Book tasks:

Instructions:

1. Display the current time and date: Use the date command to display the current time and date.

2. Display current time in 24-hour clock format: Use the format string %R with the date command to display the time in 24-hour format (e.g., 13:57).

3. Check the file type of /home/student/zcat: Determine the type of file /home/student/zcat is and whether it is human-readable.

4. Check the size of zcat: Use the wc command and Bash shortcuts to display the size of the zcat file.

5. Display the first 10 lines of the zcat file: Use the appropriate command to show the first 10 lines of the file.

6. Display the last 10 lines of the zcat file: Use the command to display the last 10 lines of the zcat file.

7. Repeat the previous command with minimal keystrokes: Repeat the previous step with four or fewer keystrokes using a shortcut.

8. Display the last 20 lines of the zcat file: Use the tail command with the -n 20 option to display the last 20 lines of the file.

9. Run the date command again using shell history: Use the shell history to run the date +%R command again.

Instructions

1. Use the ssh command to log in to the serverb machine as the student user. The system's configuration supports the use of SSH keys for authentication.

2. Create a directory called project_plans in the Documents directory. The Documents directory should be placed in the student user's home directory. Create two empty files in the project_plans directory called season1_project_plan.odf and season2_project_plan.odf. Hint: If the ~/Documents directory does not exist, then use the mkdir -p option to create it.

3. Create sets of empty practice files to use in this lab. If you do not immediately recognize the intended shell expansion shortcut, then use the solution to learn and practice.

4. Use shell tab completion to locate file path names easily. Create 12 files with names tv_seasonX_episodeY.ogg in the /home/student directory. Replace X with the season number and Y with that season's episode, for two seasons of six episodes each.

5. As the author of a successful series of mystery novels, you are editing your next bestseller's chapters for publishing. Create eight files with names mystery_chapterX.odf. Replace X with the numbers 1 through 8.

6. Use a single command to create two subdirectories called season1 and season2 under the Videos directory to organize the TV episodes. Move the appropriate TV episodes into the season subdirectories. Use only two commands, and specify destinations with relative syntax.

7. Create a two-level directory hierarchy with a single command to organize the mystery book chapters. Create the my_bestseller subdirectory under the Documents directory, and the chapters subdirectory under the new my_bestseller directory. Create three more subdirectories directly under the my_bestseller directory with a single command. Name these subdirectories editor, changes, and vacation. You do not need to use the mkdir -p command to create parents because the my_bestseller parent directory exists.

8. Change to the chapters directory. Use the tilde (~) home directory shortcut to move all book chapters to the chapters directory, which is now your current directory. Use the simplest syntax to specify the destination directory.

9. You want to send the first two chapters to the editor for review. Move only those two chapters to the editor directory to avoid modifying them during the review. Starting from the chapters subdirectory, use brace expansion with a range to specify the chapter file names to move and a relative path for the destination directory.

10. While on vacation, you intend to write chapters 7 and 8. Use a single command to move the files from the chapters directory to the vacation directory. Specify the chapter file names by using brace expansion with a list of strings and without using wildcard characters.

11. Change your working directory to ~/Videos/season2, and then copy the first episode of the season to the vacation directory. Use a single cd command to change from your working directory to the ~/Documents/my_bestseller/vacation directory. List its files. Use the previous working directory argument to return to the season2 directory. (This argument succeeds if the last directory change with the cd command used one command rather than several cd commands.) From the season2 directory, copy the episode 2 file into the vacation directory. Use the shortcut again to return to the vacation directory.

12. The authors of chapters 5 and 6 want to experiment with possible changes. Copy both files from the ~/Documents/my_bestseller/chapters directory to the ~/Documents/my_bestseller/changes directory to prevent these changes from modifying original files.

13. Navigate to the ~/Documents/my_bestseller directory. Use square-bracket pattern matching to specify which chapter numbers to match in the filename argument of the cp command.

14. Change your current directory to the changes directory and use the date +%F command with command substitution to copy mystery_chapter5.odf to a new file that includes the full date. Use the mystery_chapter5_YYYY-MM-DD.odf name format.

15. By using command substitution with the date +%s command, make another copy of mystery_chapter5.odf, and append the current time stamp (as the number of seconds since the epoch, 1970-01-01 00:00 UTC) to ensure a unique file name.

