This course is an attempt to provide a practical hands-on approach to Systems Administration (SA) within the limits of a 3-hour semester class.
There is a lot of expertise in class (more than me). Everyone is an expert in the areas in which they have had a crisis! SA work is collaborative more than competitive. You will always depend on others to help solve and learn.
The emphasis for this course is on UNIX (Linux & Solaris) and Windows
NT/2000.
The textbooks are referenced in the lecture notes using the following abbreviations:
USAH = UNIX System Adminstration Handbook
W2KS = Windows 2000 Server, Fourth Edition
Linux is a complete UNIX-compatible operating system.
It runs on any PC clone, DEC Alpha, PowerPCs and other hardware platforms. It
is based on a kernel written by a Finnish student named Linus Torvalds. It includes
a programming environment, set of libraries, X-windows, NFS, multimedia support,
spreadsheets, C, C++, FORTRAN, Forth, Modula-2, SLIP, PPP, etc...(the GNU
project and the Free Software Foundation)
and importantly, it includes source code. It is mostly POSIX.1
compliant and the Single Unix Specification
is an attempt to coalesce these standardization efforts. It exists in MANY
incarnations (Slackware, Red Hat, Yggdrasil, Debian, etc.).
You will be installing Red Hat on
your class machines.
Solaris is a very popular commercially-available version of UNIX from Sun Microsystems. You will be installing Solaris on a Sun SPARC.
Note that the USAH textbook provides system-specific information
on Solaris, Red Hat Linux, HP-UX and FreeBSD.
Windows 2000 (formerly NT) is the "high end" server operating system from Microsoft.
The currently-most-popular version, 2000, has the same look and feel as the
newer consumer versions of Windows. It is a proprietary operating system that
shares an interesting past with IBM and other companies. It is NOT Windows rehashed
-- it was designed independently for the most part to be a true 32-bit
multitasking, multithreading memory protected operating system. Windows
NT 4.0 was packaged and priced in a workstation
and server version.
The next "big step" for Windows NT is Windows
2000 (aka Windows NT 5), released in February of 2000. The "marketeers"
split Windows 2000 into a workstation version called Windows
2000 Professional and the server version has been divided into three different
classes
(server, advanced server and datacenter server). Windows 2000's look and feel
is modeled after Windows 98 and comes with a number of new interesting server
features, although buying Windows 2000 is pricey,
although discount programs
do exist. Other popular proprietary operating systems, such as Novell,
can be expensive, as well.
Microsoft has bifurcated their operating systems offerings, including Windows
XP, Windows Embedded
and Windows
.NET, with Windows .NET Server 2003 coming out soon.
Using a proprietary operating system is a two-edged sword, just as using an
"open" operating system can have its pitfalls and successes.
In the case of Windows , one advantage to a single vendor solution is Microsoft
can control each aspect of the O/S development directly.
You will be installing Windows 2000 Advanced Server on one machine and Windows 2000 Professional on another.
Many companies will certifiy you on their products. Certification can be viewed as either a money-making racket by various vendors anxious to ensure their proprietary stamp in the computing world or they can be viewed as a viable method for making sure employers have a solid ground for comparing skills of potential employees.
In any rate, if you intend on making system and network administration a career you should seriously consider getting certifications, as some future employers do look to see what "alphabet soup" is on your resume.
Here is a list of some of the possible certifications you should consider. As far as prepping for the certification exams, this class provides a good overview into many of the topics covered by the vendors, but by no means do we have the time in this class to go into the depth required to pass these exams. Past students of this class, however, have done quite well on these exams.