Red Hat Services Management and Automation

RH358

Welcome

Course Objectives and Structure

Schedule

Orientation to the Classroom Lab Environment

Internationalization

Chapter 1: Managing Network Services

Goal: Discuss and review the key tools and skills needed to manage network services.

Objectives:

• Discuss the goal of this course and review how to manage services.

• Review how to configure and manage network interfaces with NetworkManager and related tools.

• Automate configuration of services and network interfaces with Ansible.

Guided Exercise: Controlling Network Services

Guided Exercise: Configuring Network Interfaces

Guided Exercise: Automating Service and Network Interface Configuration

Lab: Managing Network Services

Summary

• Determine the status of system daemons and network services started by systemd.
• Start, stop, and enable services using systemctl.
• Configure IPv4 and IPv6 networking using nmcli.
• Use Ansible to configure network settings using the rhel-system-roles.network role.

Chapter 2: Configuring Link Aggregation

Goal: To configure and troubleshoot advanced network interface functionality, including teaming.

Objectives:

• Use network teaming to provide link redundancy or higher throughput.

• Manage a network team interface.

• Automate the creation and configuration of a network team with Ansible.

Guided Exercise: Configuring Network Teaming

Guided Exercise: Managing Network Teaming

Guided Exercise: Automating Network Teaming

Lab: Configuring Link Aggregation

Summary

• Define and activate network teams.
• Change the configuration of a network team.
• Change the runner used by a team interface.
• Troubleshoot a network team with teamnl and teamdctl.
• Automate the creation and configuration of network teams by using the rhel-system-roles.network Ansible Role and Ansible modules.

Chapter 3: Managing DNS and DNS Servers

Goal: Explain the operation of DNS service, troubleshoot DNS issues, and configure servers to act as a DNS caching name server or as an authoritative name server.

Objectives:

• Describe the basic operation of the DNS protocol, what domains and zones are, and some key DNS resource records.

• Configure a more secure caching name server using Unbound.

• Troubleshoot problems with DNS name resolution using standard command-line utilities.

• Configure authoritative DNS name servers using BIND 9.

• Automate the creation and configuration of a caching name server with Unbound and an authoritative name server with BIND 9.

Quiz: Describing the DNS Service

Guided Exercise: Configuring a Caching Name Server with Unbound

Guided Exercise: Troubleshooting DNS Issues

Guided Exercise: Configuring Authoritative Name Servers with BIND 9

Guided Exercise: Automating Name Server Configuration

Lab: Managing DNS for Servers

Summary

• Describe the operation of the Domain Name System (DNS) and its components.
• Define the resource records used to store data in DNS.
• Install an Unbound caching name server, usable by other clients in the organization.
• Install primary and secondary BIND authoritative name servers to provide information about your domains to external sources.
• Perform basic troubleshooting and maintenance of client name resolution, DNS servers, their zone data, and their caches.
• Automate deployment of name servers using Ansible Playbooks.

Chapter 4: Managing DHCP and IP Address Assignment

Goal: Explain and configure services used for IPv4 and IPv6 address assignment, including DHCP, DHCPv6, and SLAAC.

Objectives:

• Describe the operation of the DHCP protocol for IPv4, and configure a DHCP server to provide a pool of IPv4 addresses for DHCP clients, while providing reserved addresses to specific clients.

• Discuss the role of DHCPv6 in IPv6, compare it to other IPv6 network autoconfiguration techniques, and configure a DHCPv6 server.

• Automate the configuration of a DHCP server providing support for IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.

Guided Exercise: Configuring IPv4 Address Assignment with DHCP

Guided Exercise: Configuring IPv6 Address Assignment

Guided Exercise: Automating DHCP Configuration

Lab: Managing DHCP and IP Address Assignment

Summary

• The DHCP server must have an IP address in the subnet or prefix that it manages.
• The dhcp-server package provides both the DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 services.
• DHCPv4 uses the MAC address of the clients to assign fixed IPv4 addresses.
• DHCPv6 uses the DUID of the clients to assign fixed IPv6 addresses.
• On clients, set the ipv4.method or ipv6.method to auto for IPv4 or IPv6 autoconfiguration.