16. After further review, you decide that you do not need the plot changes. Delete the changes directory.

17. If it is necessary, then navigate to the changes directory and delete all the files within the directory. You cannot delete a directory while it is the current working directory.

18. Change to the parent directory of the changes directory. Try to delete the empty directory by using the rm command without the -r recursive option. This attempt should fail. Finally, use the rmdir command to delete the empty directory, which succeeds.

19. When the vacation is over, you no longer need the vacation directory. Delete it by using the rm command with the recursive option.

20. When finished, return to the student user's home directory.

21. Create a hard link to the ~/Documents/project_plans/season2_project_plan.odf file called ~/Documents/backups/season2_project_plan.odf.back. A hard link protects against accidental deletion of the original file and keeps the backup file updated as you change the original file. Hint: If the ~/Documents/backups directory does not exist, then use the mkdir command to create it.

Instructions

1. On the workstation machine, determine how to prepare a man page for printing. Specifically, find which is the default format or rendering language for printing.

2. Create a PostScript formatted output file of the passwd man page. Call the file passwd.ps and place it in the student user's home directory. Determine the file content format. Inspect the contents of the passwd.ps file by using the less command. Note: As you need to save the output of the man command to a file, you can use the > symbol, which redirects the standard output to a file. As an example, the following command lists the home directory's regular file names into a file:

   bashCopy code[student@workstation ~]$ ls > /tmp/my-file-names

   This command is taught in more detail in a following chapter.

3. By using the man pages, find which commands you can use for viewing and printing PostScript files.

4. Learn how to use the evince(1) viewer in preview mode. Also, determine how to open a document to start on a specific page. Open your PostScript file by using evince three times:

   • First by using the default mode,

   • Then with the preview mode option,

   • And finally to start at page 3. Close your document file when you finish.

5. By using the man pages, research lp(1) to determine how to print any document to start on a specific page.

6. Without entering any commands (in the absence of printers), learn the syntax, in one command, to print only pages 2 and 3 of your PostScript file.

7. Use the Firefox browser to open the system's man page directory (/usr/share/doc) and browse into the man-db package subdirectory.

8. View the provided manuals. After you finish reviewing the man-db manuals, locate and browse to the kexec-tools package subdirectory. View the kexec-kdump-howto.txt file, which describes important system configuration options that are stored in the /etc/sysconfig directory.

Instructions

1. On workstation, create the lab_file shell variable and assign editing_final_lab.txt as the value.

2. List the student home directory, including hidden directories and files, and redirect the output to the editing_final_lab.txt file by using the shell variable.

3. Use Vim to edit the editing_final_lab.txt file. Use the lab_file shell variable.

4. Enter the line-based visual mode of Vim. Your screen output may be different than these examples. Remove the first three lines of the editing_final_lab.txt file.

5. Enter the visual mode of Vim. Remove the last seven characters from the first column on the first line. Preserve only the first four characters of the first column.

6. Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at the last character of the first column on the first line. Delete the selection by typing x.

7. Enter the visual block mode of Vim. Repeat the operation of the previous step, but this time select from the second to the last line. Preserve only the first four characters of the first column.

8. Enter the visual block mode of Vim and remove the fourth column of the file.

9. Enter the visual block mode of Vim to remove the time column, leaving the month and day columns on all lines.

10. Enter the visual line mode of Vim and remove the rows that contain the Desktop and Public strings.

11. Save your changes and exit the file.

12. Back up the editing_final_lab.txt file and append the date (in seconds) at the end of the file name preceded with an underscore (_) character. Use the lab_file shell variable.

13. Append a dashed line to the editing_final_lab.txt file. The dashed line should contain 12 dash (-) characters for this lab to be graded correctly. Use the lab_file shell variable.

14. List the content of the Document directory and redirect the output to the editing_final_lab.txt file. Use the lab_file shell variable.

15. Confirm that the directory listing is at the bottom of the lab file. Use the lab_file shell variable.

Instructions

1. From the workstation machine, open an SSH session to the serverb machine as the student user and switch to the root user.

