A

TECHNICAL REPORT

ON

“LINUX”
Submitted in partial fulfillment of Master Degree in Embedded
System from of the Jaipur National University

2010-2011

Submitted To: Submitted By:

Prof. Laxmi Narayan MADHAV SHARMA
HOD(EC Deptt.) M.Tech 1st Semester
(Embedded System)

JAIPUR NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

SADTM CAMPUS, JAGATPURA, JAIPUR-302025

PREFACE
The Linux kernel is the core of the Red hat enterprise Linux operating system. It is the Kernel
responsibility to control hardware, enforce security and allocate resource such as CPU and
Memory. Most of the operating system is not Linux but rather a collection of application that
make use of facilities provided by the Linux Kernel.

Basically Linux is use for security purpose. Red hat enterprise Linux is released on an eighteen
to twenty-four month cycle. It is based on the code developed by the open source community
and adds performance enhancements, intensive testing and certification on products produced by
top independent software and hardware venders such as Dell, IBM, Fujitsu, BEA, and oracle.
Red hat enterprise Linux provides a high degree of standardization through its support for seven
processor architecture.

In the report we discussion the about the Linux, Linux commands, Servers. Linux provides open
source system facility. Red hat Network is a complete system management platform. It is a
framework of modules for any software updates system management and monitoring.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
With the culmination of the proposed work and compilation in this form I have an opportunity

to express my deep regard and profound sense of gratitude to my learned and most respective

H.O.D Electronic and Communication for his invaluable guidance and inspiring device

throughout course of this seminar report work.

Sincere gratitude is extended to Prof. Laxmi Narayan (H.O.D Electronic and

Communication) who have been a constant source of inspiration and kind help throughout the

entire period of my technical report .

MADHAV SHARMA

S.NO TOPIC NAME

1 Introduction

2 Description

3 Properties of Linux

4 Linux vs Windows

5 Shell

6 FTP(File Transfer Protocol)

7 VNC(Virtual Network Computing)

8 NFS(Network File System)

9 YUM

10 User interface

11 Interprocess Communication Mechanisms

12 Package management system

13 SWAP file, Network configuration files

14 Network configuration commands

15 File system hierarchy

16 Conclusion

17 Reference
 INTRODUCTION

Red hat Network is a complete system management platform. It is a framework of modules for
easy software updates, system management, and monitoring. There are currently four modules in
Red Hat Network- the update module, the management module, the Provisioning module, and
the monitoring module.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux-5 supports nineteen languages: English, Bengali, Chinese (Simplified),
Chinese (Traditional), French, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malayalam,
Marathi, Oriya, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Tamil. A system’s language can be selected
during installation, but the default is US English. The currently selected language is set with the
LANG shell variable.
Red Hat offers a number of additional open source application products and operating system
enhancements which may be added to the standard Red Hat enterprise Linux operating system.

Red Hat enterprise Linux advanced platform the most effective server solution; this product
includes supports of the largest x86-compatible servers, unlimited virtualized guest operating
system, storage virtualization, high availability application and guest failover clusters, and the
highest level of technical supports.
Red hat enterprise Linux the basic server solution, supporting servers with up to two CPU
sockets and up to four virtualized guest operating system.

Linux is a kernel not an operating system. Linux is an open source system (o.s.s.), refers to
software in which the source code is freely available to all. The purpose of oss is to encourage
collaborative work often through board participation in software projects. The open source
software movement, now more than 20 years old, began with a commitment to make software
and the underlying source code freely available to all.

An early advocate for the open source movement was the free software foundation, group
created to fund the GNU project, which was created to develop a UNIX like operating system.

The GNU project began by writing replacement tools for UNIX, eventually creating a complete
set of tools, libraries and other material. To advance their ideas of software freedom.

Linux kernel + GNU utilities = complete, open source, UNIX like operating system. Today most
of the utilities and application included with Red Hat Linux are also covered by GPL.
A kernel is a most fundamental part of the operating system, providing services to other user-
level commands, such as the ability to communicate with hard disks and other piece of hardware.
Most software distributed with Red Hat Enterprise Linux is distributed under the GPL. All the
software contained in Red Hat Enterprise Linux is free for the users.

DESCRIPTION
Linux is a kernel not an operating system. Linux is an open source system (o.s.s.), refers to
software in which the source code is freely available to all. The purpose of oss is to encourage
collaborative work often through board participation in software projects. The open source
software movement, now more than 20 years old, began with a commitment to make software
and the underlying source code freely available to all.

Properties of Linux:

A lot of the advantages of Linux are a consequence of Linux' origins, deeply rooted in UNIX,
except for the first advantage, of course:

• Linux is free:

As in free beer, they say. If you want to spend absolutely nothing, you don't even have to
pay the price of a CD. Linux can be downloaded in its entirety from the Internet
completely for free. No registration fees, no costs per user, free updates, and freely
available source code in case you want to change the behavior of your system.

Most of all, Linux is free as in free speech:

The license commonly used is the GNU Public License (GPL). The license says that
anybody who may want to do so, has the right to change Linux and eventually to
redistribute a changed version, on the one condition that the code is still available after
redistribution. In practice, you are free to grab a kernel image, for instance to add support
for transportation machines or time travel and sell your new code, as long as your
customers can still have a copy of that code.

• Linux is portable to any hardware platform:

A vendor who wants to sell a new type of computer and who doesn't know what kind of
OS his new machine will run (say the CPU in your car or washing machine), can take a
Linux kernel and make it work on his hardware, because documentation related to this
activity is freely available.

• Linux was made to keep on running:

As with UNIX, a Linux system expects to run without rebooting all the time. That is
why a lot of tasks are being executed at night or scheduled automatically for other calm
moments, resulting in higher availability during busier periods and a more balanced use of the
hardware. This property allows for Linux to be applicable also in environments where people
don't have the time or the possibility to control their systems night and day.
 • Linux is secure and versatile:

The security model used in Linux is based on the UNIX idea of security, which is known
to be robust and of proven quality. But Linux is not only fit for use as a fort against
enemy attacks from the Internet: it will adapt equally to other situations, utilizing the
same high standards for security. Your development machine or control station will be as
secure as your firewall.

• Linux is scalable:

From a Palmtop with 2 MB of memory to a petabyte storage cluster with hundreds of

nodes: add or remove the appropriate packages and Linux fits all. You don't need a
supercomputer anymore, because you can use Linux to do big things using the building
blocks provided with the system. If you want to do little things, such as making an
operating system for an embedded processor or just recycling your old 486, Linux will do
that as well.

The Linux OS and most Linux applications have very short debug-times:

Because Linux has been developed and tested by thousands of people, both errors and
people to fix them are usually found rather quickly. It sometimes happens that there are
only a couple of hours between discovery and fixing of a bug.

