Robert P. J. Day
2010-Sep-17 07:39 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
(note: i asked this a few days ago but it *appears* that that post was tossed due to getting excessive bounces from my account. so i'm posting it again, apologies if you're seeing it a second time.) over the next several weeks, i'm teaching some courses in RHEL admin but (unsurprisingly) i'll be using centos 5.5. it's a decently-written, 3rd party course, all the generic, standard admin topics but it does leave me about a 1/2 day to throw in any cool stuff i want to add. so, any recommendations for neat things that people here have done in the way of what can be added to or configured on a centos server system? the course covers all the standard topics -- installation, package management, service management, filesystem maintenance, that sort of thing. so i'm looking for bonus, neat stuff that others here do as a matter of course when putting together a centos system. logging utilities? intrusion detection? monitoring? anything that leaps to mind that i can use to fill up a few more hours. i'm already thinking of showing how to build and boot a new kernel. other ideas? thanks. rday -- =======================================================================Robert P. J. Day Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA Top-notch, inexpensive online Linux/OSS/kernel courses http://crashcourse.ca Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday ========================================================================
Frank Cox
2010-Sep-17 07:51 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
On Fri, 2010-09-17 at 03:39 -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:> other ideas?LTSP -- MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Melville Sask ~ http://www.melvilletheatre.com
Keith Roberts
2010-Sep-17 08:45 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
On Fri, 17 Sep 2010, Robert P. J. Day wrote:> To: CentOS discussion list <centos at centos.org> > From: Robert P. J. Day <rpjday at crashcourse.ca> > Subject: [CentOS] looking for cool, > post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system > > > (note: i asked this a few days ago but it *appears* that that post > was tossed due to getting excessive bounces from my account. so i'm > posting it again, apologies if you're seeing it a second time.) > > over the next several weeks, i'm teaching some courses in RHEL admin > but (unsurprisingly) i'll be using centos 5.5. it's a > decently-written, 3rd party course, all the generic, standard admin > topics but it does leave me about a 1/2 day to throw in any cool stuff > i want to add. > > so, any recommendations for neat things that people here have done > in the way of what can be added to or configured on a centos server > system? the course covers all the standard topics -- installation, > package management, service management, filesystem maintenance, that > sort of thing. so i'm looking for bonus, neat stuff that others here > do as a matter of course when putting together a centos system. > > logging utilities? intrusion detection? monitoring? anything that > leaps to mind that i can use to fill up a few more hours. i'm already > thinking of showing how to build and boot a new kernel. other ideas? > thanks.Hi Robert. That sounds interesting. You might like to checkout my Auto Linux Installer bash scripts. I wrote these to automate the installation of Fedora and now have a set configured to install CentOS 5.5 You may be able to enhance your course and add some more time to it by using some things from my ALI scripts? They are designed to install a fresh Fedora/CentOS/RHEL system, deal with automating service management, and configure the freshly installed system to use your saved configuration files - if there are any. http://www.karsites.net/centos/anyuser/auto-linux-installer.php I'm also 3/4 the way writing a tutorial on how to download and install the latest version of Eclipse 3.6.0 Helios for PHP programmers, on CentOS 5.5 I have it all working fine, but the howto is not completed yet. HTH Keith ----------------------------------------------------------------- Websites: http://www.karsites.net http://www.php-debuggers.net http://www.raised-from-the-dead.org.uk All email addresses are challenge-response protected with TMDA [http://tmda.net] -----------------------------------------------------------------
JohnS
2010-Sep-17 10:01 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
On Fri, 2010-09-17 at 03:39 -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:> over the next several weeks, i'm teaching some courses in RHEL admin > but (unsurprisingly) i'll be using centos 5.5. it's a > decently-written, 3rd party course, all the generic, standard admin > topics but it does leave me about a 1/2 day to throw in any cool stuff > i want to add.You should share some of the topics/courses here.> so, any recommendations for neat things that people here have done > in the way of what can be added to or configured on a centos server > system? the course covers all the standard topics -- installation, > package management, service management, filesystem maintenance, that > sort of thing. so i'm looking for bonus, neat stuff that others here > do as a matter of course when putting together a centos system.Serial over LAN or IPMI for the Fence Management on the machine. OOB Access.> logging utilities? intrusion detection? monitoring? anything that > leaps to mind that i can use to fill up a few more hours. i'm already > thinking of showing how to build and boot a new kernel. other ideas? > thanks.Explain how to set up auditd to enable full logging. John
John Doe
2010-Sep-17 10:12 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
