System Admin Course

Lesson 1 • Virtualisation and Cloud Basics

Explains hypervisors, VMs, and containers as modern infrastructure building blocks. Prepares students to work in hybrid on-premises and cloud environments.

Lesson 2 • Server Hardware and Architecture

Covers physical and virtual server components: CPUs, RAM, storage, and NICs. Provides hardware literacy needed to size, troubleshoot, and procure systems.

Lesson 3 • Command-Line Interface Essentials

Teaches navigation, file manipulation, and basic scripting in Bash and PowerShell. CLI proficiency is prerequisite for all subsequent hands-on tasks.

Lesson 4 • The System Administrator Role

Defines sysadmin responsibilities across enterprise and SMB environments. Establishes professional expectations that frame every subsequent chapter.

Lesson 1 • Groups and Role-Based Access

Teaches group creation and role-based access control (RBAC) design. Reduces administrative overhead by assigning permissions to roles, not individuals.

Lesson 2 • Directory Services and LDAP

Introduces centralised identity stores using LDAP and Active Directory. Enables single-source user management across large environments.

Lesson 3 • Authentication Protocols and MFA

Covers Kerberos, NTLM, RADIUS, and multi-factor authentication methods. Strengthens identity verification beyond simple username-password pairs.

Lesson 4 • File and Directory Permissions

Explains Linux permission bits, ACLs, and Windows NTFS permissions. Students apply correct permission models to protect sensitive data.

Lesson 1 • TCP/IP and Subnetting

Builds fluency in IP addressing, subnet masks, and CIDR notation. Accurate subnetting underpins every network configuration task in later chapters.

Lesson 2 • Firewall and Packet Filtering

Introduces host-based firewalls using iptables, nftables, and Windows Firewall. Students write rules that allow legitimate traffic while blocking threats.

Lesson 3 • Network Interface Configuration

Teaches static and dynamic IP assignment on Linux and Windows servers. Correct interface configuration is foundational to server reachability.

Lesson 4 • DNS and DHCP Administration

Covers DNS zone management, record types, and DHCP scope configuration. These services underpin name resolution and automatic addressing across the network.

Lesson 1 • Logical Volume Management

Teaches LVM concepts: physical volumes, volume groups, and logical volumes. LVM enables flexible, online storage resizing without downtime.

Lesson 2 • RAID Levels and Redundancy

Explains software and hardware RAID configurations and their trade-offs. Students select appropriate RAID levels to balance performance and fault tolerance.

Lesson 3 • Disk Partitioning and Formatting

Covers MBR and GPT partition schemes and file system creation. Correct partitioning is the first step in any storage provisioning workflow.

Lesson 4 • Disk Quotas and Capacity Planning

Covers user and group disk quotas and storage growth forecasting. Prevents disk exhaustion that causes service outages.

Lesson 1 • Real-Time Monitoring Tools

Teaches top, htop, vmstat, iostat, and sar for live system observation. Real-time tools are the first line of response during performance incidents.

Lesson 2 • Log Management and Analysis

Covers syslog, journald, and Windows Event Log collection and analysis. Logs are the primary evidence source for troubleshooting and auditing.

Lesson 3 • Performance Metrics and Baselines

Defines key metrics for CPU, memory, disk, and network and establishes baselines. Baselines enable meaningful anomaly detection in later monitoring tasks.

Lesson 4 • Alerting and Monitoring Platforms

Introduces agent-based and agentless monitoring platforms and alert configuration. Automated alerts reduce mean time to detect (MTTD) for critical failures.

Lesson 1 • Restore Testing and Validation

Establishes restore testing cadences and validation checklists to confirm backup integrity. Untested backups provide false confidence and must be verified regularly.

Lesson 2 • Disaster Recovery Planning

Covers DR site types, failover procedures, and recovery runbooks. A tested DR plan is the difference between a recoverable and a catastrophic outage.

Lesson 3 • Snapshot and Image-Based Backups

Explains VM snapshots, disk images, and bare-metal backup approaches. Image-based backups enable rapid full-system recovery with minimal manual steps.

Lesson 4 • Backup Tools and Automation

Teaches rsync, tar, and enterprise backup agents for automated data protection. Automation eliminates human error and ensures consistent backup execution.

Lesson 1 • Host-Based Intrusion Detection

Introduces file integrity monitoring and host-based IDS tools. Detects unauthorised changes that perimeter controls may miss.

Lesson 2 • Security Baseline Configuration

Applies CIS Benchmark-style hardening to Linux and Windows servers. Baseline configuration is the first and most impactful layer of system defence.

Lesson 3 • Secrets and Certificate Management

Covers TLS certificate lifecycle, secrets vaults, and SSH key management. Proper secrets management prevents credential-based breaches.

Lesson 4 • Vulnerability Assessment

Teaches vulnerability scanning, CVE interpretation, and risk prioritisation. Assessment results drive the patching and remediation work in subsequent sections.

Lesson 1 • Version Control for Sysadmins

Teaches Git workflows for managing scripts, configs, and IaC code. Version control provides change history, collaboration, and rollback capability.

Lesson 2 • CI/CD Pipelines for Infrastructure

Applies continuous integration and delivery concepts to infrastructure code testing and deployment. Pipelines enforce quality gates before changes reach production.

Lesson 3 • Advanced Shell Scripting

Extends CLI skills into robust Bash and PowerShell scripts with error handling. Reliable scripts replace manual procedures and reduce human error.

Lesson 4 • Infrastructure as Code Principles

Covers IaC concepts using declarative templates to provision cloud and on-premises resources. IaC enables repeatable, version-controlled infrastructure deployments.