LPIC-1 / Linux+ Cheat Sheet

• Enable and disable integrated peripherals
• Configure systems with or without external peripherals such as keyboards
• Differentiate between the various types of mass storage devices
• Set the correct hardware ID for different devices, especially the boot device
• Know the differences between coldplug and hotplug devices
• Determine hardware resources for devices
• Tools and utilities to list various hardware information (e.g., lsusb, lspci, etc.)
• Tools and utilities to manipulate USB devices
• Conceptual understanding of sysfs, udev, hald, dbus
• Terms: /sys, /proc, /dev, modprobe, lsmod, lspci, lsusb

• Provide common commands to the boot loader and options to the kernel at boot time
• Demonstrate knowledge of the boot sequence from BIOS to boot completion
• Check boot events in the log file
• Terms: /var/log/messages, dmesg, BIOS, bootloader, kernel, init

• Set the default run level
• Change between run levels including single user mode
• Shutdown and reboot from the command line
• Alert users before switching run levels or other major system events
• Properly terminate processes
• Knowledge of basic features of systemd and Upstart
• Terms: /etc/inittab, shutdown, init, /etc/init.d, telinit

• Allocate filesystems and swap space to separate partitions or disks
• Tailor the design to the intended use of the system
• Ensure the /boot partition conforms to the hardware architecture requirements for booting
• Knowledge of basic features of LVM
• Terms: / (root) filesystem, /var filesystem, /home filesystem, swap space, mount points, partitions

• Providing alternative boot locations and backup boot options
• Install and configure a boot loader such as GRUB Legacy
• Perform basic configuration changes for GRUB 2
• Interact with the boot loader
• Terms: /boot/grub/menu.lst, grub.cfg and other variations, grub-install, MBR, superblock

• Identify shared libraries
• Identify the typical locations of system libraries
• Load shared libraries
• Terms: ldd, ldconfig, /etc/ld.so.conf, LD_LIBRARY_PATH

• Install, upgrade and uninstall Debian binary packages
• Find packages containing specific files or libraries which may or may not be installed
• Obtain package information like version, content, dependencies, package integrity and installation status (whether or not the package is installed)
• Terms: /etc/apt/sources.list, dpkg, dpkg-reconfigure, apt-get, apt-cache, aptitude

• Install, re-install, upgrade and remove packages using RPM and YUM
• Obtain information on RPM packages such as version, status, dependencies, integrity and signatures
• Determine what files a package provides, as well as find which package a specific file comes from
• Terms: rpm, rpm2cpio, /etc/yum.conf, /etc/yum.repos.d/, yum, yumdownloader

• Use single shell commands and one line command sequences to perform basic tasks on the command line
• Use and modify the shell environment including defining, referencing and exporting environment variables
• Use and edit command history
• Invoke commands inside and outside the defined path
• Terms: ., bash, echo, env, exec, export, pwd, set, unset, man, uname, history

• Send text files and output streams through text utility filters to modify the output
• Using standard UNIX commands found in the GNU textutils package
• Terms: cat, cut, expand, fmt, head, od, join, nl, paste, pr, sed, sort, split, tail, tr, unexpand, uniq, wc

• Copy, move and remove files and directories individually
• Copy multiple files and directories recursively
• Remove files and directories recursively
• Use simple and advanced wildcard specifications in commands
• Using find to locate and act on files based on type, size, or time
• Usage of tar, cpio, and dd
• Terms: cp, find, mkdir, mv, ls, rm, rmdir, touch, tar, cpio, dd, file, gzip, gunzip, bzip2, file globbing

• Redirecting standard input, standard output and standard error
• Pipe the output of one command to the input of another command
• Use the output of one command as arguments to another command
• Send output to both stdout and a file
• Terms: tee, xargs

• Run jobs in the foreground and background
• Signal a program to continue running after logout
• Monitor active processes
• Select and sort processes for display
• Send signals to processes
• Terms: &, bg, fg, jobs, kill, nohup, ps, top, free, uptime, killall

• Know the default priority of a job that is created
• Run a program with higher or lower priority than the default
• Change the priority of a running process
• Terms: nice, ps, renice, top

• Create simple regular expressions containing several notational elements
• Use regular expression tools to perform searches through a filesystem or file content
• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities: grep, egrep, fgrep, sed, regex(7)

• Navigate a document using vi
• Use basic vi modes
• Insert, edit, delete, copy and find text
• Terms: vi, /, ?, h, j, k, l, i, o, a, c, d, p, y, dd, yy, ZZ, :w!, :q!, :e!

