Learning path
Work through the modules in order. Each one links to guides as they are published; the roadmap mirrors what a junior Linux administrator is expected to know.
Looking for the old “Free Linux Training Courses” catalogue that lived at this address until 2016? It is gone, together with the Moodle site behind it. This is a new, independent project. The topics below cover the same ground with current distributions.
Module 1 – Linux desktop and the shell
- Choosing a distribution to learn on (Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian) and installing it in a virtual machine
- Bash essentials
- The filesystem
- Editing files with nano and vim; reading documentation with
manand--help
Module 2 – Users, permissions and processes
- Users, groups and permissions
- sudo and the principle of least privilege
- Processes, signals,
systemctland journald
Module 3 – Networking and remote access
- IP addressing, DNS and
ip,ss,dig - SSH from zero
- Firewalls with nftables and ufw
Module 4 – Packages, storage and backups
- apt and dnf, repositories and pinning
- Disks, partitions, LVM and filesystems
- Backups with rsync and restic, and testing restores
Module 5 – Server roles
- Web server (nginx, Apache) and TLS with Let's Encrypt
- DNS server basics
- Mail: Postfix and Dovecot, SPF/DKIM/DMARC
- File sharing with Samba; proxies and reverse proxies
Module 6 – Monitoring, security and automation
- Monitoring with Nagios-style checks and modern alternatives
- Hardening checklists and fail2ban
- Bash scripting for automation; an introduction to Ansible
Module 7 – Virtualisation and containers
- KVM and virt-manager
- Docker and Podman basics