LINUX vs WINDOWS:

Windows has two main lines. The older flavors are referred to as "Win9x" and consist of
Windows 95, 98, 98SE and me. The newer flavors are referred to as "NT class" and consist of
Windows NT3, NT4, 2000, XP and Vista. Going back in time, Windows 3.x preceded Windows
95 by a few years. And before that, there were earlier versions of Windows, but they were not
popular. Microsoft no longer supports Windows NT3, NT4, all the 9x versions and of course
anything older.

The flavors of Linux are referred to as distributions (often shortened to "distros"). All the Linux
distributions released around the same time frame will use the same kernel (the guts of the
Operating System). They differ in the add-on software provided, GUI, install process, price,
documentation and technical support. Both Linux and Windows come in desktop and server
editions.

Graphical User Interface:

Both Linux and Windows provide a GUI and a command line interface. The Windows GUI has
changed from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 (drastically) to Windows 2000 (slightly) to Windows
XP (fairly large) and is slated to change again with the next version of Windows, the one that
will replace XP. Windows XP has a themes feature that offers some customization of the look
and feel of the GUI. Linux typically provides two GUIs, KDE and Gnome.

Text Mode Interface:

This is also known as a command interpreter. Windows users sometimes call it a DOS prompt.
Linux users refer to it as a shell. Each version of Windows has a single command interpreter, but
the different flavors of Windows have different interpreters. In general, the command interpreters
in the Windows 9x series are very similar to each other and the NT class versions of Windows
(NT, 2000, XP) also have similar command interpreters. There are however differences between
a Windows 9x command interpreter and one in an NT class flavor of Windows. Linux, like all
versions of Unix, supports multiple command interpreters, but it usually uses one called BASH
(Bourne Again Shell). Others are the Korn shell, the Bourne shell, ash and the C shell (pun, no
doubt, intended).

Cost:

For desktop or home use, Linux is very cheap or free, Windows is expensive. For server use,
Linux is very cheap compared to Windows. Microsoft allows a single copy of Windows to be
used on only one computer. Starting with Windows XP, they use software to enforce this rule
(Windows Product Activation at first, later Genuine Windows). In contrast, once you have
purchased Linux, you can run it on any number of computers for no additional charge.

Bugs:

All software has and will have bugs (programming mistakes). Linux has a reputation for fewer
bugs than Windows, but it certainly has its fair share. This is a difficult thing to judge and
finding an impartial source on this subject is also difficult. The article also addressed whether
known bugs are fixed faster with Linux or Windows. In brief, he felt that bugs used to be fixed
faster in Linux, but that things have slowed down.

Multiple Users:

Linux is a multi-user system, Windows is not. That is, Windows is designed to be used by one
person at a time. Databases running under Windows allow concurrent access by multiple users,
but the Operating System itself is designed to deal with a single human being at a time. Linux,
like all Unix variants, is designed to handle multiple concurrent users. Windows, of course, can
run many programs concurrently, as can Linux. There is a multi-user version of Windows called
Terminal Server but this is not the Windows pre-installed on personal computers.

Hard Disk Partitions:

Windows must be installed to and boot from a primary partition. There are a maximum of four
primary partitions on a single hard disk (a computer with two hard disks can have eight primary
partitions). Linux is better in this regard as it can be installed to and boot from either a primary
partition or a logical partition. Logical partitions reside inside a special type of primary partition
called an extended partition. There is no practical limit to the number of logical partitions that
can exist on a single hard disk. Thus you can easily experiment with a dozen different Linux
distributions by installing each one in a different logical partition.

Windows must boot from the first hard disk. Here too Linux is better, it can boot from any hard
disk in the computer.

An operating system (OS) is a resource manager. It takes the access system resources (e.g. the
CPU, memory, disks, modems, printers network cards etc.) in a safe, efficient and abstract way.

For example, an OS ensures safe access to a printer by allowing only one application program to
send data directly to the printer at any one time. An OS encourages efficient use of the CPU by
suspending programs that are waiting for I/O operations to complete to make way for programs
that can use the CPU more productively. An OS also provides convenient abstractions (such as
files rather than disk locations) which isolate application programmers and users from the details
of the underlying hardware.

• The operating system kernel is in direct control of the underlying

hardware. The kernel provides low-level device, memory and processor
management functions (e.g. dealing with interrupts from hardware devices,
sharing the processor among multiple programs, allocating memory for programs
etc.)
• Basic hardware-independent kernel services are exposed to higher-level
programs through a library of system calls (e.g. services to create a file, begin
execution of a program, or open a logical network connection to another
computer).

Application programs (e.g. word processors, spreadsheets) and system utility programs
(simple but useful application programs that come with the operating system, e.g. programs
which find text inside a group of files) make use of system calls. Applications and system
utilities are launched using a shell (a textual command line interface) or a graphical user
interface that provides direct user interaction.
Shells and GUIs :

Linux supports two forms of command input: through textual command line shells similar to
those found on most UNIX systems (e.g. sh - the Bourne shell, bash - the Bourne again shell and
csh - the C shell) and through graphical interfaces (GUIs) such as the KDE and GNOME
window managers. If you are connecting remotely to a server your access will typically be
through a command line shell.

System Utilities:

Virtually every system utility that you would expect to find on standard implementations of
UNIX (including every system utility described in the POSIX.2 specification) has been ported to
Linux. This includes commands such as ls, cp, grep, awk, sed, bc, wc, more, and so on. These
system utilities are designed to be powerful tools that do a single task extremely well (e.g. grep
finds text inside files while wc counts the number of words, lines and bytes inside a file). Users
can often solve problems by interconnecting these tools instead of writing a large monolithic
application program.

Application programs:

Linux distributions typically come with several useful application programs as standard.
Examples include the emacs editor, xv (an image viewer), gcc (a C compiler), g++ (a C++
compiler), xfig (a drawing package), latex (a powerful typesetting language) and soffice
(StarOffice, which is an MS-Office style clone that can read and write Word, Excel and
PowerPoint files).

Redhat Linux also comes with rpm, the Redhat Package Manager which makes it easy to install
and uninstall application programs.

Shells:

A shell is a program which reads and executes commands for the user. Shells also usually
provide features such job control, input and output redirection and a command language for
writing shell scripts. A shell script is simply an ordinary text file containing a series of
commands in a shell command language (just like a "batch file" under MS-DOS).

