Reference no: EM132248591

Assessment item - Installing and Managing Linux

Task

The first assignment comprises of a number separate tasks, described as follows.

Part 1: Install Linux
The first step is to create the virtual machines in the hypervisor (VMWare Player or Virtualbox) and install the following two Linux distributors: Ubuntu Server 18.04.1. and Fedora Server 29

During the install process, you are to put /home and /var on separate partitions. Provide hostnames for the servers that include your student number, for example, name the Fedora Server Fedora-11666234.

You should not install a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) stack.

Once the operating systems are installed, you are to demonstrate connectivity to the Internet and more importantly update the operating system for each Linux server.

You are to document the steps and decisions taken to get the operating system installed on your virtual machine. Where you are required to make a decision you are to explain why. You must also provide screenshots showing your installation process and clearly highlight the decision you have made during installation.

These virtual Linux servers will be used in future assessment tasks, so make sure you do not delete them after this assessment task is completed.

Part 2: Profile the System

Once you have completed the install, write a script called current.sh which obtains a current snapshot of system. The script should run on both the Fedora and Ubuntu Linux servers.

1. show current processes running tcp and udp and clearly show the port number of each service

2. show the local or remote login in last 7 times

3. show current disk on all partitions, RAM, Swap, and CPU usage, include seven snapshots each second for the last seven seconds.

4. show the last 10 lines of the message log

This information should be collated, and a report produced called snapshot.txt. Each set of information should be proceeded by a header outlining what the information following relates to. It should be formatted properly and include dashed lines between each of the key information mentioned above.
You are to document the steps and decisions taken to get the operating system installed on your virtual machine. Where you are required to make a decision you are to explain why.

Part 3: Packages and Services
Install tools and utilities that already made by Ubuntu and Fedora distributors and using dnf (yum replacement) or apt installation services. You are required to install the following utilities for both Linux: cpuid, hwinfo, tree, and mc

Rationale
This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:
• be able to apply technical knowledge to manage servers.
• be able to investigate the layout of server file systems.
• be able to plan, create and manage information services.
• be able to design and write scripts to automate various server management tasks.
The assignment is to develop your understanding of how operating systems are installed and managed. In addition to this you will gain some insight into how a system administrator can automate workloads through the development of scripts.

Presentation

You should submit your assessment in a single word document which contains all components of your assignment. Use screenshots to provide evidence and details of the work you have done to complement your written answers. You should reference where appropriate using an approve referencing style to support your work.

Assessment item - File Systems and Advanced Scripting

Task

In this assignment, you will develop simple scripts to manage the user and file system whilst developing some expertise in managing a complex file system. For this assessment piece, you will utilize the virtual machines created in the previous assessment piece.

Part 1: Automated Account Management

You have been asked by your boss to prepare two shell scripts which manage user information:

1. You are to prepare a simple shell script which reads a text file called newusers.txt. The file is in the form allen student /home/allen Allen John jeff student /home/jeff Jeff Jackson brett staff /home/brett Brett Wildermoth anto staff /home/anto Antonio Buck and creates these users on the system without any interactive input by run script one time only. To do this you will need to use the adduser(1) and passwd(1) commands. You will need to randomly produce the password and report this to the administrator.

You can assume the fields being username, group, home directory and GCOS string are separated by a single white space.

The program should output the username, group, home directory, and generated password once created.

2. Management of users is important particularly an account to change the password in every 30 days. Write a shell (.sh) script that takes a single argument being a username, looks for the account in /etc/passwd, force the accounts above to change their password in every 30 days, and archives their home directory into a systemdate.tar.gz file. The script should also show a summary of the users usage in their home account. You will receive more marks if you avoid using the standard user management tools. systemdate should be yyyy-mm-dd-hhmm at the time of the script run.

Part 2: Practical File Systems
Create a user "assgn2' and in their home directory create the files with the following permissions [5 marks].
• A file called "test.txt", with contents "This is a test file", include your name and student number as well. Ensure you create the file with read and write permissions for owner, group and other, but no execute permissions.
• A file called "runme.sh" that runs a simple script of your choosing, with read and execute permissions for group and other, and full read, write and execute permissions for the owner. You can make the script echo something to the user.
• A hidden file called ".test_config", owned by root with contents "This is a test config file", that has root read, write and execute permissions only, no other permissions set.
• A symbolic link with an absolute path to a system log file of your choosing.
• A directory called "test_dir" with the owner having full permissions to create, rename or delete files in the directory, list files and enter the directory. Group and other having permissions to only list files and enter the directory and access files within it.

Part 3: Network File System using both Fedora and Ubuntu
In this task, you need set an NFS filesharing storage. Either Fedora or Ubuntu can act as a NFS server or client. The implementation should include installing NFS server and client, /etc/exports file configuration, mounting the shared folder from server to client NFS, and finally, any change to the client mounted folder should be visible on the server's shared folder.
Document the steps taken and clearly show the decisions you made in configuring the NFS service. Include a picture to clearly illustrate the relationship between the server and the client.

Part 4: File System Management with Scripts

Now that you have a plan for the storage there are a few housekeeping matters to take care of because users tend to be somewhat liberal with their storage.

1. Write a script to make sure that user home directories and files are owned and only accessible by the owner. The script should be run by root only.