From: Robert P. J. Day <rpjday at crashcourse.ca>> so, any recommendations for neat things that people here have done > in the way of what can be added to or configured on a centos server > system? the course covers all the standard topics -- installation, > package management, service management, filesystem maintenance, that > sort of thing. so i'm looking for bonus, neat stuff that others here > do as a matter of course when putting together a centos system.Random thoughts (maybe already in your standard topics): - kickstart (cd, usb, pxe) - local CentOS repository - drbd or some distributed fs - nfs / nis - ldap - samba - keepalived / ipvs - fail2ban - proxies (squid, nginx...) - monitoring (nagios, cacti...) - VM (KVM, Xen...) - quotas, acls - encrypted fs JD
Keith Roberts
2010-Sep-17 10:52 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
On Fri, 17 Sep 2010, Robert P. J. Day wrote:> To: CentOS discussion list <centos at centos.org> > From: Robert P. J. Day <rpjday at crashcourse.ca> > Subject: [CentOS] looking for cool, > post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system > > ... > > over the next several weeks, i'm teaching some courses in RHEL admin > but (unsurprisingly) i'll be using centos 5.5. it's a > decently-written, 3rd party course, all the generic, standard admin > topics but it does leave me about a 1/2 day to throw in any cool stuff > i want to add.Adding Multimedia capabilities Using SQLite3 from the command line Creating a Database Creating and populating a table Selecting, inserting, updating and deleting data in the database Remote login sessions using ssh -X Intro to nmap, nessus and Metasploit Intro to Firefox plugins, eg Firebug How to find and install other usefull FF plugins. Obviously the list is endless really. HTH Keith ----------------------------------------------------------------- Websites: http://www.karsites.net http://www.php-debuggers.net http://www.raised-from-the-dead.org.uk All email addresses are challenge-response protected with TMDA [http://tmda.net] -----------------------------------------------------------------
Natxo Asenjo
2010-Sep-17 12:13 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday at crashcourse.ca> wrote:> > > ?logging utilities? ?intrusion detection? ?monitoring? ?anything that > leaps to mind that i can use to fill up a few more hours. ?i'm already > thinking of showing how to build and boot a new kernel. ?other ideas? > thanks.sysadmins should now really know about configuration management tools. So show them how to bootstrap an infrastructure with kickstart and cfengine (or puppet or chef or ...) -- natxo
Les Mikesell
2010-Sep-17 12:41 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
On 9/17/10 2:39 AM, Robert P. J. Day wrote:> > (note: i asked this a few days ago but it *appears* that that post > was tossed due to getting excessive bounces from my account. so i'm > posting it again, apologies if you're seeing it a second time.) > > over the next several weeks, i'm teaching some courses in RHEL admin > but (unsurprisingly) i'll be using centos 5.5. it's a > decently-written, 3rd party course, all the generic, standard admin > topics but it does leave me about a 1/2 day to throw in any cool stuff > i want to add. > > so, any recommendations for neat things that people here have done > in the way of what can be added to or configured on a centos server > system? the course covers all the standard topics -- installation, > package management, service management, filesystem maintenance, that > sort of thing. so i'm looking for bonus, neat stuff that others here > do as a matter of course when putting together a centos system. > > logging utilities? intrusion detection? monitoring? anything that > leaps to mind that i can use to fill up a few more hours. i'm already > thinking of showing how to build and boot a new kernel. other ideas? > thanks.I'd consider the most valuable things to know about would be the nature of an assortment of 3rd party yum repositories (i.e. EPEL makes an effort not to overwrite core packages but probably won't have everything you want), how to find and install their *-release packages, how to use yum to search and install things from them, and that most of them should left disabled in the yum configuration so they don't affect things unless you explicitly enable them on the command line for a search or specific package you want. Oh - and how to install and use freenx/NX for remote access. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
andrew.hearn at aaisp.net.uk
2010-Sep-17 12:57 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
On 17/09/10 08:39, Robert P. J. Day wrote:> > (note: i asked this a few days ago but it *appears* that that post > was tossed due to getting excessive bounces from my account. so i'm > posting it again, apologies if you're seeing it a second time.) > > over the next several weeks, i'm teaching some courses in RHEL admin > but (unsurprisingly) i'll be using centos 5.5. it's a > decently-written, 3rd party course, all the generic, standard admin > topics but it does leave me about a 1/2 day to throw in any cool stuff > i want to add. > > so, any recommendations for neat things that people here have done > in the way of what can be added to or configured on a centos server > system? the course covers all the standard topics -- installation, > package management, service management, filesystem maintenance, that > sort of thing. so i'm looking for bonus, neat stuff that others here > do as a matter of course when putting together a centos system. > > logging utilities? intrusion detection? monitoring? anything that > leaps to mind that i can use to fill up a few more hours. i'm already > thinking of showing how to build and boot a new kernel. other ideas? > thanks.How about how to subscribe to the CentOS mailing list? ;-) A.
Eduardo Grosclaude
2010-Sep-17 13:03 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 4:39 AM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday at crashcourse.ca> wrote:> ?logging utilities? ?intrusion detection? ?monitoring? ?anything that > leaps to mind that i can use to fill up a few more hours. ?i'm already > thinking of showing how to build and boot a new kernel. ?other ideas? > thanks.If your students are new to RHEL/CentOS admin, they will appreciate some education regarding what and how to search into docs and other information sources: the Guides, CentOS community resources such as Forum, Wiki or this mailing list. Proper scripting abilities are perhaps beyond reach for a short course, but you could at least show off some one-liners or those short, stunningly useful examples to help them get the idea that they definitely should get their feet wet on it sooner or later. -- Eduardo Grosclaude Universidad Nacional del Comahue Neuquen, Argentina
Scott McClanahan
2010-Sep-17 13:32 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
On 09/17/2010 03:39 AM, Robert P. J. Day wrote:> (note: i asked this a few days ago but it *appears* that that post > was tossed due to getting excessive bounces from my account. so i'm > posting it again, apologies if you're seeing it a second time.) > > over the next several weeks, i'm teaching some courses in RHEL admin > but (unsurprisingly) i'll be using centos 5.5. it's a > decently-written, 3rd party course, all the generic, standard admin > topics but it does leave me about a 1/2 day to throw in any cool stuff > i want to add. > > so, any recommendations for neat things that people here have done > in the way of what can be added to or configured on a centos server > system? the course covers all the standard topics -- installation, > package management, service management, filesystem maintenance, that > sort of thing. so i'm looking for bonus, neat stuff that others here > do as a matter of course when putting together a centos system. > > logging utilities? intrusion detection? monitoring? anything that > leaps to mind that i can use to fill up a few more hours. i'm already > thinking of showing how to build and boot a new kernel. other ideas? > thanks. > > rday > >I've done quite a few things. Recently, I just run puppet and let it do EVERYTHING for whatever a system might need. But things I have done in the past are autodetect if the system is a vm and install vmware-tools, find the next ip address available in DNS for the particular subnet the newly installed system is in and dynamically update forward and reverse (including a helpful TXT record which fit a known convention), run yum update and reboot, and even create a qtree on netapp automatically. Just a quick few things.. I also do some stuff during pre installation like align the disk on proper boundaries and enable software raid according to the meta data associated with the system record in cobbler. Cobbler is nice as a subscription means to dynamically alter kickstart configs so I can add 'raid=5' as meta data for instance the the vm will build itself with raid5 (if it can of course). Same things applies to selinux, firewall, and other features that need to be enabled very early on and puppet just checks to make sure it's still true. I've moved away from doing stuff in post install and instead let puppet handle pretty much everything. API's are great for this.
Larry Vaden
2010-Sep-17 20:04 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 2:39 AM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday at crashcourse.ca> wrote:> > ?logging utilities? ?intrusion detection? ?monitoring? ?anything that > leaps to mind that i can use to fill up a few more hours. ?i'm already > thinking of showing how to build and boot a new kernel. ?other ideas? > thanks.Cacti, pmacct, pnrg ... kind regards/ldv
Ross Walker
2010-Sep-18 18:51 UTC
[CentOS] looking for cool, post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system
On Sep 17, 2010, at 3:39 AM, "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday at crashcourse.ca> wrote:> > (note: i asked this a few days ago but it *appears* that that post > was tossed due to getting excessive bounces from my account. so i'm > posting it again, apologies if you're seeing it a second time.) > > over the next several weeks, i'm teaching some courses in RHEL admin > but (unsurprisingly) i'll be using centos 5.5. it's a > decently-written, 3rd party course, all the generic, standard admin > topics but it does leave me about a 1/2 day to throw in any cool stuff > i want to add. > > so, any recommendations for neat things that people here have done > in the way of what can be added to or configured on a centos server > system? the course covers all the standard topics -- installation, > package management, service management, filesystem maintenance, that > sort of thing. so i'm looking for bonus, neat stuff that others here > do as a matter of course when putting together a centos system. > > logging utilities? intrusion detection? monitoring? anything that > leaps to mind that i can use to fill up a few more hours. i'm already > thinking of showing how to build and boot a new kernel. other ideas? > thanks.I haven't read the 80+ posts in entirety, so these might have been mentioned, but three ideas that could work: 1) RHEL for the security admin, where it goes in depth on hardening RHEL, intrusion detection and intrusion prevention. 2) RHEL for storage admins, software/hardware RAID, volume management and snapshots, NFS/CIFS network file systems, FCoE/iSCSI shared block devices. 3) RHEL for the network admin, firewalls, routers, bridges, traffic shaping, route load balancing, and network traffic monitoring. I think these can be expanded out some more, and while there might be some overlap they should be each more targeted then a broad course. -Ross
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