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LPI exam prep: Network client management

Intermediate Level Administration (LPIC-2) topic 210

David Mertz (mertz@gnosis.cx), Developer, Gnosis Software, Inc.

David Mertz thinks that artificial languages are perfectly natural, but natural languages seem a bit artificial. You can reach David at mertz@gnosis.cx; you can investigate all aspects of his life at his personal Web page. Check out his book, Text Processing in Python. Suggestions and recommendations on past or future columns are welcome.

Summary: In this tutorial, the fifth in a series of seven tutorials covering intermediate network administration on Linux, David Mertz continues preparing you to take the Linux Professional Institute Intermediate Level Administration (LPIC-2) Exam 202. By following this tutorial, you will examine several protocols' centralized configuration of network settings on clients within a network. DHCP is widely used to establish basic handshaking to clients machines such as assigning IP addresses. At a higher level, NIS and (more often) LDAP are used for arbitrary shared information among machines on a network. This tutorial also discusses PAM, which is a flexible, networked, user authentication system.

17 May 2012 - In response to author request, updated broken links. In About this tutorial, updated URL "detailed objectives list" link text. In Resources, updated URLs for 1) "LPIC Professional Certifications" link, 2) "LDAP is RFC 2251" link, and 3) "Linux-PAM System Administrators' Guide" link.

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Date: 17 May 2012 (Published 24 May 2006)
Level: Intermediate
PDF: A4 and Letter (327 KB | 19 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity: 55365 views
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Before you start

Learn what these tutorials can teach you and how you can get the most from them.

About this series

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) certifies Linux system administrators at two levels: junior level (also called "certification level 1") and intermediate level (also called "certification level 2"). To attain certification level 1, you must pass exams 101 and 102; to attain certification level 2, you must pass exams 201 and 202.

developerWorks offers tutorials to help you prepare for each of the four exams. Each exam covers several topics, and each topic has a corresponding self-study tutorial on developerWorks. For LPI exam 202, the seven topics and corresponding developerWorks tutorials are:

*Table 1. LPI exam 202: Tutorials and topics*
LPI exam 202 topic	developerWorks tutorial	Tutorial summary
Topic 205	LPI exam 202 prep (topic 205): Networking configuration	Learn how to configure a basic TCP/IP network, from the hardware layer (usually Ethernet, modem, ISDN, or 802.11) through the routing of network addresses.
Topic 206	LPI exam 202 prep (topic 206): Mail and news	Learn how to use Linux as a mail server and as a news server. Learn about mail transport, local mail filtering, mailing list maintenance software, and server software for the NNTP protocol.
Topic 207	LPI exam 202 prep (topic 207): DNS	Learn how to use Linux as a DNS server, chiefly using BIND. Learn how to perform a basic BIND configuration, manage DNS zones, and secure a DNS server.
Topic 208	LPI exam 202 prep (topic 208): Web services	Learn how to install and configure the Apache Web server, and learn how to implement the Squid proxy server.
Topic 210	LPI exam 202 prep (topic 210): Network client management	(This tutorial) Learn how to configure a DHCP server, an NIS client and server, an LDAP server, and PAM authentication support. See detailed objectives below.
Topic 212	LPI exam 202 prep (topic 212): System security	Coming soon
Topic 214	LPI exam 202 prep (topic 214): Network troubleshooting	Coming soon

To start preparing for certification level 1, see the developerWorks tutorials for LPI exam 101. To prepare for the other exam in certification level 2, see the developerWorks tutorials for LPI exam 201. Read more about the entire set of developerWorks LPI tutorials.

The Linux Professional Institute does not endorse any third-party exam preparation material or techniques in particular. For details, please contact info@lpi.org.

About this tutorial

Welcome to "Network client management," the fifth of seven tutorials covering intermediate network administration on Linux. In this tutorial, you learn about several protocols' centralized configuration of network settings on clients within a network, look at how DHCP is widely used to establish basic handshaking to clients machines (such as assigning IP addresses), and see how, at a higher level, NIS and (more often) LDAP are used for arbitrary shared information among machines on a network. This tutorial also discusses PAM (Pluggable Authentication Module), a flexible, networked, user-authentication system.

As with the other tutorials in the developerWorks 201 and 202 series, this tutorial is intended to serve as a study guide and entry point for exam preparation, rather than complete documentation on the subject. Readers are encouraged to consult LPI's detailed objectives list and to supplement the information provided here with other material as needed.

This tutorial is organized according to the LPI objectives for this topic. Very roughly, expect more questions on the exam for objectives with higher weight.

*Table 2. Web services: Exam objectives covered in this tutorial*
LPI exam objective	Objective weight	Objective summary
2.210.1 DHCP configuration	Weight 2	Configure a DHCP server. This objective includes setting default and per client options, adding static hosts and BOOTP hosts. Also included is configuring a DHCP relay agent and maintaining the DHCP server.
2.210.2 NIS configuration	Weight 1	Configure an NIS server. This objective includes configuring a system as an NIS client.
2.210.3 LDAP configuration	Weight 1	Configure an LDAP server. This objective includes working with directory hierarchy, groups, hosts, services, and adding other data to the hierarchy. Also included is importing and adding items, as well as adding and managing users.
2.210.4 PAM authentication	Weight 2	Configure PAM to support authentication using various available methods.

Prerequisites

To get the most from this tutorial, you should already have a basic knowledge of Linux and a working Linux system on which you can practice the commands covered in this tutorial.

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