OPS235 Assignment 1 Fall 2013

This is a draft only!
It is still under construction and content may change. Do not rely on this information.

For the OPS235 assignment for Chris Tylers' section (Section B), please see: OPS235 Assignment 1/Fall 2011

Winter 2011 Version!
This is the Winter 2011 version of the assignment. Do not use the information on this page until the assignment has been updated for Fall 2011 and this banner has been removed.

Assignment Material May Appear on Tests and Exam
Doing your assignment is part of your ongoing learning process. As such you will be tested on this material in future tests and exams. If you have any questions or need help, please consult your instructor in a timely manner. The due date for this assignment will not be extended. As it must be marked in class. This assignment will be marked partially through demonstration and partially through the submission of files.

Use the Fedora2 Virtual Machine
Complete all parts of this assignment on your fedora2 virtual machine except for the installation of Linux on a new VM. Before starting your assignment make a backup of your virtual machine following the instructions in lab 3.

OPS235 Assignment #1 -- Winter 2011

Weight: 5% of the overall grade

Due Date: Week after study week. (Check with your Professor for exact date). Due at the start of class.

Backup Your Configuration Files
Before making any changes to your system configuration, backup the original configuration files into the /backups directory. The contents of that directory will be considered during marking.

Basic Chores

Complete the following tasks on your system (4 points for each completed task).

Adding a Virtual Disk
To complete the first task you may need to create an additional virtual disk image for the fedora2 virtual machine.

1. Setup your system so that the command mount /a1 -- executed by any user -- will attach the logical volume lv_a1 from the volume group called ops235 (minimum 100 MB) to the mountpoint /a1 (The volume should NOT be automatically mounted at boot time)
2. Setup your system login banner to say Free software: Free as in Freedom. (the user should see this on text-based virtual consoles before login to the system)
3. Setup your system login message to say Open Source is Changing The Computing World (to be displayed on all text-based virtual consoles after a successful login prompt)
4. Setup your system so that every user has a command alias called deltemp which will delete the contents of a directory called ~/tmp (NOT the main /tmp directory!)
5. Setup the bash environment for the user root (and only root) so that the prompt includes the current date.

To sudo or not to sudo

Sudo is a tool which enables specific users to run specific commands as another user (such as "root").

Study the man page for the sudo command and:

1. Update sudo's configuration file (using the proper program) to allow only your Learn account to run sudo for the following commands as root: (8 points)
   • mount
   • fdisk
   • passwd
   • lsusb
2. Create a new user called helper and allow only this user to run sudo for the following commands as your learn account: (4 points)
   • vi
   • tail

Bonus Option
Explain the hidden danger of including "vi" in the sudo command list (above). Submit this at the time of in-class marking as a well-written, typed, one-page paper with your name and LearnID at the top of the page.

Package Management

Research the rpm and yum commands to:

1. Verify the integrity of a package using rpm to see if any of its files have been altered since installation. (you will be asked to demonstrate this when your assignment is marked)(4 points)
2. Add the rpmfusion.org repository to the yum configuration. (you will be asked to demonstrate installing a package from the rpmfusion repository when your assignment is marked) (4 points)

Alternate Software Installation

Review the yum group* commands and use them to: (5 points)

1. Find and install the XFCE dektop environment discussed in the following article: XFCE Review
   • You will be asked to demonstrate how to switch to this desktop environment and back again without restarting the X server.

Review the procedures for compiling and installing software from source code and use them to: (8 points)

1. Find and install the E3 text editor from source code. The project page for it can be found here: E3 Project
   • You will be asked to demonstrate how to create a file using this editor.

SysAdmin Portion

Create a bash script called /bin/snapshot to record the following information: (6 points)

• A list of all recent bad login attempts.
• A list of Logical Volumes, Physical Volumes, and Volume Groups.
• A report of all mounted filesystems, the amount of space used and the amount of space available.
• The information should be appended to the file /var/log/snapshot.txt

Research the at command and and schedule your script to execute at 2:00am on Christmas day (Dec 25). (2 points)

Exploring Your Options

Research, install, and test one software application for each of the following tasks: (4 points)

Assigned 2nd Distros for Fall 2010
Last Student# digit 0 or 1 2 3 4 or 5 6 7 8 9	Distro OpenSuse SimplyMepis Mint CentOS Debian Ubuntu Kubuntu Mandriva

• Desktop Publishing
• Video Editing
• Accounting/Bookkeeping
• Real Time Strategy Game

Install a second Linux distribution as a Virtual Machine. (10 points)

You will be asked to demonstrate booting the 2nd distro in class. To determine which Linux distribution to install, find your student ID number and then use the last digit in your student number to find your matched distribution due for this assignment using the table to the right.

Install the second Linux distribution in a new VM on your disk pack
Do NOT install the second Linux distro on fedora2 -- create a new VM on your disk pack and install it there.

Submitting your assignment

(10 points)

Parts 3, 4 & 8 will be marked in class.

Parts 1, 2 and 5 will must be submitted on a filesystem image using these instructions:

1. Make an 2MB (2048 1k blocks) ext2 formatted image file with a filesystem label that is your LearnID. Your LearnID is the first part of your Seneca e-mail address (which is the same as your Matrix account name).
2. The image file must have the name learnid.img. For example, if your LearnID is "jsmith", your image file will be called jsmith.img
3. Copy the following files to the image file:
   • /etc/fstab
   • /etc/issue
   • /etc/motd
   • /etc/bashrc
   • .bashrc
   • /bin/snapshot
   • /etc/sudoers
   • /root/.bash_profile
   • /root/.bashrc
4. Execute the following commands on your system:
   • atq >> assign1.data
   • lvs >> assign1.data
   • vgs >> assign1.data
   • pvs >> assign1.data
5. Copy your assign1.data file to the filesystem image.
6. Create a file called backups.txt that contains a directory listing of your /backups directory.
7. Copy the file called backups.txt to the filesystem image.
8. Submission of the file system image:
   • Section A:
     • Upload the file system image file to https://scs.senecac.on.ca/~raymond.chan/ops235/asgm1/
   • Section B:
     • Upload the file system image file to http://cs.senecac.on.ca/~ctyler/ops235/a1
   • Section C:
     • Upload the file system image file to http://cs.senecac.on.ca/~brian.gray/cgi-bin/assign1.cgi
   • Sections D, E:
     • Please check with your professor.