There are many other tasks that a Linux system administrator must perform other than installing Linux and installing software.
A few additional tasks User account management is a very important operation that a Linux sysadmin does on a consistent basis. The sysadmin not only needs to add or remove user accounts by issuing commands, but may need to automate user account creations a large number (batch) of potential employees. There are many features with the Linux command to create new users including: specification of a home directory, type of shell used, name, password and time-limit (referred to as "aging") for a new user account. Removing user accounts also have options such as removing the user management account but keeping the home directory for reference or evidence of "wrong-doing" Many students may think that the following topic is small and "not a big deal". Those students may say, '''"How hard is running and stopping services?"''' The process may not be hard, but knowing how to stop, start, restart and check the status of services is absolutely critical to a Linux server. '''Aside from learning to trouble-shoot problems''' by checking the status of running services, '''understanding how to manage services is critical to help protect a Linux server from penetration''' (this term is referred to as "'''Hardening a system'''"). Sometimes it is "what we don't know" that can harm us. One key element in hardening a computer system is to disable non essential networkng services to allow IDSs ('''Intrusion Detection Systems''') to focus on a narrower range of policy violations. A Debian-based penetration testing distribution called '''Kali''' (formerly referred to as '''"BackTrax"''') allows sysadmins and security professionals to identify vulnerabilities in their computer systems, and thus improve (harden) their systems against penetration. Learning to monitor the status, enable and managing disable networking servicesunderlies the '''Backtrax''' motto: '''''"The quieter you are, then more you will hear..."'''''<br><br>
:* '''Enabled and Disable services''' on a Linux system.
:* Display the '''status of running services''' on a Linux system.
:* Create a Bash shell script to '''generate multiple user accounts''' from a text user database file
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= INVESTIGATION 1: User/Group Management =
User account management is a very important operation that a Linux sysadmin does on a consistent basis. The sysadmin not only needs to add or remove user accounts by issuing commands, but may need to automate user account creations a large number (batch) of potential employees. There are many features with the Linux command to create new users including: specification of a home directory, type of shell used, name, password and time-limit (referred to as "aging") for a new user account. Removing user accounts also have options such as removing the user account but keeping the home directory for reference or evidence of "wrong-doing"
In your ULI101 course, you learned to change permissions for directories and files relating to user, same group members and other group members. In this course, since you are the sysadmin with root privileges, you can create or remove groups as well as change the ownership of directories and files! We will now learn to perform key user account management operations in this section.
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Many students may think that the following topic is small and "not a big deal". Those students may say, '''"How hard is running and stopping services?"'''
The process may not be hard, but knowing how to stop, start, restart and check the status of services is absolutely critical to a Linux server. '''Aside from learning to trouble-shoot problems''' by checking the status of running services, '''understanding how to manage services is critical to help protect a Linux server from penetration''' (this term is referred to as "'''Hardening a system'''"). Sometimes it is "what we don't know" that can harm us. One key element in hardening a computer system is to disable non essential networkng services to allow IDSs ('''Intrusion Detection Systems''') to focus on a narrower range of policy violations. A Debian-based penetration testing distribution called '''Kali''' (formerly referred to as '''"BackTrax"''') allows sysadmins and security professionals to identify vulnerabilities in their computer systems, and thus improve (harden) their systems against penetration. Learning to monitor the status, enable and disable networking services underlies the '''Backtrax''' motto: '''''"The quieter you are, then more you will hear..."'''''<br><br>
=== Part 1: How do we Manage System Services? ===