2. On the serverb machine, ensure that newly created users must change their passwords every 30 days.

3. Create the consultants group with a GID of 35000.

4. Configure administrative rights to enable all consultants group members to execute any command as any user.

5. Create the consultant1, consultant2, and consultant3 users with the consultants group as their secondary group.

6. Set the consultant1, consultant2, and consultant3 passwords to redhat.

7. Set the consultant1, consultant2, and consultant3 accounts to expire in 90 days from the current day.

8. Change the password policy for the consultant2 account to require a new password every 15 days.

9. Additionally, force the consultant1, consultant2, and consultant3 users to change their passwords on the first login.

Instructions

1. Log in to serverb as the student user. Switch to the root user, and use redhat as the password.

2. Create a /home/techdocs directory.

3. Change the group ownership of the /home/techdocs directory to the techdocs group.

4. Verify that users in the techdocs group cannot create files in the /home/techdocs directory.

5. Set permissions on the /home/techdocs directory. On the /home/techdocs directory, configure:

   • setgid (2),

   • read, write, and execute permissions (7) for the owner/user and group,

   • no permissions (0) for other users.

6. Verify that the permissions are set properly.

7. The techdocs group now has write permission.

8. Confirm that users in the techdocs group can now create and edit files in the /home/techdocs directory. Users that are not in the techdocs group cannot edit or create files in the /home/techdocs directory. The tech1 and tech2 users are in the techdocs group. The database1 user is not in that group.

9. Modify the global login scripts. Normal users should have a umask setting that allows the user and group to create, write, and execute files and directories, while preventing other users from viewing, modifying, or executing new files and directories.

Instructions

1. On workstation, open two terminal windows side by side. In this section, these terminals are referred to as left and right. On each terminal window, log in to serverb as the student user. Create the process101 script in the /home/student/bin directory. The process101 script generates artificial CPU load:

   bashCopy code#!/bin/bash
   while true; do
     var=1
     while [[ var -lt 50000 ]]; do
       var=$(($var+1))
     done
     sleep 1
   done

2. In the right terminal shell, run the top utility.

3. In the left terminal shell, verify the number of logical CPUs on the virtual machine. Run the process101 script in the background.

4. In the right terminal shell, observe the top display. Note the process ID (PID) and view the CPU percentage that the process101 process uses. The CPU percentage that the process uses should hover around 10% to 15%. Toggle the top utility display between load, threads, and memory. Return to the CPU usage display of the top utility.

5. Turn off the use of bold in the display. Save this configuration for reuse when top is restarted. Confirm that the changes are saved.

6. Copy the process101 script to a new process102 file, and increase the artificial CPU load to one hundred thousand in the new script. Start the process102 process in the background.

7. In the right terminal shell, verify that the process102 is running and uses the most CPU resources. The load should hover between 25% and 35%.

8. Notice that the load average is below 1. Copy the process101 script to a new script called process103. Increase the addition count to eight hundred thousand. Start process103 in the background. Confirm that the load average is above 1. It may take a few minutes for the load average to change.

9. In the left terminal shell, switch to the root user. Suspend the process101 process. List the remaining jobs. Observe that the process state for process101 is now in the T state.

10. Resume the process101 process.

11. Terminate process101, process102, and process103 from the command line. Verify that the processes are no longer displayed in top.

12. Stop processes and return to the workstation machine.

Instructions

1. Use the ssh command to log in to the serverb machine as the student user. On the serverb machine, start the psacct service.

2. Configure the psacct service to start at system boot.

3. Stop the rsyslog service.

4. Configure the rsyslog service so that it does not start at system boot.

5. Reboot the serverb machine before evaluating the lab.

Instructions

1. From the workstation machine, log in to the servera machine as the student user.

2. Switch to the production1 user on the servera machine. Enter redhat as the password.

3. Generate passphrase-less SSH keys for the production1 user on the servera machine.

4. Send the public key of the SSH key pair to the production1 user on the serverb machine.

5. Verify that the production1 user can successfully log in to the serverb machine with the SSH keys.

6. Configure the sshd service on serverb to prevent users from logging in as the root user. Use redhat as the root password.

7. Configure the sshd service on the serverb machine to allow users to authenticate with SSH keys only, rather than with their passwords.

Instructions

1. Log in to the serverb machine as the student user.

2. Pretend that the serverb machine is relocated to Jamaica and that you must update the time zone. Verify that you correctly set the appropriate time zone.

