Admas University

Megenagna campus
Department of computer sciences
COURSE TITLE: NETWORK AND SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION

BY: AGMAS G.

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Chapter 1
Chapter Objectives
Explore the world of the Network & System admin.
List the duties of the system admin.
List the skill set required of the system admin.
List a few personality traits of a typical system admin.

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Introduction to System & Network Administration
What is System ?
A system is a collection of elements or components that are
organized for a common purpose.
 A set of detailed methods, procedures and routines created to
carry out a specific activity, perform a duty, or solve a problem
All systems have inputs, outputs and feedback mechanisms

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 Con…

What is Network ?
A group of interconnected (via wire and/or wireless)
devices and peripherals that is capable of sharing software
and hardware resources among many users.

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 What is Network Administration ?
The terms network administration and system
administration exist separately; However, are used both
variously and inconsistently by industry and academics
Is the management of network infrastructure devices
(routers and switches)

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 Introduction to System and Network Administration...
What is System Administration ?
Is a branch of engineering mainly concerned with the
operational management of human-computer systems
An organized collaboration between humans and computers to
solve a problem or provide a service
Is the term used traditionally by mainframe and Unix engineers
to describe the management of computers whether they are
coupled by a network or not

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 Introduction to System and Network Administration...
Do you think System Administration is an Administrative Job?
Definitely, No It is an extremely demanding
engineer’s job, so that a System Administrator has know
to a bit of everything.
It requires a skill, technique, administration and socio-
psychological knowledge and wisdom
It has to know about hardware, software, user support,
diagnosis, repair and prevention of system threats
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 Introduction to System and Network Administration...
What is the Key Role of Network and System Administration?
It is to build hardware configuration and to configure software
systems
Network Administrator: a person who responsible to admin, manage
and maintain the network design, configuration and infrastructure
development.
System Administrator: a person who responsible to admin users,
maintaining system, create file systems, install software and other
related issues.

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 Introduction to System and Network Administration...

Responsibilities of the Network Administrator:

 Designing and Planning the Network
Setting up the Network
Maintaining the Network
Expanding the Network

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 Introduction to System and Network Administration...
Responsibilities of the System Administrator
User Administration (Setup and Maintaining Account)
Maintaining System Verify that Peripherals are Working Properly
Quickly Arrange Repair for Hardware in occasion of Hardware Failure Monitor
System Performance
Create File Systems
Install Software
Create a Backup and Recover Policy
 Monitor Network Communication

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 Con…
Update system as soon as new version of OS and application
software comes out
Implement the Policies for the use of the Computer System and Network
Setup Security Policies for users. A sysadmin must have a
strong grasp of computer security (e.g. firewalls and intrusion
detection systems)
Documentation in form of Internal Wiki
Password and Identity Management

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 Con…
System Administrators’ Code of Ethics
Professionalism:
It maintain professional conduct in the workplace and will not allow personal
feelings or beliefs.
Personal Integrity:
It avoid conflicts of interest and biases whenever possible.
Privacy:
It maintain and protect the confidentiality of any information to which the
sysadmin may have access.
Laws and Policies:
The sysadmin should educate himself and others on relevant laws, regulations,
and policies regarding the performance of his/her duties.

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 Con…
Communication
The sysadmin should communicate with management, users, and colleagues about computer
matters of mutual interest.
System Integrity
The sysadmin should strive to ensure the necessary integrity, reliability, and availability of the
systems Education I The sysadmin should continue to update and enhance my technical
knowledge and other work-related skills.
Responsibility to Computing Community:
The sysadmin should cooperate with the larger computing community to maintain the integrity
of network and computing resources
Social Responsibility:
The sysadmin should encourage the writing and adoption of relevant policies and laws
consistent with the ethical principles.
Ethical Responsibility:
The sysadmin should strive to build and maintain a safe, healthy, and productive workplace
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 System Administration
 What is System Administration
 Management of the System which Covers of
Computers
Hardware (CPU , Printer , Scanner etc.)
Software
Operating System
Application Software
Management Software (Database / Web / Email etc.)
Networks
Users
 What do you understand by Management?
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 System Administration
Systems administration includes computer systems and the
ways people use them in an organization.
This requires a knowledge of
 operating systems
 applications,
 hardware and software troubleshooting,
but also knowledge of the purposes for which people in the
organization use the computers.