There are many different shells available on UNIX systems (e.g. sh, bash, csh, ksh, tcsh etc.),
and they each support a different command language. Here we will discuss the command
language for the Bourne shell sh since it is available on almost all UNIX systems (and is also
supported under bash and ksh).
FTP SERVER:

The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is used as one of the most common means of copying files
between servers over the Internet. Most web based download sites use the built in FTP
capabilities of web browsers and therefore most server oriented operating systems usually
include an FTP server application as part of the software suite. Linux is no exception.

This chapter will show you how to convert your Linux box into an FTP server using the default
Very Secure FTP Daemon (VSFTPD) package included in Fedora.

FTP relies on a pair of TCP ports to get the job done. It operates in two connection channels as
I'll explain:

FTP Control Channel, TCP Port 21: All commands you send and the ftp server's responses to
those commands will go over the control connection, but any data sent back (such as "ls"
directory lists or actual file data in either direction) will go over the data connection.

FTP Data Channel, TCP Port 20: This port is used for all subsequent data transfers between
the client and server.

In addition to these channels, there are several varieties of FTP.

Types of FTP

From a networking perspective, the two main types of FTP are active and passive. In active FTP,
the FTP server initiates a data transfer connection back to the client. For passive FTP, the
connection is initiated from the FTP client.

Active FTP

The sequence of events for active FTP is:

1. Your client connects to the FTP server by establishing an FTP control connection to port
21 of the server. Your commands such as 'ls' and 'get' are sent over this connection.
2. Whenever the client requests data over the control connection, the server initiates data
transfer connections back to the client. The source port of these data transfer connections
is always port 20 on the server, and the destination port is a high port (greater than 1024)
on the client.
3. Thus the ls listing that you asked for comes back over the port 20 to high port connection,
not the port 21 control connection.

FTP active mode therefore transfers data in a counter intuitive way to the TCP standard, as it
selects port 20 as it's source port (not a random high port that's greater than 1024) and connects
back to the client on a random high port that has been pre-negotiated on the port 21 control
connection.
Active FTP may fail in cases where the client is protected from the Internet via many to one
NAT (masquerading). This is because the firewall will not know which of the many servers
behind it should receive the return connection.

Passive FTP

Passive FTP works differently:

1. Your client connects to the FTP server by establishing an FTP control connection to port
21 of the server. Your commands such as ls and get are sent over that connection.
2. Whenever the client requests data over the control connection, the client initiates the data
transfer connections to the server. The source port of these data transfer connections is
always a high port on the client with a destination port of a high port on the server.

Passive FTP should be viewed as the server never making an active attempt to connect to the
client for FTP data transfers. Because client always initiates the required connections, passive
FTP works better for clients protected by a firewall.

As Windows defaults to active FTP, and Linux defaults to passive, you'll probably have to
accommodate both forms when deciding upon a security policy for your FTP server

FTP Security Issues

FTP has a number of security drawbacks, but you can overcome them in some cases. You can
restrict an individual Linux user's access to non-anonymous FTP, and you can change the
configuration to not display the FTP server's software version information, but unfortunately,
though very convenient, FTP logins and data transfers are not encrypted.

The /etc/vsftpd.ftpusers File

For added security, you may restrict FTP access to certain users by adding them to the list of
users in the /etc/vsftpd.ftpusers file. The VSFTPD package creates this file with a number of
entries for privileged users that normally shouldn't have FTP access. As FTP doesn't encrypt
passwords, thereby increasing the risk of data or passwords being compromised, it is a good idea
to let these entries remain and add new entries for additional security.

Anonymous Upload

If you want remote users to write data to your FTP server, then you should create a write-only
directory within /var/ftp/pub. This will allow your users to upload but not access other files
uploaded by other users. The commands you need are:

[root@bigboy tmp]# mkdir /var/ftp/pub/upload

[root@bigboy tmp]# chmod 722 /var/ftp/pub/upload
VNC:

VNC or Virtual Network Computing is in fact a remote display system which allows viewing a
desktop environment not only on the local machine on which it is running, but from anywhere on
the Internet and from a wide variety of machines and architectures, including MS Windows and
several UNIX distributions. You could, for example, run MS Word on a Windows NT machine
and display the output on your Linux desktop. VNC provides servers as well as clients, so the
opposite also works and it may thus be used to display Linux programs on Windows clients.
VNC is probably the easiest way to have X connections on a PC. The following features make
VNC different from a normal X server or commercial implementations:

• No state is stored at the viewer side: you can leave your desk and resume from another
machine, continuing where you left. When you are running a PC X server, and the PC
crashes or is restarted, all remote applications that you were running will die. With VNC,
they keep on running.
• It is small and simple, no installation needed, can be run from a floppy if needed.
• Platform independent with the Java client, runs on virtually everything that supports X.
• Sharable: one desktop may be displayed on multiple viewers.
• Free.

NETWORK FILE SERVICE (NFS)

The network file system is the native Linux networking system. NFS allows Linux system to
share directories and files over the network. Some of the most notable benefits that NFS can
provide are:

• Local workstations use less disk space because commonly used data can be stored
on a single machine and still remain accessible to others over the network.
• There is no need for users to have separate home directories on every network
machine. Home directories could be set up on the NFS server and made available
throughout the network.
• Storage devices such as floppy disks, CDROM drives, and Zip® drives can be
used by other machines on the network. This may reduce the number of removable
media drives throughout the network.

NFS Works

NFS consists of at least two main parts: a server and one or more clients. The client remotely
accesses the data that is stored on the server machine. In order for this to function properly a few
processes have to be configured and running.

The server has to be running the following daemons:

nfsd
 mounted

rpcbind

The client can also run a daemon, known as nfsiod. The

nfsiod daemon services the requests from the NFS server.

Configuring NFS:

The /etc/exports file specifies which file systems NFS should export (sometimes referred
to as “share”). Each line in /etc/exports specifies a file system to be exported and which
machines have access to that file system.

1. make sure that user and group id match on the client and server system.
2. on the server, modify /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny so that server will
except portmap request from client network.
3. on the server side, modify the /etc/exports so that serevr will make specified
directories available to other machine on the network.
4. on the client, modify /etc/fstab so that the client will automatically load the
exported directories when start the client system.

In nfs server two services are required to restart:

Service nfs restart

Service portmap restart.

Chkconfig is used to on service permanently on.

NFS utilities:

. exportfs –v -: is used to view the exports and their options on the local machine.

. showmount –e hostname: - is used to display the exports from remote machines.

. rpcinfo –p hostname: - is used to probe the portmapper on hostname and print a list of all
registered RPC services.