3. View the recorded log events in the previous 30 minutes on the serverb machine.

4. Create the /etc/rsyslog.d/auth-errors.conf file. Configure the rsyslog service to write authentication and security messages to the /var/log/auth-errors file. Use the authpriv facility and the alert priority.

Instructions

1. Log in to the serverb machine as the student user. Switch to the root user.

2. Create a connection with a static network configuration by using the settings in the table:

   Parameter	Setting
   Connection name	lab
   Interface name	enX (might vary; use the interface with 52:54:00:00:fa:0b as its MAC address)
   IP address	172.25.250.11/24
   Gateway address	172.25.250.254
   DNS address	172.25.250.254

3. Configure the new connection to start automatically. Other connections should not start automatically.

4. Modify the new connection so that it also uses the IP address 10.0.1.1/24.

5. Configure the hosts file so that you can reference the 10.0.1.1 IP address with the private name.

6. Reboot the system.

7. Verify that the serverb machine is initialized.

Instructions

1. On serverb, synchronize the /etc directory tree from servera to the /configsync directory.

2. Create a configfile-backup-servera.tar.gz archive with the /configsync directory contents.

3. Securely copy the /root/configfile-backup-servera.tar.gz archive file from serverb to the /home/student directory on workstation.

4. On workstation, extract the contents to the /tmp/savedconfig/ directory.

Instructions

1. On the serverb machine, configure a software repository to obtain updates. Name the repository errata and configure the repository in the /etc/yum.repos.d/errata.repo file. Configure the errata.repo file to use the http://content.example.com/rhel9.0/x86_64/rhcsa-practice/errata repository. Do not check GPG signatures.

2. On serverb, install the rht-system package.

3. For security reasons, the serverb machine must not be able to connect to a paper printer. You can achieve this effect by removing the cups package. When finished, exit from the root shell.

4. The start script downloads the rhcsa-script-1.0.0-1.noarch.rpm package in the /home/student directory on the serverb machine.

5. Confirm that the rhcsa-script-1.0.0-1.noarch.rpm package is available on serverb and install it using root privileges. Verify that the package is installed.

6. Exit from the serverb machine.

Instructions

1. On the serverb machine as the root user, identify the UUID for the /dev/vdb1 device, and mount it by using its UUID on the /mnt/freespace directory.

2. Generate a disk usage report for the /usr/share directory. Save the result in the /mnt/freespace/results.txt file.

3. Find all rsyslog.conf configuration files and store the result in the /mnt/freespace/search1.txt file.

4. Store the search result of all files in the /usr/share directory that are greater than 50 MB and less than 100 MB in the /mnt/freespace/search2.txt file.

5. Return to the workstation system as the student user.

---

Instructions

1. Create the /home/student/bin/bash-lab script file on the workstation machine. The initial content in the script will be the shebang interpreter directive.

2. Edit your newly created script file to comply with the following requested information from the servera and serverb hosts. The systems use SSH keys for authentication, and therefore you do not require a password.

   Command or file	Content requested
   hostname -f	Get all the output.
   echo "#####"	Get all the output.
   lscpu	Get only the lines that start with the string CPU.
   echo "#####"	Get all the output.
   /etc/selinux/config	Ignore empty lines. Ignore lines starting with #.
   echo "#####"	Get all the output.
   /var/log/secure	Get all "Failed password" entries.
   echo "#####"	Get all the output.

   Save the required information to the output-servera and output-serverb files in the /home/student directory on workstation.

   Note: You can use the sudo command without requiring a password on the servera and serverb hosts. Remember to use a loop to simplify your script. You can also use multiple grep commands that are concatenated with the use of the pipe character (|).

3. Execute the /home/student/bin/bash-lab script, and review the output content on workstation.

Instructions

1. Change the current tuning profile for the serverb machine to the balanced profile, a general non-specialized tuned profile. List the information for the balanced tuning profile when it is the current tuning profile.

2. Two processes on serverb are consuming a high percentage of CPU usage. Adjust each process's nice level to 10 to allow more CPU time for other processes.

Instructions

1. Log in to the serverb machine as the student user and switch to the root user.

2. From a web browser on the workstation machine, view the http://serverb/lab.html web page. You see the error message: "You do not have permission to access this resource."