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 What Is a Sysadmin?
In a “small company” the Sysadmin may be the entire
information technology staff.
The Sysadmin may do everything from telephone, to fax,
to computer management.
Sysadmin may have to order supplies, deal with users,
develop software, repair hardware, and laugh at the
CEO’s jokes!

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What Is a Sysadmin?
In a large company the Sysadmin may be one member of a large
group.
May be responsible for one aspect of the data center
operation.
 Programmers
 Database Administrators
 Network Administrators
 Operators
May not even know what the CEO looks like.
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 Common Sysadmin Qualities
A Sysadmin is a customer service agent!
The Sysadmin must be
 Able to communicate with technical and non-technical users.
 be patient, and have a sense of humor.
 Able to solve difficult technical problems.
 Able to work in a group setting.
 Must document activities in order to reproduce the results.

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 What Does a Sysadmin Do?
Plan and manage the machine room environment
design machine room; specify cooling, cabling, power
connections, and environmental controls (fire alarm, security)
Install and maintain operating system software, application
software, and patches.
Determine hardware and software pre-requisites, which patches
to install, which services to provide, and which services to
disable.

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 Cont.…
Schedule downtime to perform upgrades/patches, and test
devices and schedule downtime to manage devices.
Install and maintain user accounts; develop acceptable use
policy and login-name policy; determine password change
policies; install/configure/manage name services; and manage
licenses.
Determine disk quota policy/manage disk space, and monitor
log files.

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Cont..
Train users on software and security.
Ensure that users have access to documentation.
Help users and provide help-desk support and problem tracking
system to answer user questions.
Configure network services:
 printing, file sharing, name service.
 determine file sharing needs and printing policies.
 manage security for shared resources.

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 Cont.…
Install/maintain system devices, hardware/drivers; specify
supported devices; determine spares practices.
Install/configure/manage web servers, configure web access
agents
Configure and maintain business applications
web agents
e-mail
calendar software
order/problem tracking software

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Cont.…
 Install/configure/manage e-mail software
mail transfer agents.
mail readers.
 Configure and manage system security
security for business applications,
read security mailing lists and CERT notifications,
install/configure "firewall" software to limit intruder access,
collect evidence in case of successful intrusion and clean up
after intrusion
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Cont..
Configure and maintain connectivity between hosts
monitor connectivity
troubleshoot connectivity problems
investigate complaints of poor response

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Cont..
Configure and maintain system backups,
 determine backup strategy and policies, and
 configure backup software
 perform backups
 monitor backup logs
 check backup integrity
 determine disaster survival plans
 perform restores

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Cont.…
 Troubleshoot and repair system problems
 Determine, locate, and repair/replace problem components
 Document the system, and develop and maintain documentation
on local setup and local policies

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8/20/2022 SHEWAKENA G. 28
Skills Required
Delegation and Time Management
Ethics
Ability to create/follow Policies and Procedures
Desire to learn
Customer Service Attitude
Knowledge of technical aspects
Hardware
Software
Problem Solving

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 Types of Administrators/Users
 In a larger company, following may all be separate positions within a
computer support or Information Services (IS) department.
 In a smaller group they may be shared by a few Sysadmins, or even a
single person.
Database Administrator
Network Administrator
Security Administrator
Web Administrator
Technical support
computer operator
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 Cont.…
A database administrator (DBA) maintains a database system, and is
responsible for the integrity of the data and the efficiency and
performance of the system.
A network administrator maintains network infrastructure such as
switches and routers, and diagnoses problems with these or with the
behavior of network-attached computers.
A security administrator is a specialist in computer and network
security, including the administration of security devices such as
firewalls, as well as consulting on general security measures.

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Cont.…
Web administrator maintains web server services (such as
IIS or Apache) that allow for internal or external access to
web sites.
Tasks include
 managing multiple sites,
 administering security,
 configuring necessary components and software.
 Responsibilities may also include software change
management.