YUM SERVER:

Yum is a tool for automating package maintenance for a network of workstations running any
operating system that use the Red Hat Package Management (RPM) system for distributing
packaged tools and applications. It is derived from yup, an automated package updater originally
developed for Yellowdog Linux, hence its name: yum is "Yellowdog Updater, Modified".
Yup was originally written and maintained by Dan Burcaw, Bryan Stillwell, Stephen Edie, and
Troy Bengegerdes of Yellowdog Linux (an RPM-based Linux distribution that runs on Apple
Macintoshes of various generation). Yum was written and is currently being maintained by Seth
Vidal and Michael Stenner, both of Duke University, although as an open source GPL project
many others have contributed code, ideas, and bug fixes (not to mention documentation:-). The
yum link above acknowledges the (mostly) complete list of contributers, as does the AUTHORS
file in distribution tarball.

Yum is a Gnu Public License (GPL) tool; it is freely available and can be used, modified, or
redistributed without any fee or royalty provided that the terms of its associated license are
followed.

Installing Yum:

Yum is installed (originally) more or less like any other rpm you add to an existing system. After
downloading one of the rpm's above you simply:

rpm -Uvh yum.X.rpm

where X is, of course, the revision number you downloaded. Do this initially on the server(s) you
wish to use as yum repositories and perhaps a single test client only. If this install fails, be sure
that yum's dependencies are satisfied on your system. As of right now its dependency list reads
something like:

rgb@lilith|T:167>rpm -qR yum

/bin/sh
/bin/sh
/bin/sh
/sbin/chkconfig
/sbin/service
/usr/bin/python
config(yum) = 1.97-20030522
python
rpm-python >= 4.2
rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1
rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1

on Red Hat 9. Version numbers will of course change, but this gives you an idea of what it will
need in order to install. If you simply cannot get an install to work, try a different rpm or seek
help from the yum list.

How Yum Works

To understand how yum works it helps to define a few terms:

 • server: The term server generally refers to the physical system that provides access one
or more ways to a repository. However when yum was first developed there was
generally only one server per repository and server was often used as more or less of a
synonym for repository. We will use it below only in the former sense -- as a reference to
a particular web, ftp, nfs server that provides access to a repository, not as the repository
itself.
• repository: A repository is a collection of rpms under some sort of filesystem tree. For
most purposes associated with yum, the repository will have two more important
characteristics. It has had the command yum-arch run on the tree, creating a "headers"
directory containing header and path information to all the rpm's under the tree, and is
accessible by URL (which means as one or more of http://my.web.server.ext/path,
ftp://my.ftp.server.ext/path, file://full/file/path to the repository tree).
• serverid: As noted above, there used to be a more or less one to one correspondance
between servers and repositories in early versions of yum. However, this correspondance
is not many to many. A singlerepository can be mirrored on many servers, and a single
server can hold many repositories. When organizing "robust" access to repositories
(which means providing URL's to the same repository on fallback servers in case the
primary server of a repository is down) it is now necessary to label the repository with
some sort of unique id that obviously cannot be the server or repository alone. The
serverid is thus the unique label used in yum.conf to indicate that all the repositories
given under a single baseurl are (presumably) mirrors of one another.
• RPM: This stands for "Red Hat Package Manager", the toolset developed by Red Hat for
distributing and maintaining "packages" of tools, libraries, binaries, and data for their
linux distribution. It is fully open source and is currently the basis for many linux
distributions other than Red Hat. When the documentation below speaks of "an rpm" it
refers to a single package, usually named packagename-version.rpm. To understand how
yum functions, it is necessary to understand a bit about the structuring of rpm's.

Superuser Requirements

Linux and other Unices prevent ordinary users from being able to install, remove, or modify
software, libraries, or important configurational information. On a networked, professionally run
installation of workstations the need for this sort of control to ensure security and functionality is
obvious. On a privately owned and controlled workstation the need is less obvious but just as
profound. Even there the owner of the workstation needs to take extreme care whenever working
with the fundamental system configuration and package installation or they will likely break the
system or leave it vulnerable to crackers.

To ensure that an adequate degree of care is exercised when doing things that could render a
system unusable or vulnerable, linux and Unices require the owner of such a workstation to
assume root privileges, usually by means of the su command. In order to execute the privileged
commands to add or remove software from your system, you must therefore become root. To do
this, enter (in a tty window such as an xterm):
$ su

and enter the root password when prompted to do so. The prompt should become the sharp sign
`#'

# yum list

to remind you to be sharp as root.

Privileged Yum Commands

The following commands alter the filesystem by installing, updating,deleting files. The first time
yum is run, they will also download andcache all the header files in all the repositories
in /etc/yum.conf,wich also requires root privileges. Thereafter the unprivilegedcommands
will generally work for all users, but the commands in thesubsections below will only work
as root.

Installing Packages with Yum

# yum install package1 [package2 package3...]

Yum checks to see if package1 is already installed and is the latest version. If not, it downloads
package1 {\em and all its dependency packages} (saving them in its cache directory) and installs
them. Additional packages can be listed on the same command line. The packages can be
specified with standard filesystem globs. Some examples:

# yum install jpilot

This will look for the jpilot package (which provides a lovely interface for palm pilots) and
install it if it exists on any of the repositories in any of the yum repositories.

# yum install festival\*

This will install all the packages (e.g. festival and festival-devel) required to run the festival
speech generation program or write software that does speech synthesis. Note the "\" required to
escape the glob "*" character from the shell.

Updating Packages with Yum

# yum update package1 [package2 package3...]

Yum checks to see if package1 is installed and is the latest version. If not, it downloads package1
{\em and all its dependency packages} (saving them in its cache directory) and re-installs them
(effectively upgrading them). Additional packages can be listed on the same command line. The
packages can be specified with standard filesystem globs. Some examples:

# yum update
One of the most important and useful of yum commands, in some ways the command for which
yum was invented. This command updates all the installed packages on your system to the latest
version on your repository set. This enables you to keep your system current and up to date with
a simple script, and to update any package(s) at any time should it be necessary.

# yum update jpilot

This will look for the jpilot package (which provides a lovely interface for palm pilots) and
install it if it exists on any of the repositories in any of the yum repositories.

# yum update festival\*

This will update all the packages in the festival speech generation suite that happen to be
installed on the system. Note the "\" required to escape the glob "*" character from the shell.

Deleting Packages with Yum

In any event, the command syntax for package removal is:

# Yum removes package1 [package2 package3...]

As noted above, it removes package1 and all packages in the dependency tree that depend on
package1, possibly irreversibly as far as configuration data is concerned. Be certain that the list
of removed packages that it generates meets with your approval before proceeding. Additional
packages can be listed on the same command line, and the packages can be specified with
standard filesystem globs although this makes the problem of certifying the list it generates for
removal even more difficult..

Major Differences Between Linux And Windows

1. Reduces the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome

When linux is properly installed, there no longer a need to use the mouse. Chances of you
using a mouse is close to zero.

