Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Administration: A comprehensive Linux system administration guide for RHCSA certification exam candidates, 2nd Edition

Develop the skills required to administer your RHEL environment on-premises and in the cloud while preparing for the RHCSA exam

Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free eBook in PDF format

Key Features

• Become a pro at system administration from installation to container management
• Secure and harden your Linux environment using SSH, SELinux, firewall, and system permissions
• Gain confidence to pass the RHCSA exam with the help of practice tests

Book Description

With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 becoming the standard for enterprise Linux used from data centers to the cloud, Linux administration skills are in high demand. With this book, you'll learn how to deploy, access, tweak, and improve enterprise services on any system on any cloud running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.

Throughout the book, you'll get to grips with essential tasks such as configuring and maintaining systems, including software installation, updates, and core services. You'll also understand how to configure the local storage using partitions and logical volumes, as well as assign and deduplicate storage. You'll learn how to deploy systems while also making them secure and reliable.

This book provides a base for users who plan to become full-time Linux system administrators by presenting key command-line concepts and enterprise-level tools, along with essential tools for handling files, directories, command-line environments, and documentation for creating simple shell scripts or running commands. With the help of command line examples and practical tips, you'll learn by doing and save yourself a lot of time.

By the end of the book, you'll have gained the confidence to manage the filesystem, users, storage, network connectivity, security, and software in RHEL 9 systems on any footprint.

What you will learn

• Become well versed with the fundamentals of RHEL9―from system deployment to user management
• Secure a system by using SELinux policies and configuring firewall rules
• Understand LVM to manage volumes and maintain VDO deduplication
• Manage a system remotely using SSH and public key authentication
• Get the hang of the boot process and kernel tunable to adjust your systems
• Automate simple tasks using scripts or Ansible Playbooks

Who this book is for

This book is for Red Hat Enterprise Linux system administrators and Linux system administrators. It's also a good resource for any IT professional who wants to learn system administration. RHCSA certification candidates will find this book useful in their preparation for the certification exam.

Table of Contents

1. Getting RHEL Up and Running
2. RHEL 9 Advanced Installation Options
3. Basic Commands and Simple Shell Scripts
4. Tools for Regular Operations
5. Securing Systems with Users, Groups, and Permissions
6. Enabling Network Connectivity
7. Adding, Patching, and Managing Software
8. Administering Systems Remotely
9. Securing Network Connectivity with firewalld
10. Keeping Your System Hardened with SELinux
11. System Security Profiles with OpenSCAP
12. Managing Local Storage and Filesystems
13. Flexible Storage Management with LVM
14. Advanced Storage Management with Stratis and VDO
15. Understanding the Boot Process
16. Kernel Tuning and Managing Performance Profiles with tuned
17. Managing Containers with Podman, Buildah, and Skopeo
18. Practice Exercises – 1
19. Practice Exercises – 2

Pablo Iranzo Gómez is a software engineer whose Linux exposure began while studying physics, a period during which he was also involved in LUGs and some projects related to HPC clusters and system administration and consultancy. Currently, he is a senior software engineer in Red Hat's SolEng department, focusing on OpenShift, with experience in consulting, cloud technical account management, OpenStack software maintenance in industries such as hospitality, retail, airlines, government, telco, 5G, partners, and IT, covering system administration and automation, virtualization, PaaS, support, the cloud, and so on, having a broad understanding of different views, needs, and risks across the industry. Pablo was born and lives in Valencia, Spain with his family.

Pedro is a Software Engineer that started his Linux adventure playing with Linux distributions provided on CD by magazines. He was also involved in LUGs while studying at Universitat de València. Currently, he is a Principal Software Engineer in the Red Hat's Telco 5G Field Engineering team, focusing on OpenShift, with experience in Automation, Security, High Availability and Databases. His experience is built in industries like Retail, Financial, Insurance and Telco. He has been involved in the design, configuration and deployment of complex IT systems including data storage, networking, monitoring, PaaS and SaaS systems where he has a broad understanding of different views, needs and risks across the industry. Pedro was born in Alcoy and lives in Valencia, Spain with his family.

Miguel is an experienced technology enthusiast with a clear orientation towards IT, free/open source software and open standards. His career has grown in the IT field with connections in every direction. From User Support and Teacher; through Systems and Network Administration; to Systems Engineering, Systems Architecture, IT Strategy definition and now as Senior Manager for the Tanzu portfolio to bring Kubernetes closer to customers. He loves designing solutions and tools, making them useful and easy to use.

At Red Hat, Scott McCarty is a principal product manager for the container subsystem team, which enables key product capabilities in OpenShift Container Platform and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. His focus areas include container runtimes, tools, and images.

Scott is a social media start-up veteran, an e-commerce old-timer, and a weathered government research technologist, with experience across a variety of companies and organizations, from seven-person start-ups to 15,000-employee technology companies. This has culminated in a unique perspective on open source software development, delivery, and maintenance.