Summer term 2008
Instructor: Steve VanDevender, stevev@cs.uoregon.edu
CRN: 40673
Lectures: 1500-1550 MTWR, 240B McKenzie
Lab: B13B Klamath
Office hours: by appointment, 156 Computing Center (email or call 6-1804)
Join the class mailing list; mail a message to
majordomo@lists.uoregon.edu
containing the lines:
subscribe sysadm-class
end
If you're trying to pick an OS to install in the week 2 assignment I've provided a quick list of popular UNIX and Linux distributions.
A lab map with the current machine assignments is available in Postscript and as a PNG image.
This course is an introduction to the discipline of system administration -- how to operate and maintain computer systems that are used by other people rather than just you. Major topics will include system installation, configuration, and maintenance; communicating and working with other system administrators and your user community; security; disaster planning and recovery; and ethics.
After taking this course, you should understand:
The textbook for this course is Principles of Network and System Administration by Mark Burgess. Although I do not strictly require that you buy this book, I highly recommend it and suggest background reading in it relevant to the weekly lecture topics and assignments.
You may find these other books to be of interest for further reference and background during the course:
The assignments in this course will all involve working with a small group (no more than 3 people) to install, configure, and maintain a UNIX-based computer system. You will be able to choose which version of UNIX you use, as long as it is freely available for at least educational use. There will be five weekly assignments, the first handed out at the beginning of the second week of class, and a two-week final project of your group's choice (subject to instructor approval). Assignments will involve both doing work on your computer system and providing documentation of that work, and may also involve my inspection of the state of your group's computer system.
General descriptions of the weekly assignments are included in the course schedule below. Detailed specifications for the assignments will be provided when they are handed out. Example assignments from last year's course are linked to in the schedule below; note, however, that these are subject to change.
Your entire grade for this course will be based on assignments and some in-class presentations by your group. Five weekly assignments will each be worth 10 points and the two-week final project worth 30 points. There will also be four informal in-class presentations related to the assignments each worth 5 points. The presentations don't have to be elaborate or fancy -- the main goal is simply to share your experiences on the assignments with other class members. You don't have to bring fancy visual aids or be incredibly articulate. Just be able to describe the most interesting aspects of the assignment and be able to answer reasonable questions from me or other class members.
Your final grade will be determined from the 100-point total.
Note, however, that as the assignments involve a progression of tasks you will not be able to miss assignments, and if you do poorly on an assignment you may need to rework it before starting the next assignment.
Late policy: I will deduct two points for each day that an assignment is late, i.e. if I receive an assignment within 24 hours after it was originally due, two points will be deducted; between 24 and 48 hours after the original due date/time, four points will be deducted, etc. If you have extenuating circumstances and make prior arrangements with me before the original due date/time I may consider exceptions. Again, note that because later assignments depend on having completed prior assignments you cannot skip assignments.
CIS majors: please note this class will not count toward your degree if you have not satisfied the prerequisites.
CIS 313 is a prerequisite for this class. If you have not taken CIS 313 but would like to take the class please contact me; note that in order to receive CIS department credit for the class you will need to petition the department after successfully completing the class.
I also strongly recommend that you be familiar with the UNIX command-line environment and basic UNIX operating system concepts such as the filesystem, processes and virtual memory management, and user accounts; and with basic TCP/IP networking concepts like network services and addressing. Some review will be provided and advanced details will be discussed in lectures, but if you haven't used UNIX systems on TCP/IP networks before you are probably not ready for this class.
Sometimes in the past this class has filled up early in summer term registration. If it should fill up before you register, pretty much all you can do is check DuckWeb frequently to see if anyone drops the class. You can add the class via DuckWeb without petitioning through the first week if spaces become available.
I put my lecture notes online in http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/classes/summer/cis399sysadmin/notes so you can refer to them outside of class.
| Week, Lecture dates | Topics | Reading in Burgess | Assignment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 June 23-26 | Introduction and review: What is system administration?, course outline and expectations, Summary of UNIX system components: filesystems, processes, user environment, tools and scripting; Basic IP networking. | chs. 1, 2, 3 | |
| Week 2 June 30-July 3 | System installation: Disk layout and allocation, filesystem layouts, how systems boot, managing and documenting system changes | ch. 4 | Initial installation and setup of your computer system. |
| Week 3 July 7-10 | Security principles, how security gets broken, how you protect security, basic network configuration | ch. 11 | Securing your system and putting it on the network |
| Week 4 July 14-17 | Services (web, mail, etc.): how they work, how you configure them, security implications. | ch. 9 | Set up common services (email, web) on your system. |
| Week 5 July 21-24 | User account management, policies and ethics | ch. 5 | Create user accounts for everyone in the class, make an acceptable use policy for your system. |
| Week 6 July 28-31 | Security in depth: logging and monitoring, access control, automated checking of logs, system, and events. | ch. 12 | Configure logging, learn what's in your logs, write a simple automated log checking script. |
| Week 7 August 4-7 | Automating system administration tasks, system emergency day! | chs. 7, 13 | Admin project of your choice (as approved by instructor), due at final |
| Week 8 August 11-13 | Administering multiple machines, the future of system administration | chs. 6, 14 |