2. Use the extra cash for rewards

Linux is 100% free while Windows Vista Ultimate costs $398.99 at the time of
writing. Companies that pay a licensing annually could have used the money for other
things like buying an additional server to reduce the load or even give a bigger bonus to its
loyal employees.

3. Formats are free, freedom is preserved

Linux file formats can be accessed in a variety of ways because they are free. Windows on
the other hand makes you lock your own data in secret formats that can only be accessed
with tools leased to you at the vendor’s price. “What we will get with Microsoft is a
three-year lease on a health record we need to keep for 100 years”

4. Zero risk in violating license agreements

Linux is open source so you are unlikely to violate any license agreement. All the software
is happily yours. With MS Windows you likely already violate all kinds of licenses and you
could be pronounced a computer pirate if only a smart lawyer was after you. The worldwide
PC software piracy rate for 2004 is at 35%. Which means that 3 out of 10 people are likely
to get into real trouble.

5. Transparent vs Proprietary

MS Windows is based on DOS, Linux is based on UNIX. MS Windows Graphical User

Interface (GUI) is based on Microsoft-own marketing-driven specifications. Linux GUI is
based on industry-standard network-transparent X-Windows.

6. Better network, processing capabilities

Linux beats Windows hands down on network features, as a development platform, in data
processing capabilities, and as a scientific workstation. MS Windows desktop has a more
polished appearance, simple general business applications, and many more games for kids
(less intellectual games compared to linux’s).

7. Customizable

Linux is customizable in a way that Windows is not. For example, NASlite is a version of
Linux that runs off a single floppy disk and converts an old computer into a file server. This
ultra small edition of Linux is capable of networking, file sharing and being a web server.

8. Flexibility

Windows must boot from a primary partition. Linux can boot from either a primary
partition or a logical partition inside an extended partition. Windows must boot from the
first hard disk. Linux can boot from any hard disk in the computer.

9. Mobility
 Windows allows programs to store user information (files and settings) anywhere. This
makes it impossibly hard to backup user data files and settings and to switch to a new
computer. In contrast, Linux stores all user data in the home directory making it much
easier to migrate from an old computer to a new one. If home directories are segregated in
their own partition, you can even upgrade from one version of Linux to another without
having to migrate user data and settings.

10. Proven Security

Why isn’t Linux affected by viruses? Simply because its code has been open source for
more than a decade, tested by people all around the world, and not by a single development
team like in the case of Windows. This leads to a lightning fast finding and fixing for
exploitable holes in Linux. So that my friends, proves Linux as having an extremely
enhanced security and lesser chances of exploits compared to Windows.

User interface

Windows Linux

Graphical
user
interface

The KDE Desktop Environment

The Windows Shell on

Windows Vista

The Windows Shell. This uses

as its window manager the
Desktop Window Manager on
Windows Vista, and a Stacking
window manager built on top of
GDI in older versions. The
desktop environment may be
modified by a variety of third
party products such as
WindowBlinds; or completely
The GNOME Desktop
Environment
A number of desktop
environments are available, of
which GNOME and KDE are
the most widely used. By
default, they use as their window
managers Metacity and KWin
 replaced, for example by respectively, though these can
Blackbox for Windows, or be replaced by other window
LiteStep. The graphics system is managers such as Compiz
part of the Windows kernel, and Fusion. Other desktop
even servers run graphic environments and window
subsystems. managers include
Enlightenment, Xmonad, Xfce,
Openbox, Fluxbox, etc. The X
Window system runs in user-
space and is optional.[19]
Multiple X Window system
instances can run at once, and it
is a fully networked protocol.
See Also: Comparison of X
Window System desktop
environments.
Command- A command-line
line interface,
interface typically
displayed in a
system console,
allows users to
tell the computer
to perform tasks
ranging from the
A sample Bash session
A sample Windows PowerShell simple (for
session example, copying
Linux is strongly integrated with
a file) to the
the system console. The
The Command Prompt exists to command line can be used to complex
provide direct communication recover the system if the (compiling and
between the user and the installing new
graphics subsystem fails.[20][21]
operating system. A .NET-based A large number of Unix shells software). Shells
command line environment are powerful but
exists; with the majority being
called Windows PowerShell has "Bourne shell compatible" can be confusing
been developed. It varies from shells, of which the most widely to new users.
Unix/Linux shells in that, rather used is GNU Bash. Alternatives Some complex
than using byte streams, the tasks are more
include the feature-full Z shell;
PowerShell pipeline is an object as well as shells based on the easily
pipeline; that is, the data passed syntax of other programming accomplished
between cmdlets are fully typed languages, such as the C shell, through shells
objects. When data is piped as and Perl Shell. Many than through a
objects, the elements they GUI, such as
applications can be scripted
encapsulate retain their structure through the system console,[22] piping, or
and types across cmdlets, scripting. See
there are a lot of small and
also:
 Comparison of
without the need for any specialized utilities meant to computer
serialization or explicit parsing work together and to integrate shells.
of the stream. Cygwin provides with other programs. This is
a bash terminal for Windows. called the toolbox principle.
Windows Script Host is included
in Windows 98 and newer
versions.

Accessibility and usability

A study released in 2003 by Relevantive AG indicates that “The usability of Linux as a desktop
system was judged to be nearly equal to that of Windows XP”.[37]

Windows Linux

User Focus Mostly consistent. The quality of graphical design

Inconsistencies appear varies between desktop
primarily through backports - environments and distributions.
software ported from newer The two biggest desktop
operating systems to older environments (GNOME and
ones. For example, software KDE) have clearly defined
ported from Vista to XP, or interface guidelines, which tend
from XP to Windows 2000/98, to be followed consistently and
must follow the guidelines of clearly.[40][41] These provide
the newer system (IE7 and consistency and a high grade of
Windows Media Player 11 are customizability in order to
examples of this).[38] However, adapt to the needs of the user.
Microsoft continually pushes Distributions such as Ubuntu,
for consistency between SuSE, Fedora or Mandriva take
releases with guidelines for this one step further, combining
interface design. The latest are well-functioning usability and
Windows Vista User safety. However,
Experience guidelines.[39] Their inconsistencies may appear,
focus is on consistency and since GNOME-based
usability, but with increased programs, following different
concern for safety in new guidelines, look notably
versions. Third-party different from KDE programs.
applications may or may not There are other
follow these guidelines, may environments/window
 have their own guidelines, or
may not follow any rules for
interface design.
managers, usually targeting
professionals or minimalist
users, featuring some very
powerful programs with
rudimentary, minimalist
graphical front-ends, focusing
much more on performance,
small size and safety.
WindowMaker and the
Fluxbox/Openbox/Blackbox
environments are such
examples. Some other
environments fit between the
two models, giving both power,
eye candy and simplicity
(Enlightenment/E17, Xfce).
Some graphical environments
are targeted to mouse users
only (Fluxbox), others to
keyboard users only
(Ratpoison), others to either.
Certain graphical environments
are also designed to be as
resource-conservative as
possible, so as to run on older
machines.