Chapter 5: Managing Printers and Printing Files

Goal: Configure systems to print to a network printer that supports IPP Everywhere, and manage existing printer queues.

Objectives:

• Create and manage a printer queue for a network printer, and use command-line tools to print files and manage printer queues.

• Automate network printer configuration using Ansible.

Guided Exercise: Configuring and Managing Printers

Guided Exercise: Automating Printer Configuration

Lab: Managing Printers and Printing Files

Summary

• Install and use the tools needed to discover IPP Everywhere networked printers.
• Install CUPS and use the lpadmin command to create and manage a print queue.
• Manage print jobs with the lp, lpstat, and cancel commands.
• Adjust print queue print job handling with the cupsenable, cupsdisable, cupsaccept, and cupsreject commands.
• Automate printer installation and administration with Ansible.

Chapter 6: Configuring Email Transmission

Goal: Discuss how mail servers operate, and configure a server to use system tools and Postfix to send email messages through an outbound mail relay.

Objectives:

• Configure a server to send all email through an outbound SMTP gateway.

• Automate the configuration of Postfix to send all outbound email through an SMTP gateway.

Guided Exercise: Configuring Send-only Email Service

Guided Exercise: Automating Postfix Configuration

Lab: Configuring Email Transmission

Summary

• Many system applications can send email by using the helper application /usr/sbin/sendmail or by connecting to a local mail server on localhost port 25/TCP.
• Postfix provides /usr/sbin/sendmail and the local mail server by default on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
• A null client is a local mail server that does not accept email for local delivery and submits all outbound email to a mail relay for delivery to other servers.

Summary (continued)

• The main Postfix configuration file, /etc/postfix/main.cf, can be edited by hand or by using the postconf command.
• The Ansible Role rhel-system-roles.postfix, also called linux-system-roles.postfix, provides an easy way to automate Postfix configuration.

Chapter 7: Configuring MariaDB SQL Databases

Goal: Discuss the basic operation of SQL-based relational databases, perform basic SQL queries for troubleshooting, and be able to set up a simple MariaDB database service.

Objectives:

• Install and perform basic configuration of a MariaDB relational database server.

• Examine, search, create, and change database information using Structured Query Language (SQL) and MariaDB statements.

• Configure database users and assign them access rights in MariaDB.

• Back up a MariaDB database safely and restore that backup.

• Automate the installation and configuration of a MariaDB database server.

Guided Exercise: Installing a MariaDB Database

Guided Exercise: Working with SQL in MariaDB

Guided Exercise: Managing MariaDB Users and Access Rights

Guided Exercise: Creating and Restoring MariaDB Backups

Guided Exercise: Automating MariaDB Deployment

Lab: Configuring MariaDB SQL Databases

Summary

• Describe basic relational database concepts.
• Perform a MariaDB installation.
• Use SQL to create, examine, and search databases.
• Create users, and grant, revoke, and flush privileges.
• Back up and restore a MariaDB database.
• Automate the installation and configuration of MariaDB servers and clients.

Chapter 8: Configuring Web Servers

Goal: Provide web content from Apache HTTPD or Nginx web servers, and configure them with virtual hosts and TLS-based encryption.

Objectives:

• Configure a basic web server using Apache HTTPD.

• Configure Apache HTTPD to provide IP-based and name-based virtual hosts.

• Configure Apache HTTPD to provide virtual hosts that use TLS to support the HTTPS protocol.

• Configure a web server that provides HTTPS access to multiple virtual hosts using Nginx.

• Automate configuration of Apache HTTPD and Nginx web servers using Ansible.

Guided Exercise: Configuring a Basic Web Server with Apache HTTPD

Guided Exercise: Configuring and Troubleshooting Virtual Hosts with Apache HTTPD

Guided Exercise: Configuring HTTPS with Apache HTTPD

Guided Exercise: Configuring a Web Server with Nginx

Guided Exercise: Automating Web Server Configuration

Lab: Configuring Web Servers

Summary

• Apache HTTP Server and Nginx both provide support for running a web server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
• Both web servers allow you to support multiple web sites on the same server.
• The HTTPS protocol uses TLS private keys and server certificates to protect communication between web browsers and web servers.

