Rhce Exam Rhel5

Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 v1.0 2007/12/02 It is very important to study the official objectives for any exam, as that is the only way to know what to expect. It is not meant to replace official training courses and manuals, but is meant to help students quickly review, so they can determine where to focus their efforts and study in more detail. This guide is based on the official redhat objectives for the RHEL5 exam see: https://www.redhat.com/certification/rhce/prep_guide/ This guide is freely available from http://systemnotesorg.blogspot.com http://systemnotesorg.blogspot.com/2007/12/rhce-study-guide-for-rhel5.html For more detailed study info on each objective see: http://systemnotesorg.blogspot.com/search/label/RHCE

This guide was prepared by looking at each objective, and asking the questions: -- What could they ask in order to test for knowledge of this objective?, or -- What kind of troubleshooting might be required? -- How can this requirement be met? Q: is used to denote possible questions, and A: for possible answers. Note that there may be more than one answer based on what the objective is, or depending which method is preferred to meet the objective. Some items and ideas were taken from labs in the RHCE course book, and great care was taken to not give away any hints about what might be on the exam, other than what the labs and official objectives lead one to infer.

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Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 RHCT skills Troubleshooting and System Maintenance RHCTs should be able to: 1) boot systems into different run levels for troubleshooting and system maintenance boot single to set root password, or fix mounting, or init problem Q: Machine won't boot A: modify /boot/grub/grub.conf root (hd0,0) A: Check files /etc/rc.local /etc/inittab A: Fix initrd mkinitrd initrd-`uname -r`.img `uname -r` Q: root password not known A: 1) boot single (at grub screen, "a", "space", "1", enter), 2) passwd root Items to study: grub, initrd,vmlinuz, inittab, rc.sysinit... 2) diagnose and correct misconfigured networking system-config-network, or vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 check IPADDR, NETMASK, GATEWAY ONBOOT=yes PEERDNS=no vi /etc/sysconfig/network 3) diagnose and correct hostname resolution problems /etc/resolv.conf /etc/hosts 4) configure the X Window System and a desktop environment Remember X troubleshooting should be done from the command prompt, and not within X. Files: /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d /etc/X11/xorg.conf

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Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 Q: Boot to X A: Set runlevel 5 in /etc/inittab vi /etc/inittab change id:3:initdefault: to id:5:initdefault: Q: X won't load A: Check config files A: system-config-display --reconfig A: /tmp or /home is full 5) add new partitions, filesystems, and swap to existing systems This one is a little hard to explain. It just takes some practice to understand. Tools available: fdisk /dev/hda t / fd (raid) partprobe mdadm -C /dev/md0 -l 5 -n 3 /dev/hda6 /dev/hda7 /dev/hda8 mke2fs -j /dev/md0 Q: mount something, such as: /dev/hda7 on /data A: make directory, mount, modify /etc/fstab 1) mkdir /data 2) mount -t ext3 /dev/hda7 /data 3) vi /etc/fstab /data /data ext3 defaults 12 view or change label: e2label /dev/hda2 e2label /dev/vg0/data0 /data 6) use standard command-line tools to analyze problems and configure system ls, cp, mv, rm, tail, cat, etc system-config-

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Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 Installation and Configuration RHCTs must be able to: 1) perform network OS installation Enter the nfs, or ftp server address and path 2) implement a custom partitioning scheme Probably easiest during GUI install 3) configure printing probably the easiest thing to do is use: system-config-printer /etc/cups/cupsd.conf lpadmin lpstat, lpq reject disable accept /usr/bin/enable 4) configure the scheduling of tasks using cron and at Understand how cron fields work: min hr month_day month weekday copy script to /etc/cron.daily, /etc.cron.monthly, etc. or Modify /etc/crontab: crontab -e List cron jobs: crontab -l Add an at job: at [-f file] TIME View at queue: atq Remove at jog: atrm job 5) attach system to a network directory service, such as NIS or LDAP 1) Install ypbind, portmap 2) system-config-authentication check: Enable NIS Support, or Enable LDAP Support click: Configure NIS..., or Configure LDAP... 3) configure firewall, if required iptables -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 835:837 -j ACCEPT service iptables save Page 4 of 17

Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5

test: ypwhich nisdomainname -y genent services getent passwd smith rpcinfo -p files: /etc/yp.conf /etc/sysconfig/network /etc/pam.d/system-auth /etc/nsswitch.conf 6) configure autofs /etc/auto.master /home/guests /etc/auto.guests --timeout=60 /etc/auto.guests * -rw,soft,intr server1:/home/guests/& service autofs restart chkconfig portmap on chkconfig autofs on 7) add and manage users, groups, quotas, and File Access Control Lists Q: Create group, add users, set primary group A: Use groupadd, useradd, usermod groupadd -g 1000 groupname useradd username usermod -G groupname username (-G for primary group) quotas Q: Setup a 70kb hard block user quota for user tim on /home/tim: A: Use a Hard Block user quota (or Soft depending on question). 1) modify /etc/fstab change defaults to usrquota for /home 2) mount -o remount /home 3) quotacheck -cuf /home 4) quotaon /home 5) setquota -u tim 0 60 0 0 /home or 5a) edquota tim

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Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 Disk quotas for user tim (uid 502): Filesystem blocks soft hard inodes soft hard /dev/hda5 16 0 0 8 0 0 6) repquota /home or quota tim 7) test a) quota tim b) su - tim c) dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/tim/somefile bs=1024 count=70 d) ls -l file should be less than 70 kilobytes Quota Command to remember: quotacheck -cuf /home quotaon /home edquota tim quota tim repquota /home *** Lab: Set a user soft block quota of 1MB for user diskhog on /blackhole, (or hard block, hard / soft inode). Know when to use each type of quota *** Enable quotas: quotacheck -cuf /blackhole quotaon /blackhole Set Quota: block inode h s hs setquota -u diskhog 0 1024 0 0 /blackhole or edquota -u diskhog Report on Quota for user or directory: quota -u diskhog repquota /blackhole Password defaults: /etc/login.defs chage [options] username Page 6 of 17

Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 password files: /etc/passwd /etc/shadow /etc/group 8) configure filesystem permissions for collaboration Q: Make user alex a member of sales with write permissions to /depts/sales Q: Make user sales, hr, and web groups in /depts/ A: mkdir -p /depts/{sales,hr,web} for GROUP in sales hr web;do chgrp $GROUP /depts/$GROUP;done chmod 770 /depts/* chmod g+s /depts/* Test permissions as alex: su - alex 9) install and update packages using rpm You may have to mount a directory over nfs, or install directly from http:// rpm -Uvh filenamex.i386.rpm rpm --import /usr/share/rhn/RPM-GPG-KEY rpm -K /tmp/rpmversion.i386.rpm 10) properly update the kernel package Just remember to use rpm -i, so the old kernel will still be there. 1) mkdir /server1 2) mount server1:/var/ftp/pub /server1 3) cd /server1/Redhat/RPMS 4) rpm -ivh kernel-* 5) vi /boot/grub/grub.conf default=0 11) configure the system to update/install packages from remote repositories using yum or pup /etc/yum.conf 12) modify the system bootloader /boot/grub/grub.conf Page 7 of 17

Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5

13) implement software RAID at install-time and run-time fdisk /dev/hda fd (raid) partprobe mdadm -C /dev/md0 -l 5 -n 3 /dev/hda6 /dev/hda7 /dev/hda8 mke2fs -j /dev/md0 mount /etc/fstab mdadm --detail /dev/md0 recover mdadm /dev/md0 -a /dev/sda1 14) use /proc/sys and sysctl to modify and set kernel run-time parameters Q: turn on ip forwardarding A: 1) vi /etc/sysctl.conf net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 2) sysctl -p or echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward to view: sysctl -a | grep ipv4 to find available options for ipv4: ls /proc/sys/net/ipv4 15) use scripting to automate system maintenance tasks Maybe put a script in /etc/cron.daily? Login Shell Scripts /etc/profile /etc/profile.d/*.sh ~/.bash_profile ~/.bashrc /etc/bashrc

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Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 RHCE skills Troubleshooting and System Maintenance RHCEs must demonstrate the RHCT skills listed above, and should be able to: 1) use the rescue environment provided by first installation CD linux rescue 2) diagnose and correct boot failures arising from bootloader, module, and filesystem errors init /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit /etc/rc.d/rc adn /etc/rc.d/rc?.d /etc/rc.d/rc.local grub /boot/grub/grub.conf filesystem /etc/fstab fsck /dev/hda 3) diagnose and correct problems with network services (see Installation and Configuration below for a list of these services) 4) add, remove, and resize logical volumes LVM Hint: use apropos quota, or just lvm to find commands. Q: expand or shrink logical volume (RHCE) A: Make sure there is enough space, and volume is online, use vgconvert if necessary ext2online /dev/vg0/data0 120M lvextend -L +100M /dev/vg0/data0 lvreduce -L 120M /dev/vg0/data0 vgdisplay -v vg0 pvdisplay lvdisplay Q: Create a logical volume A: First create physical volume, then volume group, then logical volume PV -> VG -> LV pvcreate /dev/hda6 /dev/hda7 /dev/hda8 vgcreate vg0 /dev/hda6 /dev/hda7 lvcreate -L 50M -n data0 vg0 ext2online /dev/vg0/data0 lvextend -L +6M /dev/vg0/data0 Page 9 of 17

Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 resize2fs -L /dev/vg0/data0 40M lvreduce -L 40M /dev/vg0/data0 vgconvert 5) diagnose and correct networking services problems where SELinux contexts are interfering with proper operation. SELinux getenforce setenforce 1 check context with ls -Z Q: Set up directory to use context of another directory A: Use the other directory as a reference chcon -R --reference /var/www/html /var/www/html/www1

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Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 Installation and Configuration RHCEs must demonstrate the RHCT-level skills listed above, and they must be capable of configuring the following network services: 1) HTTP/HTTPS install httpd, check context with ls -Z Q: Create a virtual host www1.example.com w/ subdirectory /var/www/html/www1 A: 1) install httpd, modify /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file ServerName www1.example.com DocumentRoot /var/www/html/www1 2) chcon -R --reference /var/www/html /var/www/html/www1 3) service httpd restart 4) chkconfig httpd on Testing service httpd configtest 2) SMB Q: Configure Samba share /home/depts/legal 1) install samba rpm -Uvh samba-* system-config-samba*(optional) 2) vi /etc/samba/smb.conf [sharename] path = /home/depts/legal browseable = no writeable = no 3) configure firewall port 445, 137-139 3) NFS Q: Export /data directory with nfs The nfs server is an RPC service, and thus requires portmap A: Modify /etc/exports, start nfs & portmap (make sure /data directory exists) 1) modify /etc/exports /data *(sync,rw) 2) start services service nfs start service portmap start Page 11 of 17

Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 chkconfig nfs on chkconfig portmap on 3) verify config, & check mounts exportfs -v showmount -e localhost rpcinfo -p localhost 4) restart exportfs -r, or service nfs reload Q: Mount server1:/var/ftp/pub with nfs on /server1 1) mkdir /server1 2) vi /etc/fstab 192.168.2.254:/var/ftp/pub /server1 nfs 3) mount -a

soft,defaults 0 0

* configure autofs Automount Q: Configure automount for nfs mount from nis domain on server1 A: 1) mkdir /net 2) vi /etc/auto.master # uncomment /net line /net /etc/auto.net 3) start services service portmap start service autofs start chkconfig autofs on chkconfig portmap on Q: Configure automount for nfs mount of /rhome directories from nis domain on server1 A: Create base directory 1) mkdir /rhome 2) vi /etc/auto.master # copy and modify /misc line /rhome /etc/auto.rhome 3) vi /etc/auto.rhome * -rw,soft.intr server1:/home/guests/& 4) start services service portmap start service autofs start chkconfig autofs on chkconfig portmap on

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Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 4) FTP Q: Configure ftp with /var/ftp/incoming directory A: install vsftpd 1) rpm -Uvh vsftpd* 2) service vsftpd start 3) chkconfig vsftpd on 4) create incoming directory cd /var/ftp mkdir incoming chown root:ftp fincoming chmod 730 incoming 5) vi /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf uncomment the lines -#anon_upload_enable=YES #chown_uploads=YES #chown_username=whoever add anon_umask=077 6) service vsftpd restart 7) configure firewall iptables -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/24 -p tcp --dport 21 -j ACCEPT service iptables save 5) Web proxy Q: Install a web proxy and allow a certain network to access it A: Install & configure squid 1) install squid, and start the service rpm -ivh --aid squid* service squid start chkconfig squid on 2) vi /etc/squid acl example src 192.168.0.0/24 http_access allow example 3) service squid reload 4) Configure browser to test: Edit / Preferences /General / Connection Settings Manual proxy configuration / HTTP Proxy: localhost Port: 3128 Enable port in firewall, if required iptables -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/24 -p tcp --dport 3128 -j ACCEPT service iptables save

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Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 Useful parameters: http_port 3128 cache_mem 8 MB cache_dir ufs /var/spool/squid 100 16 256 acl all src 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 http_access allow localhost http_access deny all hint: find out that port number is 3128 grep squid /etc/services 6) SMTP install sendmail, sendmail-cf, sendmail-doc (optional) Q: Configure mail server to accept internet email A: modify /etc/mail/sendmail.mc 1) cd /etc/mail 2) vi /etc/mail/sendmail.mc search for 127.0, put dnl at the front of the line 3) make or m4 sendmail.mc > sendmail.cf service sendmail restart Q: Mail alias A: modify /etc/aliases, run newaliases Q: Receive mail for DomainX.example.com A: modify sendmail mc as above, and add domain to /etc/mail/local-host-names domainx.example.com Debugging: mail -v root mailq, mailq -Ac sendmail -q tail -f /var/log/maillog 7) IMAP, IMAPS, and POP3 Q: Configure for pop3 (or imap) A: 1) install dovecot 2) vi /etc/dovcot.conf protocols = pop3 3) service dovecot restart 4) chkconfig dovecot on Testing: note: root is not permitted to login Page 14 of 17

Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 echo "pop" | mail -s test student telnet localhost 110 user student pass student stat list retr 1 quit 8) SSH /etc/ssh/ ~/.ssh/ 9) DNS (caching name server, slave name server) Q: Setup a slave name server A: 1) install bind, bind-utils, and caching-nameserver 2) when configuring a slave name server, start with caching, and modify 3) vi /etc/named.conf comment out dump-file section add: zone "example.com" { type slave; masters { 192.168.0.254 }; file "slaves/slave-example.com.zone"; }; 4) vi 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa add: zone "0.168.192.in-addr.arpa" { type slave; masters { 192.168.0.254 }; file "slaves/0.168.192.zone"; }; To verify: named-checkconf named-checkconf -t /var/named named-checkzone example.com example.com.zone 5) start named, and make it start at boot service named restart; tail -f /var/log/messages | grep named chkconfig named on Remember to check /etc/resolv.conf on all client machines.

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Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 10) NTP /etc/ntp.conf For each of these services, RHCEs must be able to: 1) install the packages needed to provide the service rpm -Uvh packagename.rpm, or yum install packagename 2) configure SELinux to support the service getenforce setenforce 1 check context with ls -Z chcon -R --reference /var/www/html /var/www/html/www1 3) configure the service to start when the system is booted chkconfig servicename on 4) configure the service for basic operation different for each service 5) Configure host-based and user-based security for the service setuid? /etc/xinet.d/ RHCEs must also be able to: 1) configure hands-free installation using Kickstart 2) implement logical volumes at install-time 3) use iptables to implement packet filtering and/or NAT iptables is usually configured to be as restrictive as possible, but this may be difficult to implement in an exam environment. Read the instructions carefully, and try to find the best way to implement it.

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Systemnotes.org RHCE Study Guide for RHEL5 --- commands --iptables -L iptables -F service iptables save service iptables restart chkconfig iptables on --- starting config --iptables -P INPUT DROP iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED, RELATED -j ACCEPT --- sample file --cat /etc/sysconfig/iptables *filter :INPUT DROP [67:11217] :FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [58:6450] -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.10 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.1 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.254 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.254 -p udp -m udp --sport 53 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p udp -m udp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 445 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 21 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 2049 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p udp -m udp --dport 2049 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 25 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 110 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 3128 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 835:837 -j ACCEPT COMMIT 4) use PAM to implement user-level restrictions /lib/security/ /etc/pam.d/

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