2. Finally, write a script which takes as an argument the filesystem name e.g. /home and looks for objects which are larger than 15 MB and objects that are executable, then list all these files in a file called suspicious.txt and this file to be located in
/home/user_home_folder/dd-mm-yyyy.suspicious.txt. For instance, for user john
would have /home/john/13-01-2019.suspicious.txt
When these files are found a summary should be produced including where they are and the size.

Rationale
This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:
• be able to apply technical knowledge to manage servers.
• be able to investigate the layout of server file systems.
• be able to plan, create and manage information services.
• be able to design and write scripts to automate various server management tasks.
• be able to justify an appropriate protection strategy for data and services.
In this assignment you will develop simple scripts to manage the user and file system whilst developing some expertise in managing a complex file system.

Presentation

You should submit your assessment in a single word document which contains all components of your assignment. Use screenshots to provide evidence and details of the work you have done to complement your written answers. You should reference where appropriate using an approve referencing style to support your work.

Assessment item - Managing Services and Security

Task

Your job in this assignment is to create two Virtual machines each running a different but the latest distribution of Linux Ubuntu Server and Fedora Server. Each of these VM's is to offer services to a user base.

The Virtual Machines can be implemented using any hypervisor e.g. VMWare Player, Virtual Box or anything else you think is appropriate.

You can use bridged or host-only networking when setting up these Virtual Machines. When implementing the Virtual Machines, rather than obtaining an address from the Hypervisors DHCP server you should ensure the addresses used are static and assigned from your network. YOU WILL NEED TO WORK OUT WHAT ADDRESS SPACE YOU ARE USING AND HOW IT WILL IMPACT YOUR LAN.

Set up the ip addresses for your systems to include key digits of your student number. Let A represent the first digit of your student number down to H representing the last digit. This is explained in the table below.

Part 1: Virtual Machine One (Ubuntu) - DNS & SSH Server

The first Virtual Machine should be installed and have the BIND (DNS) server installed on it. While you do not own any address space/ namespace your name server should manage the following domains:

your_last_name.net.au

The name server should answer queries for this domain. In addition to the your_last_name.net.au zone, a zone should be set up for the reverse zone - the reverse zone would be whatever the address range is of your virtual machine. You should do some research on how Bind handles reverse zones.

You should set up the your_last_name.net.au zone with the usual information including SOA, NS and other records where appropriate. The address used for this should be the address of the virtual machine. You should give this Virtual Machine an A record with the name Ubuntu Linux. You should also create an A record for the Fedora system.

In addition to this, you should create a CNAME record with the name mysql. When a user does a lookup on mysql.your_last_name.net.au - the address returned should be that of the Fedora system.

Be sure to create the appropriate reverse (PTR) records for the machines and to help other administrators be sure to put in place appropriate TXT records.

Once complete, you should fine-tune your DNS Servers Virtual machine. Do this by disabling services that were installed but are not required. Be very careful not to break anything here. As a tip, you will want to keep both DNS, SSH, database and web services active. Ensure DNS, SSH, database and web services are invoked at startup.

Finally, harden the two Linux Servers using a firewall. Set up filters which allow access to the services DNS and web from anywhere, and restrict SSH and database to only your two Linux servers. You can assume this incoming traffic can come from anywhere. You will need to make sure these rules always take affect at boot.
Your resolve test result should able to query from any of your server.
Document the entire process and challenges you experienced. You can install BIND from source or using your package manager.

Part 2: Virtual Machine Two (Fedora) - Web and Database servers
Once complete set up this Virtual Machine to host a website using the Apache Web Server and database server using MySQL. Ensure PHP is enabled with Apache and database services and able to show proof from phpinfo().
The Virtual Machine should have a statically assigned address which matches that specified in the A record for host mysql. Test your Apache Server Virtual Machine by using a web browser on another host and trying to browse the website mysql.your_last_name.net.au.

Finally, harden this host so that only services being used can be accessed by other machines. You will need to use iptables for Fedora or ufw for Ubuntu.
Confirm that you can connect to both ssh and mysql from virtual machine one (Ubuntu). Document the entire process and challenges you experienced.

Part 3: Remote File Access
Provide two methods to transfer files to any of Linux server from remote. At least one is secured and another non-secure file transfer method.
Document the entire process and challenges you experienced.

Part 4: Simple Web Services
In Virtual Machine Two set up a web server for the DNS www.your_last_name.net.au. Make sure you create an appropriate CNAME in the DNS service on the Ubuntu Server. The web server on the Fedora system is implemented using the HTTP protocol listening on port 8888. Your challenge is to make the same site accessible using the HTTPS protocol. To do this set up SSL with a self-signed certificate for the site.
Once configured correctly you should be able to access www.your_last_name.net.au on both HTTP/HTTPS ports. Naturally, you will need to make appropriate changes to your firewall rules.
Document the entire process and challenges you experienced.

Rationale
This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:
• be able to apply technical knowledge to manage servers.
• be able to investigate the layout of server file systems.
• be able to plan, create and manage information services.
• be able to design and write scripts to automate various server management tasks.
• be able to justify an appropriate protection strategy for data and services.
• be able to critically evaluate security policies and procedures.
In this assignment students will develop a understanding and appreciation for building complex services whilst considering impacts on security.

Presentation
You should submit your assessment in a single word document which contains all components of your assignment. Use screenshots to provide evidence and details of the work you have done to complement your written answers. You should reference where appropriate using an approve referencing style to support your work.

Attachment:- Linux Server Administration.rar