[tech] Anyone interested in running a "Linux Sysadmin Course"?

Felix von Perger frekk at ucc.asn.au
Sun Apr 15 23:08:31 AWST 2018


Dear tech subscribers,

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.

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.

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.)

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.

So, a rough outline of the course is as follows:

  * Session 1: installing Debian Linux to a VM. (Hosted on proxmox @
    UCC) Installation done via web interface.
      o Wheel must create empty VMs for all participants and make sure
        that debian install media is available to use.
  * Session 2: Configuring SSH, user accounts, etc.
      o Wheel member should probably unfirewall SSH for all member VMs.
      o Also include introduction to unix permissions, filesystem, basic
        networking etc
  * Session 3: Setting up a VPN! (who doesn't want to use a VPN for
    everything?)
      o Probably OpenVPN. If anyone wants to guide beginners through
        setting up ipsec/wireguard/tinc, you may do so at your own risk.
      o Again wheel needs to let VPN traffic through firewall.
      o More advanced Linux networking (setting up routes, intro to
        iptables, etc)
  * Session 4: Understanding Linux
      o Service diagnostics (syslog/journalctl)
      o systemd
      o Structure of Linux filesystem
      o Kernel/userspace, kernel modules, processes, etc.
      o Package management
      o User accounts, permissions & security
      o Manpages!
      o Network interfaces again
      o Either here or previous session, set up iptables firewal on
        individual VMs and allow all traffic through murasoi
          + In which case wheel needs to fix the firewall stuff on murasoi.
  * Session 5: Building from source!
      o Because who doesn't want to do that.
      o Suggestions are welcome for what to build. Ideally something
        relevant to UCC.
      o Currently considering `iodine`
  * 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.

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.

Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

Best regards,

Felix
UCC Secretary 2018

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