How can I learn *NIX administration?

[pitupepito2000]

Hi,

I would like to learn *nix administration. I have been running Debian for 3 years, and I haven't really learned a whole lot. What can I do on my own to learn System administration? I really want to learn and I have the whole summer ahead of me 🙂 .

Thanks,
pitupepito

 

[Megatomic]

The first and best thing for you to do is to build another linux/unix computer and network them together. That way you have something to administer over.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
The first and best thing for you to do is to build another linux/unix computer and network them together. That way you have something to administer over.

True. I forgot to mention that I don't have another computer to put Linux on 🙁 .

 

[Megatomic]

Well, in that case you can just create multiple logins and manage user rights and such. Oh and do you have other computers aside from that one Debian box? You can login to the linux box from other computers and treat it like a server. Is that possible?

 

[pitupepito2000]

In my debian box I run sshd and apache.

 

[pitupepito2000]

bump

 

[phisrow]

It might be a good idea to try something that won't just work out of the box. Set up a firewall, even if you don't really need one. http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Firewall-HOWTO.html Get a mail server up and running, and then try to keep spam out of it. http://www.acme.com/mail_filtering/ See if you can do as much as possible remotely with scripts. If you can perform a task, that is all well and good for desktop use. See if you can peform the task in such a way as to be able to perform that task quickly and mostly automatically over 10s or hundreds of machines. At least one more real machine, doesn't need to be terribly impressive, would be quite useful.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Get a job.

 

[TGS]

Get a server or two that can do this.

LDAP, Kerberos, IMAP, Database based email storage, Webmail, Samba with domain authentication, and user mapper services.


Have fun.

If you are familiar with ssh and apache, the DB email and webmail should be fairly straight forward.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Get a job.

That would be ideal, but I need experience to show that I can do things first 🙁

Please keep the suggestions comming 🙂

 

[Red and black]

if you need another computer to play with server stuff on, a truly ancient machine (any PII) is more than sufficient. If you have some patience, a P1 would work too. Such machines should cost you less than $50. Ask around -- one of your friends may have one in her garage.