Chapter 6. System Administration for Servers
Although the popularity of Linux on the desktop is growing, it is as a server platform that Linux has its most firmly established market niche. The flexibility and openness of Linux, its relatively small hardware footprint, its good reputation for security, and its extensive support for a wide variety of network services make it a popular server platform. Of course, the fact that it’s free helps, too!
This chapter discusses the “infrastructure” for a Linux server. It will examine the mechanics of service startup; the management of disk space through the use of partitions and logical volumes; the importance of logging, tools for monitoring system activity, load, and performance; and some network configuration and debugging issues. Chapter 7 continues the story by discussing key application-level services in detail.
In some sense, this chapter marks a transition into a more professional view of Linux. However, I hope that the enthusiastic desktop user will also find useful information here.
Control Boot-Time Service Startup
Chapter 2 examined
the early stages of the boot process, but left the story at the point
where the kernel was up and running and had launched a program called
init. This lab picks up the story at that point, showing how to
determine which services are started by init at boot time.
How Do I Do That?
Central to the operation of init is the concept of a
runlevel. The runlevel determines which services should be running. The ...
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