3. Research and identify the SELinux issue that prevents the Apache service from serving web content.

4. Display the SELinux context of the new HTTP document directory and the original HTTP document directory.

5. Resolve the SELinux issue that prevents the Apache server from serving web content.

6. Verify that the Apache server can now serve web content.

7. Return to the workstation machine as the student user.

Instructions

1. The serverb machine has several unused disks. On the first unused disk, create a 2 GB GPT backup partition. Because it is difficult to set an exact size, a size between 1.8 GB and 2.2 GB is acceptable.

2. Configure the backup partition to host an XFS file system.

3. Format the 2 GB backup partition with an XFS file system and persistently mount it to the /backup directory.

4. On the same disk, create two 512 MB GPT partitions called swap1 and swap2. A size between 460 MB and 564 MB is acceptable.

5. Configure the file-system types of the partitions to host swap spaces.

6. Initialize the two 512 MiB partitions as swap spaces and configure them to activate at boot.

7. Set the swap space on the swap2 partition to be preferred over the other.

8. To verify your work, reboot the serverb machine. Confirm that the system automatically mounts the first partition onto the /backup directory. Also, confirm that the system activates the two swap spaces.

Instructions

On the serverb machine, the serverb_01_lv logical volume mounted on the /storage/data1 directory is running out of disk space and needs to be extended to 768 MiB. You must ensure that the serverb_01_lv LV remains persistently mounted on the /storage/data1 directory.

The serverb_01_lv LV is present on the serverb_01_vg volume group. Unfortunately, it has insufficient space to extend the existing logical volume. A 512 MiB partition exists on the /dev/vdb disk.

1. Create a 512 MiB partition on the /dev/vdb disk. Initialize this partition as a physical volume, and extend the serverb_01_vg volume group to use this partition.

2. Extend the serverb_01_lv logical volume to 768 MiB.

3. In the existing volume group, create the new serverb_02_lv logical volume with 128 MiB. Add an XFS file system and mount it persistently on the /storage/data2 directory.

4. Verify that the newly created LV is mounted with the desired size.

Instructions

An IT support company uses a central server, serverb, to host some exported directories on /shares for their groups and users. Users must be able to log in and have their exported directories mounted on demand and ready to use, under the /remote directory on servera.

Environment Characteristics:

• The serverb machine is sharing the /shares directory, which in turn contains the management, production, and operation subdirectories.

• The managers group consists of the manager1 and manager2 users. They have read and write access to the /shares/management exported directory.

• The production group consists of the dbuser1 and sysadmin1 users. They have read and write access to the /shares/production exported directory.

• The operators group consists of the contractor1 and consultant1 users. They have read and write access to the /shares/operation exported directory.

• The main mount point for servera is the /remote directory.

• Use the /etc/auto.master.d/shares.autofs file as the master map file and the /etc/auto.shares file as the indirect map file.

• The /shares/management exported directory is automounted on /remote/management on servera.

• The /shares/production exported directory is automounted on /remote/production on servera.

• The /shares/operation exported directory is automounted on /remote/operation on servera.

• All user passwords are set to redhat.

1. Log in to servera and install the required packages.

2. Configure an automounter indirect map on servera with exports from serverb. Create an indirect map with files that are named /etc/auto.master.d/shares.autofs for the master map and /etc/auto.shares for the mapping file. Use the /remote directory as the main mount point on servera. Reboot servera to determine whether the autofs service starts automatically.

3. Test the autofs configuration with the various users. When done, log out from servera.

Instructions

1. On the serverb machine, reset the password to redhat for the root user.

2. Locate the icon for the serverb machine console as appropriate for your classroom environment, then open the console.

3. In the boot-loader menu, select the default kernel boot-loader entry. The system fails to boot because a start job does not complete successfully. Fix the issue from the console of the serverb machine.

4. Change the default systemd target on the serverb machine for the system to automatically start a graphical interface when it boots.

5. No graphical interface is installed on the serverb machine. Only set the default target for this exercise and do not install the packages.

Instructions

Your company has decided to run a new web app. This application listens on ports 80/TCP and 1001/TCP. You should also make available port 22/TCP for SSH access. All changes you make should persist across a reboot.