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Cont..
Technical support staff respond to individual users' difficulties with
computer systems, provide instructions
sometimes training,
diagnose and solve common problems.
A computer operator performs routine maintenance and upkeep,
such as
changing backup tapes or replacing failed drives in a RAID array. S
such tasks usually require physical presence in the room with the
computer;
while less skilled than Sysadmin tasks require a similar level of trust,
since the operator has access to possibly sensitive data.

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Booting and Shutting Down

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Roadmap
Bootstrapping
Boot Loaders
Startup/Init Scripts
Reboot & Shutdown
Q&A

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 Bootstrapping (simplified version)
BIOS Boot Loader Kernel Initialization

init

Runs scripts from Spawns Spawns

/etc/rc[0-6].d/ getty processes Xdm/gdm processes

login login
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BIOS
Basic Input/output System
Contains information about the machine’s configuration.
Eg. IDE controller, NIC
PC knows which device to boot from via BIOS
PC tries to run code from the MBR (Master boot record ), ie. 1st
512 bytes, of the disk
MBR tells the PC to load the boot loader from certain disk
partition
The boot loader loads the kernel
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Boot Loaders – LILO(Linux Loaser)
Traditional and stable ◦ other=/dev/hdb1
/etc/[Link] ◦ label=Windows
◦ boot=/dev/hda ◦ table=/dev/hdb
◦ root=/dev/hda1 To install it
◦ timeout=5 ◦ $ lilo
◦ image=/boot/vmlinuz-
2.6.20 lilo must be run after every
◦ label=Linux reconfiguration
◦ read-only

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LILO continued,
LILO is a boot loader for Linux and was the default boot
loader for most Linux distribution in the years after a
popularity of loadlin.

To day many operating systems uses GRUB (GRand Unified

Bootloader) as a default boot loader but still LILO is
widely used.

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Boot Loaders – LILO (cont)
At LILO prompt
◦LILO: linux init=/sbin/init also called
init
◦LILO: linux init=/bin/bash
◦LILO: linux root=/dev/hda5
◦LILO: linux single

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Boot Loaders – GRUB
GRand Unified Boot loader
Default on Red Hat and SuSe
Read configuration file at boot time
Understand filesystems and kernel executable formats
◦ ie. Only need to know the device, disk partition and kernel filename
◦ GRUB device (hd0,0) → /dev/hda1 or /dev/sda1

To install GRUB (for the very first time)

◦ $ grub-install ‘(hd0,0)’
◦ Edit /boot/grub/[Link]

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Boot Loaders – GRUB (cont)
/boot/grub/[Link]
◦ default=0
◦ timeout=5
◦ splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/[Link]
◦ title CentOS (2.6.18-8.el5)
◦ root (hd0,0)
◦ kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.el5 ro root=LABEL=/
◦ initrd /boot/[Link]
◦ title Windows
◦ rootnoverify (hd1,0)
◦ chainloader +1
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Boot Loaders – GRUB (cont)
At the splash screen
◦ Hit ‘a’ and type “ single” to boot to single-user mode
◦ Hit ‘c’ to enter command-line mode
◦ To boot other OSes that aren’t in [Link]
◦ Display system information
◦ Press TAB to see possible commands

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 Kernel Initialization
A program itself(after GRUB loaded the kernel to the RAM kernel start to initialize the memory )
 /vmlinuz or /boot/vmlinuz
Two-stage loading process
 initrd (init RAM disk)
 A transient root filesystem in RAM before a real root filesystem is available
 Eg. It is used to install file system modules into the kernel
 The real root filesystem
Device detection and configuration
 You tell the kernel what to expect
 The kernel probes the H/W itself
Kernel threads creation
 Eg. init (a user process), kjournald, kswapd
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Single-user mode
A manual mode after kernel initialization and before running startup
scripts
“single” is passed to init, sulogin is run instead
Most system processes are not running
Users can’t log in, except root
/ is mounted read-only
 $ mount -o rw,remount /
Check/repair the disk if there are disk problems
 $ fsck -y /dev/sda1
Run ‘exit’ to exit single-user mode

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Startup/Init Scripts
After Kernel initialization, a process called init is created with PID 1
init runs startup scripts (normal shell scripts) to perform specific
tasks, eg.
Setting the hostname, time zone, etc
Checking and mouting the disks
Configuring network interfaces
Starting up daemons and network services

