Topic 712: Storage Devices and BSD Filesystems

712.1 BSD Partitioning and Disk Labels (weight: 2)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand the concepts of disk slice tables and disk labels.
• View, create, or edit the disk slice table, master boot record, or disk label.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • fdisk
  • disklabel
• OpenBSD:
  • installboot

712.2 Create File Systems and Maintain their Integrity (weight: 1)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Create UFS and ZFS file systems.
• Determine disk space usage and available space.
• Check the consistency of a UFS filesystem or health of a ZFS pool.
• Awareness of ZFS snapshots.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • newfs
  • fsck
  • du
  • df
• FreeBSD:
  • zpool
• NetBSD:
  • zpool

712.3 Control Mounting and Unmounting of File Systems (weight: 2)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Determine which local file systems are currently mounted.
• Mount and unmount UFS or ZFS file systems.
• Configure which file systems are mounted at boot time.
• Resolve mount errors.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • mount
  • umount
  • /etc/fstab
  • df
• FreeBSD
  • zfs
• NetBSD
  • zfs

712.4 Manage File Permissions and Ownership (weight: 3)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand traditional Unix permissions.
• View and modify permissions using both symbolic and octal mode.
• Understand and use the SUID bit, SGID bit, and sticky bit.
• Set the default file and directory permissions.
• View and modify ownership of files and directories.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • chown
  • chgrp
  • ls
  • chmod
  • umask

712.5 Create and Change Hard and Symbolic Links (weight: 1)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand the difference between symbolic and hard links.
• Create, view, and remove both types of links.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • ln
  • ls
  • rm(1)

712.6 Find Files and BSD Directory Layout (weight: 2)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand the directory layout used by BSD systems.
• Know which utilities can be used to find binaries, source, manpages, and files.
• Update the locate database.
• Use find to locate files, including using search criteria such as last modification time, size, type, file flags, UID or GID, permissions, or by a text pattern.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • whatis
  • whereis
  • which
  • locate
  • locate.updatedb
  • find
  • hier(7)

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Topic 713: Basic BSD System Administration

713.1 Manage User Accounts and Groups (weight: 3)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Create, modify, and remove user and system accounts as well as groups.
• Manage group membership.
• Lock and unlock accounts.
• Change user passwords.
• Change a user’s properties, such as the default shell.
• Control which files are copied to a new user’s home directory during account creation.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • adduser
  • passwd
  • chpass
  • chfn
  • chsh
  • vipw
  • nologin
  • id
  • groups
  • who
  • whoami
  • su(1)
  • /usr/share/skel/
• FreeBSD:
  • pw
  • rmuser
• NetBSD:
  • user
  • useradd
  • userinfo
  • usermod
  • userdel
• OpenBSD:
  • user
  • useradd
  • userinfo
  • usermod
  • userdel
  • rmuser

713.2 Automate System Administration Tasks by Scheduling Jobs (weight: 2)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand the periodic system scripts.
• Configure which periodic system scripts are run daily, weekly and monthly.
• Manually run a periodic system script.
• Understand the difference between the system crontab and user crontabs, including all available fields.
• Use the crontab editor to create or edit a user crontab.
• Control which users can create their own crontabs.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • crontab
  • cron
  • crontab
  • /var/cron/allow
  • /var/cron/deny
• FreeBSD:
  • /etc/defaults/periodic.conf
  • periodic
• NetBSD:
  • /etc/daily.conf
  • /etc/weekly.conf
  • /etc/monthly.conf
  • /etc/security.conf
• OpenBSD:
  • daily
  • weekly
  • monthly

713.3 Maintain System Time (weight: 1)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand the concepts of NTP.
• Configure NTP and manually synchronize with a time server.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • ntpd
  • /etc/rc.conf
  • date
• FreeBSD:
  • /etc/ntp.conf
  • ntpq
• NetBSD:
  • /etc/ntp.conf
  • ntpq
• OpenBSD:
  • /etc/ntpd.conf

713.4 System Logging (weight: 2)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand system logging and location of log files.
• View log files, including ongoing and compressed logs.
• Configure log rotation by either time or size.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • newsyslog
  • /etc/newsyslog.conf
  • /etc/syslog.conf
  • tail
  • grep
  • zgrep
  • zless
  • zmore
  • dmesg
• FreeBSD:
  • bzcat
• NetBSD:
  • bzcat

713.5 Mail Transfer Agents (MTA) Basics (weight: 1)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand the role of a Mail Transfer Agent (MTA).
• Determine which MTA is used on the system.
• Create an email alias for both Sendmail and Postfix.
• Configure Sendmail and Postfix to use a relay for outgoing mail.
• View and flush the mail queue.
• Understand the difference between the mbox and maildir mail destination file format type.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • /etc/mail/aliases
  • newaliases
• FreeBSD:
  • /etc/mail/mailer.conf
  • mailq
• NetBSD:
  • /etc/mailer.conf
  • postalias
  • mailq
  • postqueue
• OpenBSD:
  • /etc/mailer.conf
  • smtpctl

713.6 Manage Printing and Print Jobs (weight: 1)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand the BSD lpr printing system.
• Understand the meaning of /etc/printcap entries.
• View the print queue and manipulate the jobs within the queue.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • lpc
  • lpq
  • lprm
  • printcap

713.7 Manage User Sessions (weight: 1)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Determine who is currently on the system.
• Determine the last time a user was on the system.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • w
  • who
  • last
  • users
• FreeBSD:
  • lastlogin
• NetBSD:
  • lastlogin
  • /var/log/lastlog
• OpenBSD:
  • /var/log/lastlog

