Review of O'Reilly School of Technology System Administration Certificate Course

Review of O'Reilly School of Technology System Administration Certificate Course
by Dave Crouse


http://www.oreillyschool.com
http://www.oreillyschool.com/courses/system-administration.php
Quote:

Linux/Unix System Administration Certificate Series

This course series targets both beginning and intermediate Linux/Unix users who want to acquire advanced system administration skills, and to back those skills up with a Certificate from the University of Illinois.


I completed the Linux/Unix System Administration Certificate from The O'Reilly School of Technology several months ago. I am finally getting some free time to review the course. I must say I am really glad I took the course, and that even with over a decade of Linux experience, I did actually learn a few things. The course is actually setup for the beginner to intermediate users. This doesn't mean that power users of Linux won't learn anything, I did learn a few new things, but probably would be more for review and the certificate to put on your resume, than to expect to learn new concepts if your an advanced Linux user. Beginners and Intermediate users should expect to learn many new concepts and to do alot of reading.

Lets start with the interface for the school. It's called "The Learning Sandbox". There are two basic parts to the sandbox. The "Mystuff" section that contains the coursework and materials, and the "Coderunner" section below, that has the editor/mysql/unix tabs. Let me state right off the bat, I didn't like the "Coderunner" section that much. This was probably the one area of the entire course that I didn't have much appreciation of. Probably simply because I found logging in via ssh and using vi via my own Linux session, was so much faster and easier than using the web based interface that they supplied. This interface is used for other courses, so it makes sense that it's available, it just wasn't something I needed to use to do the coursework. In fact, I don't think I used it over once or twice during the entire course. Perhaps a person having to work from the Windows operating system might need that, I'm not sure.

The "Mystuff" section is used, it is in fact where you find the coursework and instructions. After logging into your account, and clicking your "Mystuff" tab you are presented with a screen that shows seven tabs. Files, Messages, Account, Course Work,Certificate,Forum,Main. Course Work is the tab that will get the biggest workout. Clicking that opens up the screen that allows you to get started.

Course 1: The Unix File System

This was by far the easiest of the course's. It covers basic shell commands, text editors, ssh, and cron. This section probably presents very little new material to an advanced user. Beginner and Intermediate users might find this material new, or a good refresher. This section in my opinion, could have covered much more material, and had many more questions than it did.

Course 2: Networking and DNS

I "thought" I knew a lot about Networking and DNS, I've ran my own bind server and have did a fair bit of networking. I found out most of the stuff I learned from the entire course series came from this section. The part that really threw me was the section on IP/subnets. This was just something I never really had to deal with, and forced me to dig into what I didn't know, and learn it. The course instructor was very helpful, and answered many emails promptly. This section I think many power Linux users would find challenging, and would probably benefit from.

Course 3: Unix Services

This section might be the most challenging for someone not familiar with a Linux system at all. In it you configure and install servers from source, and how to configure them. Not much of a challenge for the experience System Administrator or a Linux guru, but definitely an eye opener for someone that's never done it. This is the section where you "Learn by Doing, and Doing and Doing ........ " I enjoyed this section. From a users standpoint, this section probably had the best "flow". Working from the basics to having an installed running apache/mysql/php system.

Course 4: Scripting for Administrators Sed, Awk, and Perl

This section I enjoyed the most. It gives the user an overview of Awk, Sed, and Perl. If your not familiar with any of these, expect this section to take longer. I had to ask for clarification for one of the questions, and again, the instructor replied quickly via email.


My overall opinion of the course. It is worth taking. The instructor's are extremely friendly and willing to help you. It may not present tons of new material for an experienced Linux user, but for an Intermediate user, it would be challenging. A few things I would change, I would add more questions to the course's, and cover much more material in the scripting sections. On a scale of one to ten, I'd give it an eight. Would I take more O'Reilly course's ? Yes, I am planning on taking more. It was a thought provoking and enjoyable experience for me.