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 Startup/Init Scripts (cont)
Startup scripts (rc files) are run based on run levels
◦ 0 the level in which the system is completely shut down
◦ 1 single-user mode
◦ 2 multiuser mode w/out NFS
◦ 3 full multiuser mode
◦ 4 unused
◦ 5 X11
◦ 6 reboot level
Starts with run level 0 to the default run level (usually 3)
/etc/inittab tells init what to do at each level
To find out which run level the system is current in
◦ $ runlevel
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Startup/Init Scripts (cont)
init runs the scripts from /etc/rc.d/rc[0-6].d/
◦ /etc/rc.d/rc0/K25sshd → /etc/init.d/sshd
◦ /etc/rc.d/rc3/S55sshd → /etc/init.d/sshd
Each server/daemon provides a master script
◦ Stored in /etc/init.d
◦ Understands the arguments: start, stop, restart
◦ /etc/init.d/sshd start
run level 0 → 3
◦ /etc/rc.d/rc3/S* start
run level 3 → 0
◦ /etc/rc.d/rc0/K* stop
Pretty ugly!
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Startup/Init Scripts (cont)
Use chkconfig instead. Eg.
◦ $ chkconfig --add sshd
◦ $ chkconfig --del sshd

Before that, need to add/modify /etc/init.d/sshd

◦ # chkconfig: 2345 55 25
◦ sshd should be started/stopped at run level 2, 3, 4 and 5 with the start priority of 55 and the stop priority of 25

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Reboot & Shutdown
To reboot
◦ $ shutdown -r now
◦ $ reboot
◦ $ telinit 6

To halt
◦ $ shutdown -h now
◦ $ halt
◦ $ telinit 0
◦ $ poweroff

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Reboot & Shutdown (cont)
To shutdown gracefully
◦ $ shutdown -h +15 “Shutdown in 15 mins”

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Super user
On a Unix system, the superuser refers to a
privileged account with unrestricted access to all
files and commands.
The username of this account is root.
Many administrative tasks and their associated
commands require superuser status.

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 Cont..
There are two ways to become the superuser.
The first is to log in as root directly.
 The second way is to execute the command su while logged in to
another user account.
 The su command may be used to change one's current account
to that of a different user after entering the proper password.
It takes the username corresponding to the desired account as
its argument; root is the default when no argument is provided.
$ su
Password: Not echoed
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Cont..
You may exit from the superuser account with exit or Ctrl-
D.
You may suspend the shell and place it in the background
with the suspend command;
you can return to it later using fg.

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Boot process
The normal boot process has these main phases:
Basic hardware detection (memory, disk, keyboard,
mouse, and the like).
Executing the firmware system initialization program
(happens automatically).
Locating and running the initial boot program (by the
firmware boot program),
usually from a predetermined location on disk.
This program may perform additional hardware checks prior to
loading the kernel.

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Cont..
Locating and starting the Unix kernel (by the first-stage boot
program).
The kernel image file to execute may be determined automatically
or via input to the boot program.
The kernel initializes itself and then performs final, high-level
hardware checks, loading device drivers and/or kernel modules as
required.
The kernel starts the init process, which in turn starts system
processes (daemons) and initializes all active subsystems. When
everything is ready, the system begins accepting user logins.
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 Challenges System & Network Administration
There are three key challenges in introducing these global frameworks:
Security includes never-ending management of a series of threats that are
steadily increasing.
With the proliferation of IoT devices expected over the next few years,
along with the complexities of private and virtual clouds, more users,
more mobile devices, and an increasing volume of endpoints, network
administrators will continue to struggle to stay ahead of hackers.
Consumer-specific security threats, such as malware focused on
smartphones will continue to threaten the global network as a whole.

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 Challenges System & Network Administration
Monitoring and maintenance of global networks will become increasingly important.
Because we lack integrated reporting and alert capabilities, network administrators will
continue to struggle with how to monitor a widening volume of traffic.
Machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence may provide the key to network
monitoring the various applications and the global delivery of static and dynamic content.

Network performance management will include managing beyond bandwidth, packet

loss, or latency.
Network administrators must be able to continuously monitor in real-time across a
distributed global network, troubleshoot IP-based applications, and assess network
readiness for new services before implementing them.

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 .

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