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.

• To prepare for certification level 1, see the developerWorks tutorials for LPI exams 101 and 102.
• To prepare for certification level 2, see the developerWorks tutorials for LPI exams 201 and 202.

View the entire set of developerWorks LPI tutorials.

For LPI exam 202, the seven topics and corresponding developerWorks tutorials are:

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

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About this tutorial

Welcome to "Network troubleshooting," the last of seven tutorials covering intermediate network administration on Linux. This tutorial re-examines the material covered in the first six tutorials on the Linux Professional Institute's 202 exam topics to give some general context for the entire series. Highlighted here are some of the tools you've previously covered -- ifconfig, route, hostname, dmesg, netstat, ping, traceroute, etc. -- with the focus on using those tools to fix problems.

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.

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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. This tutorial builds on material covered in the previous six tutorials in the LPI exam 202 series.

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Other resources

As with most Linux tools, it is always useful to examine the manpages for any utilities discussed. Versions and switches might change between utility or kernel version or with different Linux distributions. For more in depth information, the Linux Documentation Project has a variety of useful documents, especially its HOWTOs. A variety of books on Linux networking have been published; I have found O'Reilly's TCP/IP Network Administration, by Craig Hunt to be quite helpful (find whatever edition is most current when you read this).

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Table of contents

• Before you start
• Network configuration tools
• Network diagnostic tools
• Network configuration files
• A final word
• Resources
• About the author

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