Learn basic Linux for data center jobs?

Shoe Box

In a few posts here and elsewhere, I have seen it referred to that people applying for enter level data center jobs should have "basic Linux skills", or "know basic Linux commands". Does anyone know of a link to a site where such a list exists?

Yes, I'm sure I can find Linux commands on google, but I'd like to hear from people with data center experience, to find out what is specifically important for those kinds of jobs. I am serious about getting a data center job, and due to the limited number of them in my area, I can't afford to go into any interviews unprepared.

networker050184

Start running linux on one of your machines and you'll get a feel for it. That's what I did. Ubuntu or Mint is fairly user friendly and a lot of info out there. Centos/Fedora based desktop systems are good as well as Centos/Redhat is widely used. Try to do as much as possible from the CLI.

Danielm7

https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-linux-linuxfoundationx-lfs101x-2

Codyy

You can probably learn 99% of commands you'll ever need for basic stuff in a week or so. Find one of those cheet sheets online and just learn from repetition.

v1ral

Navigating around linux comes in very handy. Most of the load balancers at my old job used a stripped down version of linux.

d4nz1g

If you really really want to learn linux at the intermediate/advanced level, I would suggest ArchLinux or Gentoo.

I used arch on my laptop for about a year, learned everything I needed; from managing basic network and services configuration to kernel compilation

DoubleNNs

At my data center job, a lot of the commands I was running were scripts, so couldn't be found in books. However, "The Linux Command Line" book was invaluable for me to get up to speed, and eventually begin writing my own scripts that others started using.

alias454

I started using Linux about 14 years ago (before it was cool). I have used so many distros I couldn't count them all. Anyone of the mainline distros can be a good place to start. IMHO start with a core or base distribution then learn the layers on top. Go with CentOS, Debian, or SUSE starting out. learn the ins and outs of each distro's package manager yum for CentOS (dnf on Fedora) apt on debian based systems. Realize Ubuntu and Mint are derivitives of Debian. Ubuntu builds from Debian and Mint builds on top of Ubuntu. CentOS is RedHat's (RHEL) source recompiled without RHEL Branding. Fedora is more or less RHEL testing. If you want to get an idea of what will go into RHEL use Fedora.

If you do go the route of Gentoo or Arch, be prepared to do a lot of reading. I agree running Gentoo or Arch forces you to understand much much more than a distro like Ubuntu (Slackware falls into this category as well). Distro's like Mint and Ubuntu are nice to use for beginners but take you away from the basics, which can skew your view of reality. Also don't forget about the BSD's -- netBSD and FreeBSD. The BSD's are much more UNIX like.

In short, get CentOS then when you feel comfortable Get Debian (or vice-versa) Learn how to use VI (it's an editor). Once you feel good about using both of those systems in a semi-productive way, install every distro you find that catches your eye until you find one that you like.

Regards

kohr-ah

Absolutely.

I would also recommend learning basic scripting in time as well be it via bash or python (I think this will help you more) as they will help for automating tasks.

Shoe Box

Fake it till you make it!

I will look at those Linux links people suggested, thanks.

d4nz1g

If you are also interested in learning python, take a look at this website Learn Python - Free Interactive Python Tutorial

BlackBeret

https://www.codecademy.com/courses/learn-the-command-line

Code Academy started a command line course, I can't open it at work so I have no idea if it's Linux or Windows, but either one will help you.

Danielm7

BlackBeret wrote: »

https://www.codecademy.com/courses/learn-the-command-line

Code Academy started a command line course, I can't open it at work so I have no idea if it's Linux or Windows, but either one will help you.

I just checked the course info for that one, it says:
This course is for unix-based systems such as Linux and Mac OS X

DoubleNNs

Danielm7 wrote: »

This course is for unix-based systems such as Linux and Mac OS X

Because Apple Macs are essentially running Unix. The basic commands carry across many platforms, such as Linux, BSD, AIX, OS X, Solaris, etc.

Edit: Nevermind - you were confirming that it wasn't a Windows CLI class.

Expect

Gentoo and Arch are an overkill for someone who just wants to learn basic Linux for a NOC/Datacenter technician job.

in my opinion, take one of the modern Linux distributions (CentOS is an awesome distribution to start with, and will be perfectly relevant in real life scenarios) and start digging on the following subjects:

1. Command line navigation (changing/listing/creating/removing/renaming files and folders)
2. Basic service administration (Stopping/Starting/Restarting daemons)
3. Basic process administration (Killing/running/Prioritizing services)
4. Basic monitoring (ps, top, netstat, iotop, iostat, vmstat commands)
5. File manipulation and filtering (sed, awk, grep)
and the list can go on and on, but you need the foundations built first.

once you learn this, you have pure linux basics skills that will be applicable for any NOC job, from here...the sky is the limit. Linux is a veeery wide topic..

Mow

BEGINNER'S GUIDE FOR LINUX - Start Learning Linux in Minutes

Xavor

Add to Expect to understand how to change the root password. Understand how to verify network settings and test connectivity.

It really depends on the scope of the job. If it's just rack and stack of equipment you'll may have to know how to do BIOS, hardware RAID and maintenance replacement, bus power systems, IPMI/DRAC/iLO configuration.

I second CentOS because you'll be comfortable with Red Hat configs.

ypark

I'm 3 weeks in at my first data center tech job and I am still pretty lost with Linux.
You'll want to learn how to ssh, navigate through directories, view logs, edit configs files (rarely), check running processes, kill/restart processes and work with a lot of network related commands. I am still pretty dang lost though.. really need to study harder.

kenrin

You will hate Wordpress. You will hate customers who think they are getting DDoS'd every 24 hours. You will hate customers who actually get DDoS'd.

Craziest thing is about half of the servers run ClamAV because people seem to get more viruses on Linux than they do on their home Windows computers. NAT is probably the internet's gift to stupid people.

Oh and don't forget those happy campers that try to run Windows 2012 on 4GB of RAM.

iBrokeIT

Linuxacademy.com is an amazing resource for almost anything Linux related.

Very cheap subscription, lab environment, CBT videos, quizes and certification discounts.

aderon

Just read The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction by William E. Shotts Jr. It's the perfect beginner's guide and is a quick read.

OctalDump

I am going to add http://www.linuxquestions.org/ to the list. They have tutorials, and used to have an introductory ebook which I can't find.

Linux+ courses and books are generally a good overview. You don't need to get the certification - and in a datacentre role the overlap between skills needed and what Linux+ covers is not great. Eg, you probably need some deep web server and bind/DNS knowledge, but won't often be rolling your own packages or in most cases even adding user accounts.

The trouble I found when trying to get started in Linux is how little training was available in the areas I wanted, eg shell scripting, python, web server, MySQL tuning etc. There's now better online offerings for those kinds of things, but good structured all round training is still not that common. I ended up doing a Linux+ type course in the end, which at least gave me enough to start teaching myself.

I am guessing that probably basic linux is going to mean a good grasp of file manipulation (mv, rm, mkdir, chmod, chown etc), some limited shell (bash) scripting, familiarity with file hierarchy standard (FHS, ie where files are likely to be), and basic package management (install, update, remove via yum/apt-get). This is the stuff I was doing most of day to day, and is a basic foundation for everything else.