to come in future weeks):

Topics:

  1. System Stability
  2. System Performance
  3. System Security
  4. System monitoring
  5. Kubernetes
  6. Programming/Automation

You will research, design, deploy, and document a system that improves your administration of Linux systems in some way.

Definitions

Uptime:

Standard input (stdin):

Standard output (stdout):

Standard error (stderr):

Mandatory Access Control (MAC):

Discretionary Access Control (DAC):

Security contexts (SELinux):

SELinux operating modes:

Digging Deeper

  1. How does troubleshooting differ between system administration and system engineering? To clarify, how might you troubleshoot differently if you know a system was previously running correctly. If you’re building a new system out?

  2. Investigate a troubleshooting methodology, by either Google or AI search. Does the methodology fit for you in an IT sense, why or why not?

Reflection Questions

  1. What questions do you still have about this week?

  2. How are you going to use what you’ve learned in your current role?