• Use various mkfs commands to set up partitions and create various filesystems such as: ext2, ext3, xfs, reiserfs v3, vfat
• Terms: fdisk, mkfs, mkswap

• Verify the integrity of filesystems
• Monitor free space and inodes
• Repair simple filesystem problems
• Terms: du, df, fsck, e2fsck, mke2fs, debugfs, dumpe2fs, tune2fs, xfs tools (such as xfs_metadump and xfs_info)

• Manually mount and unmount filesystems
• Configure filesystem mounting on bootup
• Configure user mountable removeable filesystems
• Terms: /etc/fstab, /media, mount, umount

• Set up a disk quota for a filesystem
• Edit, check and generate user quota reports
• Terms: quota, edquota, repquota, quotation

• Manage access permissions on regular and special files as well as directories
• Use access modes such as suid, sgid and the sticky bit to maintain security
• Know how to change the file creation mask
• Use the group field to grant file access to group members
• Terms: chmod, umask, chown, chgrp

• Create links
• Identify hard and/or soft links
• Copying versus linking files
• Use links to support system administration tasks
• Terms: ln

• Understand the correct locations of files under the FHS
• Find files and commands on a Linux system
• Know the location and propose of important file and directories as defined in the FHS
• Terms: find, locate, updatedb, whereis, which, type, /etc/updatedb.conf

• Set environment variables (e.g., PATH) at login or when spawning a new shell
• Write BASH functions for frequently used sequences of commands
• Maintain skeleton directories for new user accounts
• Set command search path with the proper directory
• Terms: /etc/profile, env, export, set, unset, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, ~/.profile, ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_logout, function, alias, lists

• Use standard sh syntax (loops, tests)
• Use command substitution
• Test return values for success or failure or other information provided by a command
• Perform conditional mailing to the superuser
• Correctly select the script interpreter through the shebang (#!) line
• Manage the location, ownership, execution and suid-rights of scripts
• Terms: for, while, test, if, read, seq

• Use of basic SQL commands
• Perform basic data manipulation
• Terms: insert, update, select, delete, from, where, group by, order by, join

• Verify that the video card and monitor are supported by an X server
• Awareness of the X font server
• Basic understanding and knowledge of the X Window configuration file
• Terms: /etc/X11/xorg.conf, xhost, DISPLAY, xwininfo, xdpyinfo, X

• Turn the display manager on or off
• Change the display manager greeting
• Change default color depth for the display manager
• Configure display managers for use by X-stations
• Terms: /etc/inittab; plus xdm, kdm, and gdm configuration files

• Keyboard Accessibility Settings (AccessX)
• Visual Settings and Themes
• Assistive Technology (ATs)
• Terms: Sticky/Repeat Keys, Slow/Bounce/Toggle Keys, Mouse Keys, High Contrast/Large Print Desktop Themes, Screen Reader, Braille Display, Screen Magnifier, On-Screen Keyboard, Gestures (used at login, for example gdm), Orca, GOK, emacspeak

• Add, modify and remove users and groups
• Manage user/group info in password/group databases
• Create and manage special purpose and limited accounts
• Terms: /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/group, /etc/skel, chage, groupadd, groupdel, groupmod, passwd, useradd, userdel, usermod

• Manage cron and at jobs
• Configure user access to cron and at services
• Terms: /etc/cron.{d,daily,hourly,monthly,weekly}, /etc/at.deny, /etc/at.allow, /etc/crontab, /etc/cron.allow, /etc/cron.deny, /var/spool/cron/*, crontab, at, atq, atrm

• Locale settings
• Timezone settings
• Terms: /etc/timezone, /etc/localtime, /usr/share/zoneinfo, environment variables (LC_*, LC_ALL, LANG, TZ), /usr/bin/locale, tzselect,

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms, and utilities: /etc/timezone, /etc/localtime, /usr/share/zoneinfo, environment variables (LC_*, LC_ALL, LANG, TZ), /usr/bin/locale, tzselect, tzconfig, date, iconv, UTF-8, ISO-8859, ASCII, Unicode