Performing Essential System Administration Tasks

Abstract

So you have your server up and running, and you’ve just learned how to get your work done from the command line. This is where the real work starts! Next, you need to learn how to tune your server so it does exactly what you want it to. First, you need to know how to manage software. Next, even if many in the Linux community will flame you for it, you probably want to work with a graphical interface on your server to accomplish common tasks. Even if Ubuntu Server is a command line-oriented server, in some situations the graphical interface just makes things much easier. So I’ll explain how to install that at your server. Once the server starts to take shape, you’ll want to make sure that it is properly backed up. And, finally, if something goes wrong, you’ll need logging to find out what happened. All these are considered essential system administration tasks, and you’ll learn about them in this chapter.