Summary (continued)

• Each virtual host provided by the web server can have its own TLS certificate and private key, and the TLS certificate can support multiple names for the same site.
• Ansible provides tools that you can use to manage TLS private keys, certificate signing requests, and certificates, as well as automating your web server deployment and configuration.

Chapter 9: Optimizing Web Server Traffic

Goal: Improve performance of your web servers by using Varnish to cache static content being served and HAProxy to terminate TLS connections and balance load between servers.

Objectives:

• Improve web site performance by caching static web content with Varnish.

• Improve web site performance by using HAProxy as a load balancer and an HTTPS terminator in front of your Varnish Cache.

• Automate the configuration of HAProxy and Varnish using Ansible.

Guided Exercise: Caching Static Content with Varnish

Guided Exercise: Terminating HTTPS Traffic and Load Balancing with HAProxy

Guided Exercise: Automating Web Service Optimization

Lab: Optimizing Web Server Traffic

Summary

• Varnish Cache speeds up web server response by caching commonly accessed objects in memory.
• The cache configuration and access control list for Varnish is specified by writing statements in /etc/varnish/default.vcl using the Varnish Control Language (VCL).
• To change the network port used by Varnish, you override the systemd service file's ExecStart parameter.
• You can use HAProxy to balance load between multiple web servers.

Summary (continued)

• HAProxy can also terminate HTTPS connections and forward them through a Varnish Cache for a web server.
• You can use Ansible and its haproxy module to perform rolling upgrades of web content and software for an HAProxy-based load balanced web farm.

Chapter 10: Providing File-based Network Storage

Goal: Provide simple file-based network shares to clients using the NFS and SMB protocols.

Objectives:

• Export file systems for network clients using the NFS protocol, restricting access based on source IP addresses.

• Share file systems to network clients using the SMB protocol.

• Automate configuration of network file systems using NFS and SMB.

Guided Exercise: Exporting NFS File Systems

Guided Exercise: Providing SMB File Shares

Guided Exercise: Automating File-based Storage Provisioning

Lab: Providing File-based Network Storage

Summary

• NFS exports are declared in /etc/exports or /etc/exports.d/*.exports files on the NFS server.
• The nfs-utils package is required on both the NFS server and NFS clients.
• Directories shared using SMB must have the SELinux samba_share_t context type.
• The Samba configuration file is /etc/samba/smb.conf.
• The smbpasswd -a command adds users to the Samba database.
• The samba package is required on Linux SMB servers. The cifs-utils package is required on Linux clients to mount SMB shares.

Summary (continued)

• The credentials mount option points to a file that provides the user name and password for SMB authentication.
• To access an SMB share that uses the multiuser mount option with minimal default credentials, users must run the cifscreds add command to authenticate with their SMB credentials for the current session.

Chapter 11: Accessing Block-based Network Storage

Goal: Configure iSCSI initiators on your servers to access block-based storage devices provided by network storage arrays or Ceph storage clusters.

Objectives:

• Provide block-based storage to network clients using the iSCSI protocol.

• Configure an iSCSI initiator to access a network-based block device, format a new iSCSI device with a file system, configure it for use at boot, and be able to safely discontinue the use of an existing iSCSI block device.

• Automate the configuration of an iSCSI initiator on a server.

Guided Exercise: Providing iSCSI Storage

Guided Exercise: Accessing iSCSI Storage

Guided Exercise: Automating iSCSI Initiator Configuration

Lab: Accessing Block-based Network Storage

Summary

• The targetcli package provides the targetcli tool that you use to create targets.
• Configuring an iSCSI client initiator requires installing the iscsi-initiator-utils package.
• The initiator IQN is defined in the /etc/iscsi/initiatorname.iscsi file.
• The iscsid service must be restarted whenever you modify the /etc/iscsi/initiatorname.iscsi file.
• The Ansible open_iscsi module discovers and logs in to targets.
• The Ansible storage system role formats and persistently mounts new block devices.

Chapter 12: Comprehensive Review

Lab: Configuring Network Infrastructure Services

Lab: Configuring File Sharing and Printers

Lab: Configuring Email, Database, and Web Services