Consistency User interaction with software Consistency can be poor

between is usually consistent between between distributions, versions,
versions versions, releases, and editions. window managers/desktop
environments, and programs.
Software is generally highly
user-customizable, and the user
may keep the customizations
between versions.

Consistency All Microsoft software follows Highly consistent within KDE

between the same guidelines for GUI,
applications although not all software
developed for Windows by
third parties follows these GUI
guidelines. As stated above,
backports tend to follow the
and GNOME. However the
vast amount of additional
software that comes with a
distribution is sourced from
elsewhere; it may not follow
the same GUI guidelines or it
 guidelines from the newer may cause inconsistencies (e.g.
operating system. different look and feel between
programs built with different
widget toolkits).

Few working specifications

Customization Windows provides extensive, exist for Linux driver
well-documented programming programming interfaces, and no
interfaces that enable third model for consistent binary
parties to develop kernel driver support exists. In fact, a
software that extends and compiled Linux driver is tied to
modifies system behavior. the exact build of the kernel
Microsoft provides its running on the machine where
Windows Driver Kit at no cost, the driver was compiled.
which includes thorough Having no specifications or
documentation, samples, and consistent programming
tools for building, testing, and interfaces, and no way to
deploying drivers. Windows develop and distribute system-
driver programming interfaces neutral driver files, Linux
are based on standards and driver developers are therefore
specifications, often the limited to choosing a specific
product of a process involving kernel version, examining its
leading players in the internals, and writing modules
applicable industry. that interface with those
internals. This process is
While Windows drivers are facilitated by the fact that the
compiled based on kernel source code is available.
specifications, and are not tied However, historically, kernel
to a specific version of internals typically change over
Windows, source code for a time, and source code for
specific version of Windows modules must be periodically
may, in theory, be purchased updated in order for it to
for modification in some continue to function. This also
circumstances (restrictive), or means that modifications that
third-party tools may create work on one machine will often
modifications. In practice, the fail to work on another
availability of Windows source machine if their kernel versions
code is generally heavily are different.
restricted or extremely
expensive, if available at all.
However, even where source is
available, modification to the
operating system can break the
EULA, and in turn be
prohibited or even illegal.
Interprocess Communication Mechanisms:

Processes communicate with each other and with the kernel to coordinate their activities. Linux
supports a number of Inter-Process Communication (IPC) mechanisms. Signals and pipes are
two of them but Linux also supports the System V IPC mechanisms named after the Unix
TM
release in which they first appeared.

Signals

Signals are one of the oldest inter-process communication methods used by Unix TM systems.
They are used to signal asynchronous events to one or more processes. A signal could be
generated by a keyboard interrupt or an error condition such as the process attempting to access a
non-existent location in its virtual memory. Signals are also used by the shells to signal job
control commands to their child processes.

There are a set of defined signals that the kernel can generate or that can be generated by other
processes in the system, provided that they have the correct privileges. You can list a system's set
of signals using the kill command (kill -l), on my Intel Linux box this gives:

1) SIGHUP 2) SIGINT 3) SIGQUIT 4) SIGILL

5) SIGTRAP 6) SIGIOT 7) SIGBUS 8) SIGFPE
9) SIGKILL 10) SIGUSR1 11) SIGSEGV 12) SIGUSR2
13) SIGPIPE 14) SIGALRM 15) SIGTERM 17) SIGCHLD
18) SIGCONT 19) SIGSTOP 20) SIGTSTP 21) SIGTTIN
22) SIGTTOU 23) SIGURG 24) SIGXCPU 25) SIGXFSZ
26) SIGVTALRM 27) SIGPROF 28) SIGWINCH 29) SIGIO
30) SIGPWR

The numbers are different for an Alpha AXP Linux box. Processes can choose to ignore most of
the signals that are generated, with two notable exceptions: neither the SIGSTOP signal which
causes a process to halt its execution nor the SIGKILL signal which causes a process to exit can
be ignored. Otherwise though, a process can choose just how it wants to handle the various
signals. Processes can block the signals and, if they do not block them, they can either choose to
handle them themselves or allow the kernel to handle them. If the kernel handles the signals, it
will do the default actions required for this signal. For example, the default action when a
process receives the SIGFPE (floating point exception) signal is to core dump and then exit.
Signals have no inherent relative priorities. If two signals are generated for a process at the same
time then they may be presented to the process or handled in any order. Also there is no
mechanism for handling multiple signals of the same kind. There is no way that a process can tell
if it received 1 or 42 SIGCONT signals.
Linux implements signals using information stored in the task_struct for the process. The number
of supported signals is limited to the word size of the processor. Processes with a word size of 32
bits can have 32 signals whereas 64 bit processors like the Alpha AXP may have up to 64
signals. The currently pending signals are kept in the signal field with a mask of blocked signals
held in blocked. With the exception of SIGSTOP and SIGKILL, all signals can be blocked. If a
blocked signal is generated, it remains pending until it is unblocked. Linux also holds
information about how each process handles every possible signal and this is held in an array of
sigaction data structures pointed at by the task_struct for each process. Amongst other things it
contains either the address of a routine that will handle the signal or a flag which tells Linux that
the process either wishes to ignore this signal or let the kernel handle the signal for it. The
process modifies the default signal handling by making system calls and these calls alter the
sigaction for the appropriate signal as well as the blocked mask.

Not every process in the system can send signals to every other process, the kernel can and super
users can. Normal processes can only send signals to processes with the same uid and gid or to
processes in the same process group1. Signals are generated by setting the appropriate bit in the
task_struct's signal field. If the process has not blocked the signal and is waiting but interruptible
(in state Interruptible) then it is woken up by changing its state to Running and making sure that
it is in the run queue. That way the scheduler will consider it a candidate for running when the
system next schedules. If the default handling is needed, then Linux can optimize the handling of
the signal. For example if the signal SIGWINCH (the X window changed focus) and the default
handler is being used then there is nothing to be done.

Signals are not presented to the process immediately they are generated., they must wait until the
process is running again. Every time a process exits from a system call its signal and blocked
fields are checked and, if there are any unblocked signals, they can now be delivered. This might
seem a very unreliable method but every process in the system is making system calls, for
example to write a character to the terminal, all of the time. Processes can elect to wait for
signals if they wish, they are suspended in state Interruptible until a signal is presented. The
Linux signal processing code looks at the sigaction structure for each of the current unblocked
signals.

