Contents

 
• Introduction
• Overview of a Linux System
  • Various parts of an operating system
  • Important parts of the kernel
  • Major services in a UNIX system
    • init
    • Logins from terminals
    • Syslog
    • Periodic command execution: cron and at
    • Graphical user interface
    • Networking
    • Network logins
    • Network file systems
    • Mail
    • Printing
  • The filesystem layout
• Overview of the Directory Tree
  • Background
  • The root filesystem
    • The /etc directory
    • The /dev directory
  • The /usr filesystem
  • The /var filesystem
  • The /proc filesystem
• Using Disks and Other Storage Media
  • Two kinds of devices
  • Hard disks
  • Floppies
  • CD-ROM's
  • Tapes
  • Formatting
  • Partitions
    • The MBR, boot sectors and partition table
    • Extended and logical partitions
    • Partition types
    • Partitioning a hard disk
    • Device files and partitions
  • Filesystems
    • What are filesystems?
    • Filesystems galore
    • Which filesystem should be used?
    • Creating a filesystem
    • Mounting and unmounting
    • Checking filesystem integrity with fsck
    • Checking for disk errors with badblocks
    • Fighting fragmentation
    • Other tools for all filesystems
    • Other tools for the ext2 filesystem
  • Disks without filesystems
  • Allocating disk space
    • Partitioning schemes
    • Space requirements
    • Examples of hard disk allocation
    • Adding more disk space for Linux
    • Tips for saving disk space
• Memory Management
  • What is virtual memory?
  • Creating a swap space
  • Using a swap space
  • Sharing swap spaces with other operating systems
  • Allocating swap space
  • The buffer cache
• Boots And Shutdowns
  • An overview of boots and shutdowns
  • The boot process in closer look
  • More about shutdowns
  • Rebooting
  • Single user mode
  • Emergency boot floppies
• init
  • init comes first
  • Configuring init: the /etc/inittab file
  • Run levels
  • Special configuration in /etc/inittab
  • Booting in single user mode
• Logging In And Out
  • Logins via terminals
  • Logins via the network
  • What login does
  • X and xdm
  • Access control
  • Shell startup
• Managing user accounts
  • What's an account?
  • Creating a user
    • /etc/passwd and other informative files
    • Picking numeric user and group ids
    • Initial environment: /etc/skel
    • Creating a user by hand
  • Changing user properties
  • Removing a user
  • Disabling a user temporarily
• Backups
  • On the importance of being backed up
  • Selecting the backup medium
  • Selecting the backup tool
  • Simple backups
    • Making backups with tar
    • Restoring files with tar
  • Multilevel backups
  • What to back up
  • Compressed backups
• Keeping Time
  • Time zones
  • The hardware and software clocks
  • Showing and setting time
  • When the clock is wrong
• Measuring Holes
• Glossary (DRAFT)
• References
• Index
• About this document ...