The Debian Administrator's Handbook
Table of Contents
Preface
Foreword
1. The Debian Project
1.1. What Is Debian?
1.2. The Foundation Documents
1.3. The Inner Workings of the Debian Project
1.4. The Role of Distributions
1.5. Lifecycle of a Release
2. Presenting the Case Study
2.1. Fast Growing IT Needs
2.2. Master Plan
2.3. Why a GNU/Linux Distribution?
2.4. Why the Debian Distribution?
2.5. Why Debian Squeeze?
3. Analyzing the Existing Setup and Migrating
3.1. Coexistence in Heterogeneous Environments
3.2. How To Migrate
4. Installation
4.1. Installation Methods
4.2. Installing, Step by Step
4.3. After the First Boot
5. Packaging System: Tools and Fundamental Principles
5.1. Structure of a Binary Package
5.2. Package Meta-Information
5.3. Structure of a Source Package
5.4. Manipulating Packages with dpkg
5.5. Coexistence with Other Packaging Systems
6. Maintenance and Updates: The APT Tools
6.1. Filling in the sources.list File
6.2. aptitude and apt-get Commands
6.3. The apt-cache Command
6.4. Frontends: aptitude, synaptic
6.5. Checking Package Authenticity
6.6. Upgrading from One Stable Distribution to the Next
6.7. Keeping a System Up to Date
6.8. Automatic Upgrades
6.9. Searching for Packages
7. Solving Problems and Finding Relevant Information
7.1. Documentation Sources
7.2. Common Procedures
8. Basic Configuration: Network, Accounts, Printing...
8.1. Configuring the System for Another Language
8.2. Configuring the Network
8.3. Setting the Hostname and Configuring the Name Service
8.4. User and Group Databases
8.5. Creating Accounts
8.6. Shell Environment
8.7. Printer Configuration
8.8. Configuring the Bootloader
8.9. Other Configurations: Time Synchronization, Logs, Sharing Access...
8.10. Compiling a Kernel
8.11. Installing a Kernel
9. Unix Services
9.1. System Boot
9.2. Remote Login
9.3. Managing Rights
9.4. Administration Interfaces
9.5. syslog System Events
9.6. The inetd Super-Server
9.7. Scheduling Tasks with cron and atd
9.8. Scheduling Asynchronous Tasks: anacron
9.9. Quotas
9.10. Backup
9.11. Hot Plugging:
9.12. Power Management
9.13. Laptop Extension Cards: PCMCIA
10. Network Infrastructure
10.1. Gateway
10.2. Virtual Private Network
10.3. Quality of Service
10.4. Dynamic Routing
10.5. IPv6
10.6. Domain Name Servers (DNS)
10.7. DHCP
10.8. Network Diagnosis Tools
11. Network Services: Postfix, Apache, NFS, Samba, Squid, LDAP
11.1. Mail Server
11.2. Web Server (HTTP)
11.3. FTP File Server
11.4. NFS File Server
11.5. Setting Up Windows Shares with Samba
11.6. HTTP/FTP Proxy
11.7. LDAP Directory
12. Advanced Administration
12.1. RAID and LVM
12.2. Virtualization
12.3. Automated Installation
12.4. Monitoring
13. Workstation
13.1. Configuring the X11 Server
13.2. Customizing the Graphical Interface
13.3. Graphical Desktops
13.4. Tools
13.5. Emulating Windows: Wine
14. Security
14.1. Defining a Security Policy
14.2. Firewall or Packet Filtering
14.3. Supervision: Prevention, Detection, Deterrence
14.4. Introduction to SELinux
14.5. Other Security-Related Considerations
14.6. Dealing with a Compromised Machine
15. Creating a Debian Package
15.1. Rebuilding a Package from its Sources
15.2. Building your First Package
15.3. Creating a Package Repository for APT
15.4. Becoming a Package Maintainer
16. Conclusion: Debian's Future
16.1. Upcoming Developments
16.2. Debian's Future
16.3. Future of this Book
A. Derivative Distributions
A.1. Census and Cooperation
A.2. Ubuntu
A.3. Knoppix
A.4. Linux Mint
A.5. SimplyMEPIS
A.6. Aptosid (Formerly Sidux)
A.7. Damn Small Linux
A.8. And Many More
B. Short Remedial Course
B.1. Shell and Basic Commands
B.2. Organization of the Filesystem Hierarchy
B.3. Inner Workings of a Computer: the Different Layers Involved
B.4. Some Tasks Handled by the Kernel
B.5. The User Space
The Debian Administrator's Handbook
Debian Squeeze from Discovery to Mastery
Raphaël Hertzog
Roland Mas
Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Raphaël Hertzog
Copyright © 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Roland Mas
Copyright © 2012 Freexian SARL
ISBN: 979-10-91414-00-5 (paperback)
ISBN: 979-10-91414-01-2 (ebook)
This book is available under the terms of two licenses compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
Creative Commons License Notice: This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
→ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
GNU General Public License Notice: This book is free documentation: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
