Linux is the popular operating system, which is in use by many schools, colleges, university education and social welfare organizations. With easy command on utilities/commands, one can conveniently work and manage work on Linux operating system.

There are certified professional Linux administrators and professionals available, which can simplify your problems, if any, associated with use of Linux operating system. Online forums and web portals are abundant with knowledge regarding managing Linux system. In order to popularize the use of Linux for general purposes and in businesses, many well-known companies such as Red Hat are providing the certified courses. The following text provides a glimpse into the world of Linux system administration.

Linux system administration involves setting up a stand-alone server, installing, managing a DNS server using BIND, create an internet server to manage sites, and perform other activities, set up an email service, install and configures most commonly used server, technologies and database applications, setting up local network services for print services, user management, using VMWare for virtualization purposes, creating special shell scripts for intended use and backup and recovery of data with Linux and other tools.

For a typical stand-alone server installation, specify the host name and location when followed by specific password for the user ID. The servers usually require back-end database for high traffic and e-commerce based websites and other profiles. The database in turn, requires database drivers. Select the database type, hostname, connecting port, connecting username and password, creating database, and testing it.

Configuring BIND with DNS server is done after the installation of DNS server. The BIND rpm is available on CD. There is ‘mount’ command available with will mount the CD, copy the BIND RPM with ‘cp’ command to proper destination. A number of other commands can easily fetch the required information to complete the configuration.

Internet servers are required to be configured for security since they are not automatically immune to hacker threats. The common threats arrive in mail, DNS servers and web downloads. The security of the Linux server is linked to security of its applications and services.

E-mail server configuration should support unlimited users and domains, anti-spam, anti-virus, encrypted data transfer, web mail interface, IMAP/Pop access, secure authentication.

Linux is popular because of its ability to support a number of free open source servers, of high quality back-end database softwares and technologies. The installation of Apache server, MySQL, PHP and many others are available in rpm mode.

Local network configuration includes TCP/IP networking, system configuration, print services, network administration and user management. It can accommodate multiple network devices. The device configuration hierarchy is able in dev folder numbered and beginning at zero to above.

To compete with existing and upcoming market, Linux system administration needs to prepare the operating system for new technologies. Virtualization is one of them. Virtualization means ability to share the resources irrespective of location, place and time. These include sharing platform, storage, network, desktop and resources. There are number of software that could make this possible on Linux. Some open-source virtualization software are Open VZ, UML, KVM, Linux VServer, Bochs, VirtualBox, and Xen.

Creating customized script for adding new users, DNS lookup, support for SSH and password generation also falls under Linux system administration.

Backup and recovery processes are also controlled as system administration. This can be achieved with the use of rsync, tar and backup exe commands. The files and direction from different locations are synchronized as scheduled to another location. This feature is essential on most shared working computers in a large enterprise. The data backup is crucial because of very active output and a loss of any task may adversely effect in case the following information depends on it. There are different types of data backups available to meet the needs of enterprises of any size.

Many online portals are providing certified courses in Linux system administration, which are covering above-mentioned topics and more in broad range. These professionals are in high demands by various companies. The systems administration is crucial to the execution of projects. The work involves very accurate, fast and reliable management of active traffic both of host and clients. The workload distribution, security, seamless communication and many other factors are derived as system administrators’ qualifications.