Preface

• Who this book is for
• What this book covers
• To get the most out of this book
• Share your thoughts

1. Deploying Ubuntu Server

• Technical requirements
• Determining your server’s role
• Choosing a device for our server
• Obtaining installation media
• Creating a bootable flash drive
• Installing Ubuntu Server
• Installing Ubuntu on a Raspberry Pi
• Summary
• Relevant tutorials

2. Managing Users and Permissions FREE CHAPTER

• Understanding the purpose of users and groups
• Understanding when to use root
• Creating and removing users
• Understanding the /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files
• Distributing default configuration files with /etc/skel
• Switching users
• Managing groups
• Managing passwords and password policies
• Configuring administrator access with sudo
• Setting permissions on files and directories
• Summary
• Relevant videos
• Further reading

3. Managing Software Packages

• Understanding Linux package management
• Understanding the differences between Debian and Snap packages
• Installing and removing software
• Searching for packages
• Managing package repositories
• Backing up and restoring Debian packages
• Cleaning up orphaned apt packages
• Taking advantage of hardware enablement updates
• Summary
• Relevant video
• Further reading

4. Navigating and Essential Commands

• Learning essential Linux commands
• Understanding the Linux filesystem layout
• Viewing the contents of files
• Viewing application log files
• Summary
• Relevant video
• Further reading

5. Managing Files and Directories

• Copying, moving, and renaming files and directories
• Editing files with the Nano and Vim text editors
• Input and output streams
• Using symbolic and hard links
• Summary
• Relevant videos

6. Boosting Your Command-line Efficiency

• Understanding the Linux shell
• Understanding Bash history
• Learning some useful command-line tricks
• Understanding variables
• Writing simple scripts
• Putting it all together – Writing an rsync backup script
• Summary
• Relevant videos
• Further reading

7. Controlling and Managing Processes

• Managing jobs
• Understanding the ps command
• Changing the priority of processes
• Dealing with misbehaving processes
• Managing system processes
• Scheduling tasks with cron
• Summary
• Relevant videos
• Further reading

8. Monitoring System Resources

• Viewing disk usage
• Monitoring memory usage
• Understanding load average
• Viewing resource usage with htop
• Summary
• Relevant videos
• Further reading

9. Managing Storage Volumes

• Adding additional storage volumes
• Formatting and partitioning storage devices
• Mounting and unmounting volumes
• Understanding the /etc/fstab file
• Backing up and restoring volumes
• Utilizing LVM
• Summary
• Relevant videos
• Further reading

10. Connecting to Networks

• Setting the hostname
• Managing network interfaces
• Assigning static IP addresses
• Understanding Linux name resolution
• Getting started with OpenSSH
• Getting started with SSH key management
• Simplifying SSH connections with a config file
• Summary
• Relevant videos
• Further reading

11. Setting Up Network Services

• Planning your IP address scheme
• Setting up a DHCP server for serving IP addresses
• Adding a DNS server
• Setting up an internet gateway
• Summary
• Further reading

12. Sharing and Transferring Files

• File server considerations
• Sharing files with Windows users via Samba
• Setting up NFS shares
• Transferring files with rsync
• Transferring files with SCP
• Summary
• Relevant videos
• Further reading

13. Managing Databases

• Preparations for setting up a database server
• Installing MariaDB
• Understanding the MariaDB configuration files
• Managing MariaDB databases
• Setting up a secondary database server
• Summary
• Further reading

14. Serving Web Content

• Installing and configuring Apache
• Installing additional Apache modules
• Securing Apache with TLS
• Installing and configuring NGINX
• Setting up and configuring Nextcloud
• Summary
• Relevant videos
• Further reading

15. Automating Server Configuration with Ansible

• Understanding the need for configuration management
• Why Ansible?
• Creating a Git repository
• Getting started with Ansible
• Making your servers do your bidding
• Putting it all together – automating web server deployment
• Using Ansible’s pull method
• Summary
• Relevant videos
• Further reading

16. Virtualization

• Prerequisites and considerations
• Setting up a virtual machine server
• Creating virtual machines
• Bridging the virtual machine network
• Simplifying virtual machine creation with cloning
• Managing virtual machines via the command line
• Summary
• Relevant video
• Further reading

17. Running Containers

• What is containerization?
• Understanding the differences between Docker and LXD
• Installing Docker
• Managing Docker containers
• Automating Docker image creation with Dockerfiles
• Managing LXD containers
• Summary
• Relevant videos
• Further reading

18. Container Orchestration

• Container orchestration
• Preparing a lab environment for Kubernetes testing
• Utilizing MicroK8s
• Setting up a Kubernetes cluster
• Deploying containers via Kubernetes
• Summary
• Relevant videos
• Further reading

19. Deploying Ubuntu in the Cloud

• Understanding the difference between on-premises and cloud infrastructure
• Important considerations when considering cloud computing as a potential solution
• Becoming familiar with some basic AWS concepts
• Creating an AWS account
• Choosing a region
• Deploying Ubuntu as an AWS EC2 instance
• Creating and deploying Ubuntu AMIs
• Automatically scaling Ubuntu EC2 deployments with Auto Scaling
• Keeping costs down: understanding how to save money and make cost-effective decisions
• Taking the cloud further: additional resources to grow your knowledge
• Summary
• Further reading

20. Automating Cloud Deployments with Terraform

• Why it’s important to automate your infrastructure
• Introduction to Terraform and how it can fit within your workflow
• Installing Terraform
• Automating an EC2 instance deployment
• Managing security groups with Terraform
• Using Terraform to destroy unused resources
• Combining Ansible with Terraform for a full deployment solution
• Summary

21. Securing Your Server

• Lowering your attack surface
• Understanding and responding to CVEs
• Installing security updates
• Automatically installing patches with the Canonical Livepatch service
• Securing OpenSSH
• Installing and configuring Fail2ban
• MariaDB best practices for secure database servers
• Setting up a firewall
• Encrypting and decrypting disks with LUKS
• Locking down sudo
• Summary
• Further reading

22. Troubleshooting Ubuntu Servers

• Evaluating the scope
• Conducting a root cause analysis
• Viewing system logs
• Tracing network issues
• Troubleshooting resource issues
• Diagnosing defective RAM
• Summary
• Further reading

23. Preventing Disasters

• Preventing disasters
• Utilizing Git for configuration management
• Implementing a backup plan
• Utilizing bootable recovery media
• Summary
• Further reading

24. Other Books You May Enjoy

25. Index