Final Project:  ITI-481 UNIX Administration, Section 13

Chris Uriarte, Instructor      

 

The goal of the final project for this class is to allow you to take the information from each of our meeting and apply it to some type of real world situation.  The world of system administration presents new challenges everyday.  It’s not important for you to know and remember every detail about UNIX systems to be a successful administrator.  It is very important, however, that you become familiar with the general concepts and theory that go into managing a UNIX system and solving problems.    Examining real world situations, experimenting on your own and making mistakes are usually the best ways to develop those concepts.

 

I have developed two case studies that are very real world in nature.   It is your job to pick one of the case studies, address the implementation issues involved and present them to me in a comprehensive and organized manner.  Over the past 6 weeks, you have obtained a good amount of resources that you can use to help find the answers to the problems presented to you.  Some of those resources include:

 

 

While you won’t actually perform any hands-on configuration for the project, you should use your account on the ITI machine to help you reference configuration files, file systems, software installations, etc. on a running system.

 

You should prepare your response to these problems in an electronic format and submit it to me via email, either as Microsoft Word document (preferred) or in a plain email message.  Your answers should be comprehensive and include the names of specific software packages, configuration files and the specific modifications that you will make to them.  Here’s an actual question and answer from the final project of a Computer Networks class I once taught:

 

Question:  How would you address the network security issues associated with this configuration?

 

Student’s Answer:  I’d call in a security consultant and use his advice.

 

This is an example of a bad answer.   Explain yourself!  I am interested in reading what you have to say.

 

I admit it.  Some things in the problems just aren’t fair.  I will ask you to explain some things that we never covered in class.    But hey, welcome to the real world!  I know that each of you can do your best in researching the problem and coming up with a solution.

 

The project should be delivered to be no later than 8am on November 1.  I will be posting solutions to the problems as soon as I get into my office that morning. 

 

In addition to your responses to the problems presented below, please include a 1 or 2 paragraphs that answer the following questions:

 

  1. What is your opinion of this project?  Do you have any suggestions for a better project? (Keep in mind that it is impossible to do a “hands-on” project).
  2. What is your overall opinion of this course?  What were the best parts?  What were the worst?  How can we improve it?

 

So without any further ado…

 

 

CASE 1:  The Web Cluster

Your boss needs you to setup a new cluster of servers that will be used for a new high-traffic website that you company is building.  In a clustered web environment there are usually multiple machines with the same configuration.  Web requests are distributed to each of those different machines in a number of different ways.  It’s not your job to figure out how the traffic gets distributed between these machines, but it is your job to make sure they are configured correctly as stand-along web servers.  Your boss gives the following list of requirements:

 

 

 

The Project:

 

 

 

 

 

CASE 2:  The Development Server

Your boss needs you to setup a new Linux server that will be used by a group of company programmers.   He gives you the following list of requirements:

 

 

The Project: