Red Hat System Administration II (RH134) is the second course in the RHCSA track, designed for those who have completed RH124. It expands into advanced Linux administration topics: storage and logical volume management, automated installation, security, boot process control, job scheduling, system tuning, and container usage.
Duration 5 days – 35 hrs
Objectives
- Install RHEL using Kickstart
- Manage file systems and logical volumes (LVM)
- Automate tasks with cron/at and scripts
- Access and manage network file systems (NFS/SMB)
- Configure and troubleshoot SELinux
- Tune system performance (priority, tuning parameters)
- Control firewalls and network access
- Manage the boot process and system recovery
- Deploy and manage containers using Podman
Audience
- IT/sysadmins (Windows or Linux) seeking deeper Linux expertise
- Administrators responsible for RHEL systems installation, upgrades, monitoring, automation, and troubleshooting
Pre- requisites
- Completion of RH124 – Red Hat System Administration I is strongly recommended
- Experienced Linux admins may prefer RH199 – RHCSA Rapid Track
Course Content
Improve Command-Line Productivity
- Review and use of shell features (command history, tab completion, aliases)
- Shell scripting basics
- File globbing and quoting
- Managing shell variables
Schedule Future Tasks
- Scheduling repetitive tasks with cron and crontab
- Running one-time tasks using at
- Monitoring and troubleshooting scheduled jobs
Analyze and Store Logs
- Viewing system logs using journalctl
- Filtering and saving journal entries
- Understanding persistent vs. volatile journals
- Rotating logs with logrotate
Archive and Transfer Files
- Archiving files with tar, gzip, and bzip2
- Transferring files using scp and rsync
- Creating and extracting backups
Tune System Performance
- Monitoring system performance using top, vmstat, iostat
- Adjusting process priorities with nice and renice
- Configuring kernel tuning parameters with sysctl
Control File Access with ACLs
- Understanding standard Linux file permissions
- Implementing Access Control Lists (ACLs)
- Viewing and modifying ACLs using getfacl and setfacl
Manage SELinux Security
- SELinux modes: enforcing, permissive, disabled
- Understanding SELinux contexts
- Using tools: semanage, restorecon, chcon, getsebool
- Troubleshooting access denials using audit2why, audit2allow
Maintain Basic Storage
- Creating partitions with parted and fdisk
- Creating and mounting filesystems (ext4, xfs)
- Configuring swap space
- Automating mounts via /etc/fstab
Manage Logical Volumes (LVM)
- Understanding LVM concepts: PV, VG, LV
- Creating and extending volume groups
- Resizing logical volumes and filesystems
- Taking snapshots
Implement Advanced Storage Features
- Creating and managing Stratis storage pools
- Understanding and enabling VDO for deduplication and compression
- Using stratis and vdo command-line tools
Access Network-Attached Storage
- Mounting remote NFS shares
- Configuring NFS clients
- Optionally accessing SMB/CIFS shares
- Persistent mount configuration
Control the Boot Process
- Understanding the GRUB2 bootloader
- Modifying kernel boot parameters
- Using dracut to manage initramfs
- Boot troubleshooting and emergency targets
Manage Network Security
- Managing the firewall using firewalld
- Adding and removing services and ports
- Using zones and rich rules
- Verifying active rules and services
Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- Creating automated installation files with Kickstart
- Generating and modifying Kickstart templates
- Performing unattended installations
- Post-installation configuration scripts
Run Containers
- Introduction to containers and Podman
- Creating, managing, and removing containers
- Working with container images (pull, tag, remove)
- Persisting container storage
- Running containerized services
Comprehensive Review Lab
- End-to-end system administration tasks
- Real-world troubleshooting scenarios
- Performance tuning and storage simulation
- Security and container-based exercises