If a signal's handler is set to the default action then the kernel will handle it. The SIGSTOP
signal's default handler will change the current process's state to Stopped and then run the
scheduler to select a new process to run. The default action for the SIGFPE signal will core
dump the process and then cause it to exit. Alternatively, the process may have specfied its own
signal handler. This is a routine which will be called whenever the signal is generated and the
sigaction structure holds the address of this routine. The kernel must call the process's signal
handling routine and how this happens is processor specific but all CPUs must cope with the fact
that the current process is running in kernel mode and is just about to return to the process that
called the kernel or system routine in user mode. The problem is solved by manipulating the
stack and registers of the process. The process's program counter is set to the address of its signal
handling routine and the parameters to the routine are added to the call frame or passed in
registers. When the process resumes operation it appears as if the signal handling routine were
called normally.
 Linux is POSIX compatible and so the process can specify which signals are blocked when a
particular signal handling routine is called. This means changing the blocked mask during the
call to the processes signal handler. The blocked mask must be returned to its original value
when the signal handling routine has finished. Therefore Linux adds a call to a tidy up routine
which will restore the original blocked mask onto the call stack of the signalled process. Linux
also optimizes the case where several signal handling routines need to be called by stacking them
so that each time one handling routine exits, the next one is called until the tidy up routine is
called.

Pipes
The common Linux shells all allow redirection. For example
$ ls | pr | lpr

pipes the output from the ls command listing the directory's files into the standard input of the pr
command which paginates them. Finally the standard output from the pr command is piped into
the standard input of the lpr command which prints the results on the default printer. Pipes then
are unidirectional byte streams which connect the standard output from one process into the
standard input of another process. Neither process is aware of this redirection and behaves just as
it would normally. It is the shell which sets up these temporary pipes between the processes.

PACKEGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM:

Linux programs are normally dependent on exact kernel and library versions, and
therefore on a specific version of a specific distribution. In order to manage the complicated
dependencies that arise, most distributions have a package manager, often based upon RPM,
APT, or Gentoo Ebuild metapackages (source). Sometimes an installation can have a second
package management system which is incompatible with the primary system. Numerous
distribution-specific front-ends exist on top of the core formats allowing for GUI or command-
line package installation e.g. aptitude, Synaptic, Portage, YaST and YUM. Though rare, some
distributions create their own formats e.g. Pardus PiSi or Pacman.

Most package managers have a form of package signing usually based on PGP e.g. OpenPGP for
Debian packages. It is also possible to create a GUI installation package not depending on the
distributions by using Autopackage. Software can also be compiled from source code, which
does not require any kind of package-management system. However, compiling software from
its source code can be time-consuming and difficult. Source code is also typically tied to specific
library versions, and in many cases, source code can not be compiled without updating system
libraries, which can disable existing installed software that is dependent on exact builds of those
libraries. In some cases, conflicts arise where the latest version of one program depends on
having an older version of a specific library, and another program will depend on having a newer
version of the same library.

SECURITY- -
 Linux [has] ... the notion of an administrative (root) user that maintains and operates the
system, and desktop users who only run the software on the system, is completely ingrained in
most Linux distributions. Now it’s true that many Linux users ignore these features and run all
their software from a root-level account anyway, but that’s a choice that they’ve made. The
system defaults to protecting the operating system components from its user’s actions
(intentional or otherwise). That feature alone must account in large degree for the dearth of
viruses and other malicious vermin on Linux and UNIX platforms. Windows, on the other hand,
started life as a single user system, with that single user being all-powerful. Although that’s no
longer the case, the general attitude can still be found in many Windows-based software
products – many of which just can’t be installed and/or run properly without desktop
administrator privileges. This is all changing for the better, but it took Microsoft far too long to
adopt this default-secure configuration practice.

SWAP FILES- -

A swap file (a.k.a. page file) is used by the Operating System when the demands on RAM
exceed the available capacity. Windows uses a hidden file for its swap file. By default, this file
resides in the same partition as the OS, although you can put it in another partition, after
Windows is installed. In Windows XP, the swap file resides initially on the C disk as a file called
pagefile.sys. Linux likes to use a dedicated partition for its swap file, however advanced users
can opt to implement the swap file as a file in the same partition as the OS. I'm not sure if this
issue is clearly presented and explained when installing Linux. Probably not. Xandros v4, for
example, may use a separate swap partition or not, depending on the partition environment it
finds at install time. Xandros 4 does not explain any of this.

Updated August 2006: With Windows XP the default size of the swap file is 1.5 times the
amount of RAM in the machine at the time Windows was installed. I don't know how Linux
chooses a default swap file size. In Windows XP you can change the swap file size and location
with Control Panel -> System Properties -> Advanced tab -> Performance Settings -> Advanced
tab again -> Change button, which opens the Virtual Memory window. Be aware that this
window violates user interface standards. It is the only window I know of where clicking the OK
button after making a change, does not activate the change. To change the size of the page/swap
file, you must click the Set button. I don't know how to change the size of a Linux swap file.

Network configuration files:

The graphical helper tools edit a specific set of network configuration files, using a couple of
basic commands. The exact names of the configuration files and their location in the file system
is largely dependent on your Linux distribution and version. However, a couple of network
configuration files are common on all UNIX systems:
1. /etc/hosts

The /etc/hosts file always contains the local host IP address, 127.0.0.1, which is used for
intercrosses communication. Never remove this line! Sometimes contains addresses of
additional hosts, which can be contacted without using an external naming service such
as DNS (the Domain Name Server).

2. /etc/nsswitch.conf

The /etc/nsswitch.conf file defines the order in which to contact different name services. For
Internet use, it is important that dns shows up in the "hosts" line

Network configuration commands:

1. The ip command

The distribution-specific scripts and graphical tools are front-ends to ip (or ifconfig and route on
older systems) to display and configure the kernel's networking configuration.

The ip command is used for assigning IP addresses to interfaces, for setting up routes to the
Internet and to other networks, for displaying TCP/IP configurations.

2. The ifconfig command

While ip is the most novel way to configure a Linux system, ifconfig is still very popular. Use it
without option for displaying network interface information:

els@asus:~$ /sbin/ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:70:31:2C:14
inet addr:60.138.67.31 Bcast:66.255.255.255 Mask:255.255.255.192
inet6 addr: fe80::250:70ff:fe31:2c14/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets: 31977764 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets: 51896866 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:802207 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2806974916 (2.6 GiB) TX bytes:2874632613 (2.6 GiB)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xec00
lo
Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
 RX packets: 765762 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets: 765762 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
Collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:624214573 (595.2 MiB) TX bytes:624214573 (595.2 MiB)

3. The host command

To display information on hosts or domains, use the host command.

