Exam Objectives

Certification Exam Objectives

101 System Architecture

101.1 Determine and configure hardware settings.

• Enable and disable integrated peripherals
• Configure systems with or without external peripherals, such as keyboards
• Differentiate between the various types of mass storage devices
• Know the differences between coldplug and hotplug devices
• Determine hardware resources for devices
• Tools and utilities to list various hardware information (e.g., Isusb, lspci)
• Tools and utilities to manipulate USB devices
• Conceptual understanding of sysfs, udev, dbus
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• /sys
• /proc
• /dev
• modprobe
• lsmod
• lspci
• lsusb

101.2 Boot the system.

• Provide common commands to the boot loader and options to the kernel at boot time
• Demonstrate knowledge of the boot sequence from BIOS to boot completion
• Understanding of SysVinit and systemd
• Awareness of Upstart
• Check boot events in the log file
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• dmesg
• BIOS
• bootloader
• kernel
• initramfs
• init
• SysVinit
• System

101.3 Change runlevels/boot targets and shutdown or reboot system.

• Set the default runlevel or boot target
• Change between runlevels/boot targets including single user mode
• Shutdown and reboot from the command line
• Alert users before switching runlevels/boot targets or other major system events
• Properly terminate processes
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• /etc/inittab
• shutdown
• init
• /etc/init.d -telinit
• system
• systemctl
• /etc/systemd/
• /usr/lib/system/
• wall

102 Linux Installation and Package Management

102.1 Design hard disk layout.

• Allocate filesystems and swap space to separate partitions or disks
• Tailor the design to the intended use of the system
• Ensure the /boot partition conforms to the hardware architecture requirements for booting
• Knowledge of basic features of LVM
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• /(root) filesystem
• /var filesystem
• /home filesystem
• /boot filesystem
• swap space
• mount points
• partitions

102.2 Install a boot manager.

• Providing alternative boot locations and backup boot options
• Install and configure a boot loader such as GRUB Legacy
• Perform basic configuration changes for GRUB 2
• Interact with the boot loader
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• menu.lst, grub.cfg and grub.conf
• grub-install
• grub-mkconfig
• MBR

102.3 Manage shared libraries.

• Identify shared libraries
• Identify the typical locations of system libraries
• Load shared libraries
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• ldd
• ldconfig
• /etc/ld.so.conf
• LDLIBRARYPATH

102.4 Use Debian package management.

• Install, upgrade and uninstall Debian binary packages
• Find packages containing specific files or libraries that may or may not be installed
• Obtain package information such as version, content, dependencies, package integrity and installation status (whether or not the package is installed)
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• /etc/apt/sources.list
• dpkg
• dpkg-reconfigure
• apt-get
• apt-cache
• aptitude

102.5 Use RPM and YUM package management.

• Install, re-install, upgrade and remove packages using RPM and YUM
• Obtain information on RPM packages such as version, status, dependencies, integrity and signatures
• Determine what files a package provides, as well as find which package a specific file comes from
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• rpm
• rpm2cpio
• /etc/yum.conf
• /etc/yum.repos.d/
• yum
• yumdownloader

103 GNU and Unix Commands

103.1 Work on the command line.

• Use single shell commands and one line command sequences to perform basic tasks on the command line
• Use and modify the shell environment including defining, referencing and exporting environment variables Use and edit command history
• Invoke commands inside and outside the defined path
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• bash
• echo
• env
• export
• pwd
• set
• unset
• man
• uname
• history
• .bash_history

103.2 Process text streams using filters.

• Send text files and output streams through text utility filters to modify the output using standard UNIX commands found in the GNU textutils package
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• cat
• cut
• expand
• fmt
• head
• od
• join
• nl
• paste
• pr
• sed
• sort
• split
• tail
• tr
• unexpand
• uniq
• wc

103.3 Perform basic file management.

• Copy, move and remove files and directories individually
• Copy multiple files and directories recursively
• Remove files and directories recursively
• Use simple and advanced wildcard specifications in commands
• Use find to locate and act on files based on type, size or time
• Usage of tar, cpio and dd
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• cp
• find
• mkdir
• mv
• ls
• rm
• rmdir
• touch
• tar
• cpio
• dd
• file
• gzip
• gunzip
• bzip2
• xz
• file globbing

103.4 Use streams, pipes and redirects.

-** Redirecting standard input, standard output and standard error**

• Pipe the output of one command to the input of another command
• Use the output of one command as arguments to another command
• Send output to both stdout and a file
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• tee
• xargs

103.5 Create, monitor and kill processes.

• Run jobs in the foreground and background
• Signal a program to continue running after logout
• Monitor active processes
• Select and sort processes for display
• Send signals to processes
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• &
• bg
• fg
• jobs
• kill
• nohup
• ps
• top
• free
• uptime
• pgrep
• pkill
• killall
• screen

103.6 Modify process execution priorities.

• Know the default priority of a job that is created
• Run a program with higher or lower priority than the default
• Change the priority of a running process
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• nice
• ps
• renice
• top

103.7 Search text files using regular expressions.

• Create simple regular expressions containing several notational elements
• Use regular expression tools to perform searches through a filesystem or file content
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• grep
• egrep
• fgrep
• sed
• regex(7)

103.8 Perform basic file editing operations using vi.

• Navigate a document using vi
• Use basic vi modes
• Insert, edit, delete, copy and find text
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• vi
• /, ?
• h, j, k, l
• i, o, a
• c, d, p, y, dd, yy
• ZZ, :w!, :q!, :e!

104 Devices, Linux Filesystems and Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

104.1 Create partitions and filesystems.

• Manage MBR partition tables
• Use various mkfs commands to create various filesystems such as:
• ext2/ext3/ext4
• XFS
• VFAT
• Awareness of ReiserFS and Btrfs
• Basic knowledge of gdisk
• and parted with GPT
• The following is a partial list of the
• used files, terms and utilities:
• fdisk
• gdisk
• parted
• mkfs
• mkswap

104.2 Maintain the integrity of filesystems.

• Verify the integrity of filesystems
• Monitor free space and inodes
• Repair simple filesystem problems
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• du
• df
• fsck
• e2fsck
• mke2fs
• debugfs
• dumpe2fs
• tune2fs
• xfs tools (such as xfs_
• metadump and xfs_info)

104.3 Control mounting and unmounting of filesystems.

• Manually mount and unmount filesystems
• Configure filesystem mounting on bootup
• Configure user mountable removeable filesystems
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• /etc/fstab
• /media
• mount
• umount

104.4 Manage disk quotas.

• Set up a disk quota for a filesystem
• Edit, check and generate
• user quota reports
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• quota
• edquota
• repquota
• quotaon

104.5 Manage file permissions and ownership.

• Manage access permissions on regular and special files as well as directories
• Use access modes such as suid, sgid and the sticky bit to maintain security
• Know how to change the file creation mask
• Use the group field to grant file access to group members
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• chmod
• umask
• chown
• chgrp

104.6 Create and change hard and symbolic links.

• Create links
• Identify hard and/or soft links
• Copying versus linking files
• Use links to support system administration tasks
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• ln
• ls

104.7 Find system files and place files in the correct location.

• Understand the correct locations of files under the FHS
• Find files and commands on a Linux system
• Know the location and purpose of important file and directories as defined in the FHS
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
• find
• locate
• updatedb
• whereis
• which
• type
• /etc/updatedb.conf