OPS335

Quick Links
Weekly Schedule Course Outline Fedora Project Fedora documentation
Assignments
Assignment 1 Assignment 2

Welcome to OPS335 - Open System Application Server

What This Course is About

This course teaches the maintenance and administration of a UNIX server using Linux. Students will learn to install configure, customize, test and maintain common services available on Linux servers. This course is the third in a series of courses about Linux technologies.

• ULI101 taught you to be Linux user.
• OPS235 taught you to move from being a Linux user to being a Linux system administrator.
• OPS335 will teach you to administer Linux servers (web servers, DNS servers, FTP servers, file sharing servers).

As a system administrator, you will be responsible for installing, configuring, adjusting, maintaining, and troubleshooting the operation of computer systems. This is a lot of responsibility, and with that responsibility comes power. You will be able to change anything on the system, and you will also have the ability to damage or destroy the system.

In this course you use a removable disk pack with the lab computers to set up a Linux system. You will also set up four additional Linux systems using "Virtual Machines", and therefore gain experience with different types of system configurations as well as setting up networking between systems.

Learning by Doing

Most of the learning in this course occurs through the hands-on problem solving that takes place in the ten labs and two assignments. Therefore, it's very important to stay up-to-date with the coursework, and to practice until you have confidently mastered each task.

All of the software used in this course is open source software, so you are free to use, modify, and redistribute it. This means that you can install it as many times as you want on as many different computers as you would like. It also means that you can tinker with it -- you can take it apart, see how it works, and put it back together in the same or a different way, limited only by your time and ambition. You are encouraged to experiment and question liberally.

Weekly Schedule

Weekly topic, lab, and assignment information is available on the OPS335 Weekly Schedule page.

Supplies Checklist

Needed by the second class:

1. Fedora 16 Live CD (x86_64). You can burn this from ISO image on a CD or a DVD using the Freedom Toaster (in the Open Lab) -- however, this machine has problems with some types of DVDs. The image is also available from:
   • http://belmont.senecac.on.ca/fedora/releases/16/Live/x86_64/Fedora-16-x86_64-Live.iso - Seneca's mirror of the Fedora project. This is very fast, but is only accessible from within Seneca's network (you can't access this from home). You can burn this disc on the machines in the Open Lab.
   • http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/ - Fedora mirror list accessible from any Internet connection. Make sure you download Fedora 16. Labs may not work with other versions.
2. SATA Hard disk in removable drive tray (at least 160GB). Please buy the tray from ACS or the bookstore as not all trays are compatible.
3. USB flash drive (64MB or more - 2GB or larger recommended. Warning: anything on this flash drive will be erased!)
4. Text - Linux Administration Handbook, 4th Edition by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder and Trent R. Hein, ISBN 0-13-148005-7, Published by Prentice Hall
5. Lab log book - Download and print Lab Log Book

Bring all of these supplies to each class.
Even after installation, the Live CD, Installation DVD, and flash drive may be required.

Do not share your OPS335 disk drive with another course.
The work you do in this course will render your other work inaccessible and may erase it.

Faculty

During the Winter 2012 semester, OPS335 is taught by:

• Paul Whalen (Section A, B, C)
• Raymond Chan (Section D)

Course Information

Important Websites

• Course Outline
• Course Policies
• School of Computer Studies Homepage (includes class cancellation information and general bulletins)

Evaluation:

• 10 labs (10%)
• One midterm test (30%)
• Two quizzes (5% bonus)
• Two assignments (20%)
• final exam (40%)

Tips and Suggestions

• Always shut down your system under software control, rather than using the reset or power buttons. You can shutdown using the GUI or with the poweroff, reboot, init, or shutdown commands. Shut down your virtual machines before shutting down your main system.
• If you get a message about the gnome-power-manager configuration at the login screen, you may have run out of disk space. Switch to a character-mode virtual terminal (for example, switch to VT2 by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F2). Login and take a look at the available space (with the command: df -h). If the / filesystem is full, delete some files (such as unused VM images in /var/lib/libvirt/images) and then reboot the system.
• Fedora 13 Slowdowns: If your system is becoming very slow from time to time, it is probably due to a known issue with the Intel video driver, kernel, NICs, storage system, and hardware detection software (!). See Bug 523646 on the Fedora Bugzilla system. A fix for this problem is apparently in the works -- update your system regularly so that you get the fix as soon as it is available.
  • Workaround: Type this command as root (be patient, it will take a minute or two for the system to return to normal speed): killall hald devkit-disks-daemon

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