Topic 714: Basic BSD Network Administration

714.1 Fundamentals of Internet Protocols (weight: 2)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand IPv4 addressing and subnetting.
• Understand basic IPv6 addressing and subnetting.
• Convert a subnet mask between dotted decimal, hexadecimal, or CIDR notation.
• Determine valid host addresses as well as the subnet address and, for IPv4, the broadcast address of a given network.
• Understand the key features of TCP, UDP and ICMP.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • CIDR
  • Prefix and Interface Identifier

714.2 Basic network configuration (weight: 3)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Configure IP settings both temporarily and permanently.
• Demonstrate a basic understanding of DHCP leases.
• View the current DHCP lease, release it, and renew a lease.
• Configure a DHCP client to override the settings received from a DHCP server.
• Understand and configure interface aliases.
• Understand IPv6 auto configuration using SLAAC and DHCPv6.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • ifconfig
  • route
  • hostname
  • /etc/hosts
  • dhclient
  • /etc/dhclient.conf
  • /var/db/dhclient.leases
  • /etc/rc.conf
• NetBSD:
  • /etc/ifconfig.if
  • /etc/ifaliases
• OpenBSD:
  • netstart
  • /etc/hostname.if
  • /etc/myname
  • /etc/mygate

714.3 Basic network troubleshooting (weight: 3)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Determine the current IP configuration of a system.
• Troubleshoot IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity.
• Determine which TCP or UDP ports are open on a system.
• Verify the availability of a TCP/IP service.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • ifconfig
  • netstat
  • route
  • ping
  • ping6
  • traceroute
  • /etc/services
  • telnet
  • nmap
  • nc
• FreeBSD:
  • sockstat
  • rtsol
• NetBSD:
  • sockstat
  • rtsol
• OpenBSD:
  • /etc/hostname.if

714.4 Configure Client Side DNS (weight: 2)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand basic DNS theory, including types of resource records, reverse lookups, and types of DNS servers.
• Query a DNS server for a particular type of resource record.
• Configure name resolution, including the order of host name resolution and recursive DNS server.
• Troubleshoot DNS problems.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • host
  • hostname
  • /etc/resolv.conf
• FreeBSD:
  • drill
  • /etc/nsswitch.conf
• NetBSD:
  • dig
  • nslookup
  • /etc/nsswitch.conf
• OpenBSD:
  • dig
  • nslookup

Topic 715: Basic Unix Skills

715.1 Use the Shell and Work on the Command Line (weight: 2)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand the differences between the standard shells on BSD systems.
• Be comfortable using the sh, csh, or tcsh shells.
• View and modify environmental variables, both temporarily and permanently.
• Redirect input and output to/from files and commands.
• Use simple and advanced wildcard specifications in commands.
• Understand the manpage sections and use manpages.
• Modify shell behavior both temporarily and permanently, including preventing the shell from clobbering existing files and using history substitution.
• Set command aliases and temporarily bypass a command alias.
• Run a command multiple times with different arguments for each call.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • sh
  • csh
  • tcsh
  • <
  • >
  • |
  • >&
  • |&
  • tee
  • env
  • file globbing
  •  ?
  • *
  • man
  • intro
  • less
  •  !
  •  !!
  • $
  • xargs

715.2 Perform basic file management (weight: 3)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Copy, move, and remove files and directories.
• Recursively copy multiple files and directories.
• Remove files and directories recursively.
• Determine if a file is a binary, text, or data file.
• Using common Unix command line backup utilities.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • cp
  • mkdir
  • mv
  • ls
  • rm
  • rmdir
  • touch
  • dd
  • tar
  • cpio
  • pax
  • cp
  • file

715.3 Create, Monitor and Kill Processes (weight: 3)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Monitor the system’s workload over the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes.
• Monitor the virtual memory system, including monitoring swapping and paging activity.
• View active processes and recognize inordinate CPU usage.
• Understand the most commonly used Unix signals, including their names.
• Understand the difference between SIGTERM and SIGKILL.
• Send a signal to an active process.
• End a process or change its priority.
• Start a process in the background, place an existing process into the background, verify if any jobs are currently running in the background, and return a background process to the foreground.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • top
  • ps
  • pgrep
  • pstat
  • systat
  • nice
  • renice
  • kill
  • pkill
  • swapctl
  • uptime
  • w
  • vmstat
  • Shell built-in commands: &, ^Z, jobs, bg, fg, and kill
• FreeBSD:
  • killall

715.4 Use Simple Regular Expressions (weight: 2)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Match text patterns when analyzing program output or searching through files.
• Specify a range of characters within [], specify a literal, use a repetition operator, recognize a metacharacter, and create an inverse filter.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • grep
  • egrep
  • fgrep
  • re_format(7)

715.5 Perform basic file editing operations (weight: 2)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Edit files using the vi editor.
• Modify a read-only file or exit vi without saving any edits to the file.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • vi
  •  :w
  •  :wq
  •  :wq!
  •  :q!
  • Dd
  • Y
  • P
  • X
  • I
  • A
  • /
  • ZZ
  •  :set number
  •  :set list

715.6 Customize or write simple scripts (weight: 2)

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand the advantages and disadvantages of using a Bourne shell script rather than a csh or bash shell script.
• Understand the shebang, comments, and script permissions.
• Use positional parameters, special parameters, and wildcards.
• Use quotes and backslashes.
• Use conditions and loops.
• Troubleshoot a script.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Common:
  • chmod
  • stdin
  • stdout
  • stderr
  • for
  • while
  • if
  • case
  • exec