4. The traceroute command

To check the route that packets follow to a network host, use the traceroute command.

4. The whois command

Specific domain name information can be queried using the whois command, as is explained by
many whois servers.

FILE SYSTEM- -

A filesystem is the methods and data structures that an operating system uses to keep track of
files on a disk or partition; that is, the way the files are organized on the disk. The word is also
used to refer to a partition or disk that is used to store the files or the type of the filesystem. Thus,
one might say I have two filesystems meaning one has two partitions on which one stores files,
or that one is using the extended filesystem, meaning the type of the filesystem.

Windows uses FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and/or NTFS with NTFS almost always being the best
choice. The FATx file systems are older and have assorted limitations on file and partition size
that make them problematical in the current environment. Linux also has a number of its own
native file systems. The default file system for Linux used to be ext2, now it is typically ext3.
Other supported file systems includes XFS, JFS, JFFS and Reiser3. Reiser4 is in development.
The ext3 file system is being replaced by ext4. Among the improvements in ext4 is an increase
in the maximum filesystem size from 16 terabytes in ext3 to one exabyte. The largest file in ext3
is 2 terabytes, in ext4 it is 16 terabytes. OpenSolaris includes ZFS which seems like a drastic
change in file system design.

File systems can be either journaled or not. Non-journaled systems are subject to problems when
stopped abruptly. All the FAT variants and ext2 are non-journaled. After a crash, they should be
examined by their respective health check utilities (Scan Disk or Check Disk or fsck). In
contrast, when a journaled file system is stopped abruptly, recovery is automatic at the next
reboot. NTFS is journaled. Linux supports several journaled file systems: ext3, ext4, reiserfs and
jfs.
All the file systems use directories and subdirectories. Windows separates directories with a back
slash, Linux uses a normal forward slash. Windows file names are not case sensitive. Linux file
names are. For example "abc" and " aBC" are different files in Linux, whereas in Windows it
would refer to the same file. Case sensitivity has been a problem for this very web page, the
name of which is " Linux.vs.Windows.html". At times, people have tried to get to this page using
" linux.vs.windows.html" (all lower case) which resulted in a Page Not Found error. Eventually,
I created a new web page with the name in all lower case and this new page simply re-directs
you to the real page, the one you are reading now (with a capital L and W).

File Hierarchy:

Windows and Linux use different concepts for their file hierarchy. Windows uses a volume-
based file hierarchy, Linux uses a unified scheme. Windows uses letters of the alphabet to
represent different devices and different hard disk partitions. Under Windows, you need to know
what volume (C:, D:,...) a file resides on to select it, the file's physical location is part of it's
name. In Linux all directories are attached to the root directory, which is identified by a forward-
slash, "/". For example, below are some second-level directories:

/bin/ ---- system binaries, user programs with normal user permissions
/sbin --- executables that need root permission
/data/ --- a user defined directory
/dev/ ---- system device tree
/etc/ ---- system configuration
/home/ --- users' subdirectories
/home/{username} akin to the Windows My Documents folder
/tmp/ ---- system temporary files
/usr/ ---- applications software
/usr/bin - executables for programs with user permission
/var/ ---- system variables
/lib --- libraries needed for installed programs to run

Every device and hard disk partition is represented in the Linux file system as a subdirectory of
the lone root directory. For example, the floppy disk drive in Linux might be /etc/floppy. The
root directory lives in the root partition, but other directories (and the devices they represent) can
reside anywhere. Removable devices and hard disk partitions other than the root are attached
(i.e., "mounted") to subdirectories in the directory tree. This is done either at system initialization
or in response to a mount command.

There are no standards in Linux for which subdirectories are used for which devices. This
contrasts with Windows where the A disk is always the floppy drive and the C disk is almost
always the boot partition.
Hidden Files: Both support the concept of hidden files, which are files that, by default, are not
shown to the user when listing files in a directory. Linux implements this with a filename that
starts with a period. Windows tracks this as a file attribute in the file metadata (along with things
like the last update date). In both OSs the user can over-ride the default behavior and force the
system to list hidden files.

Case: Case sensitivity is the same with commands as with file names. When entering commands
in a DOS/command window under any version of Windows, "dir" is the same as "DIR". In Linux
"dir" is a different command than "DIR".

Filesystem Permissions

Both Windows NT-based systems and Linux-based systems support permissions on their default
filesystems. Windows' original FAT filesystem, however, does not support permissions. This
filesystem is available for use in both operating systems. Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows
95, and previous versions of Windows only operated on the FAT filesystem, and therefore do not
support permissions natively.

Linux and Unix-like systems

File system permissions on a Linux system running GNOME.

Linux—and Unix-like systems in general—have a “user, group, other” approach to filesystem

permissions at a minimum.[81] Access Control Lists are available on some filesystems, which
extends the traditional Unix-like permissions system. Security patches like SELinux and PaX
add Role-Based Access Controls, which add even finer-grained controls over which users and
programs can access certain resources or perform certain operations. Some distributions, such as
Fedora, CentOS, and Red Hat use SELinux out of the box, although most do not.

Most Linux distributions provide different user accounts for the various daemons. In common
practice, user applications are run on unprivileged accounts, to provide least user access. In some
distributions, administrative tasks can only be performed through explicit switching from the
user account to the root account, using tools such as su and sudo.
 CONCLUSION

Red hat network is a complete system management platform. it is a framework of modules for
easy software update, system management, and monitoring. There are currently four modules in
Red hat network:

. The update module

. The management modules

. The provisioning

. The monitoring modules

Linux is an implementation of UNIX. The Linux operating system is written in the C

programming language. Linux uses GNU tools, a set of freely available standard tools for
handling the operating system. An operating system (OS) is a resource manager. It takes the
form of a set of software routines that allow users and application programs to access system
resources (e.g. the CPU, memory, disks, modems, printer’s network cards etc.) in a safe,
efficient and abstract way.

Physical security is the first layer of security. Home users probably need
not worry about this too much. However, in a public environment, this aspect of security is a
much larger concern. Keep in mind that re-booting the system is only a ctrl-alt-del away if users
have access to the console.
 REFERERENCE

http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

www.redhat.com

www.rpm.org.

http://www.tux.org/lkml/

http://www.tux.org

ftp://ftp.redhat.com

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux

http://www.kernel.org

http://x86.org/intel.doc/586manuals.htm

http://www.irisa.fr/prive/mentre/smp-faq/

http://www.teleport.com/~acpi/