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<p>Dear tech subscribers,</p>
<p>As you may be interested to know, I intend to run a series of
educational events at UCC with a focus on learning how to be an
effective sysadmin on Linux. I am, however, not a member of the
wheel group, and thus require some assistance in order to get
things working as desired and make sure everything runs smoothly.</p>
<p>The primary motivation for this course is that UCC, as I see it,
has a generational gap between the older wheel members and newer
members who have joined in the past few years who do not have the
skills to maintain the Club's infrastructure. The few new wheel
members who do have the necessary knowledge may not, however, have
enough time on their own to keep everything working and up to
date. As the UCC has a vast amount of resources, specifically all
the functioning server, desktop and network hardware required to
implement almost any kind of enterprise-level network
configuration (not limited to the current network configuration),
it would make sense to run an educational course that teaches new
members how the equipment that the club owns actually works.</p>
<p>There is also a gap (as far as I am aware) in the courses offered
at high schools and the University that leaves a niche, to be
filled almost solely by the technical server-administation side of
UCC. (with university students in mind, obviously more
professional training courses exist but those are typically not
available for free or in Perth.)</p>
<p>The premise of the course is "No linux knowledge required."
Unfortunately we don't seem to have a large number of Linux users
amongst our active members so it's good to make sure that everyone
who is interested feels included.</p>
<p>So, a rough outline of the course is as follows:<br>
</p>
<ul>
<li>Session 1: installing Debian Linux to a VM. (Hosted on proxmox
@ UCC) Installation done via web interface.</li>
<ul>
<li>Wheel must create empty VMs for all participants and make
sure that debian install media is available to use.<br>
</li>
</ul>
<li>Session 2: Configuring SSH, user accounts, etc.</li>
<ul>
<li>Wheel member should probably unfirewall SSH for all member
VMs.</li>
<li>Also include introduction to unix permissions, filesystem,
basic networking etc</li>
</ul>
<li>Session 3: Setting up a VPN! (who doesn't want to use a VPN
for everything?)</li>
<ul>
<li>Probably OpenVPN. If anyone wants to guide beginners through
setting up ipsec/wireguard/tinc, you may do so at your own
risk.</li>
<li>Again wheel needs to let VPN traffic through firewall.</li>
<li>More advanced Linux networking (setting up routes, intro to
iptables, etc)</li>
</ul>
<li>Session 4: Understanding Linux</li>
<ul>
<li>Service diagnostics (syslog/journalctl)</li>
<li>systemd</li>
<li>Structure of Linux filesystem</li>
<li>Kernel/userspace, kernel modules, processes, etc.</li>
<li>Package management</li>
<li>User accounts, permissions & security</li>
<li>Manpages!<br>
</li>
<li>Network interfaces again</li>
<li>Either here or previous session, set up iptables firewal on
individual VMs and allow all traffic through murasoi</li>
<ul>
<li>In which case wheel needs to fix the firewall stuff on
murasoi.<br>
</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>Session 5: Building from source!</li>
<ul>
<li>Because who doesn't want to do that.</li>
<li>Suggestions are welcome for what to build. Ideally something
relevant to UCC.</li>
<li>Currently considering `iodine`</li>
</ul>
<li>and so on. At this point people might start to realise what
they can actually do with a VPS and Linux and go their own ways.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you feel like you would be able to help with any part of this
process, or have suggestions in terms of how this would be best
taught or explained to people who may not have so much Linux
experience, please feel free to contact me.<br>
</p>
<p>Any assistance would be very much appreciated.</p>
<p>Best regards,</p>
<p>Felix<br>
UCC Secretary 2018<br>
</p>
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