Important: Red Hat Online Learning environment needs port 5900/TCP to remain available to use the graphical interface. This port is also known under the vnc-server service. If you accidentally lock yourself out from the serverb machine, you can either attempt to recover by using the ssh command to your serverb machine from your workstation machine, or reset your serverb machine. If you elect to reset your serverb machine, you should run the setup scripts for this lab again. The configuration on your machines already includes a custom zone called ROL that opens these ports.

1. From the workstation machine, test access to the default web server at http://serverb.lab.example.com and to the virtual host at http://serverb.lab.example.com:1001.

2. Log in to the serverb machine to determine what is preventing access to the web servers.

3. Configure SELinux to allow the httpd service to listen on port 1001/TCP.

4. From workstation, test again access to the default web server at http://serverb.lab.example.com and to the virtual host at http://serverb.lab.example.com:1001.

5. Log in to the serverb machine to determine whether the correct ports are assigned to the firewall.

6. Add port 1001/TCP to the permanent configuration for the public network zone. Confirm your configuration.

7. From workstation, confirm that the default web server at serverb.lab.example.com and the virtual host at serverb.lab.example.com:1001 returns SERVER VHOST 1.

Instructions

Prepare a kickstart file on the serverb machine as specified and make it available at the http://serverb.lab.example.com/ks-config/kickstart.cfg address.

1. On the serverb machine, copy the /root/anaconda-ks.cfg kickstart file to the /home/student/kickstart.cfg kickstart file for making it editable for the student user.

2. Make changes to the /home/student/kickstart.cfg kickstart file:

   • Comment out the reboot command.

   • Modify the repo command for the BaseOS and AppStream repositories. Modify the repo command for the BaseOS repository to use the http://classroom.example.com/content/rhel9.0/x86_64/dvd/BaseOS/ address. Modify the repo command for the AppStream repository to use the http://classroom.example.com/content/rhel9.0/x86_64/dvd/AppStream/ address.

   • Change the url command to use http://classroom.example.com/content/rhel9.0/x86_64/dvd/ as the installation source.

   • Comment out the network command.

   • Change the rootpw command to set redhat as the root user password.

   • Modify the authselect command to set the sssd service as the identity and authentication source.

   • Modify the services command to disable the kdump and rhsmcertd services and enable the sshd, rngd, and chronyd services.

   • Delete the part commands and add the autopart command.

3. Simplify the %post section so that it only runs a script to append the text Kickstarted on DATE at the end of the /etc/issue file. Use the date command to insert the date with no additional options.

4. Simplify the %package section as follows: include the @core, chrony, dracut-config-generic, dracut-norescue, firewalld, grub2, kernel, rsync, tar, and httpd packages. Ensure that the plymouth package does not install.

5. Validate the syntax of the kickstart.cfg kickstart file.

6. Make the /home/student/kickstart.cfg file available at the http://serverb.lab.example.com/ks-config/kickstart.cfg address.

Instructions

1. On serverb, install the container tools package.

2. The container image registry at registry.lab.example.com stores the rhel8/mariadb-103 image with several tags. Use the podsvc user to list the available tags and note the tag with the lowest version number. Use the admin user and redhat321 password to authenticate to the registry. Use the /tmp/registries.conf file as a template for the registry configuration.

3. As the podsvc user, create the /home/podsvc/db_data directory. Configure the directory so that containers have read/write access.

4. Create the inventorydb detached container. Use the rhel8/mariadb-103 image from the registry.lab.example.com registry, and specify the tag with the lowest version number on that image, which you found in a preceding step.

   • Map port 3306 in the container to port 13306 on the host.

   • Mount the /home/podsvc/db_data directory on the host as /var/lib/mysql/data in the container.

   • Declare the following variable values for the container:

     Variable	Value
     MYSQL_USER	operator1
     MYSQL_PASSWORD	redhat
     MYSQL_DATABASE	inventory
     MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD	redhat

   • You can copy and paste these parameters from the /home/podsvc/containers-review/variables file on serverb.

   • Execute the /home/podsvc/containers-review/testdb.sh script to confirm that the MariaDB database is running.

5. Configure the systemd daemon so that the inventorydb container starts automatically when the system boots.