Chapter 10

Common Administrative Tasks

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ay not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Objectives
• After completing this chapter, you will be able to:
• Set up, manage, and print to printers on a Linux system
• Understand the purpose of log files and how they are administered
• Create, modify, manage, and delete user and group accounts

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 Printer Administration
• Being able to print is commonly required by most users on a
Linux system
• Printing log files and system configuration information is a good practice in
case of system failure
• A firm understanding of how to set up, manage, and print to printers is
vital to Linux servers

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 The Common UNIX Printing System (1 of 5)
• Common Unix Printing System (CUPS): most common printing
system used on Linux
• Print job: set of information sent to a printer at the same time
• Can consist of a file, several files, or the output of a command
• The lp command: sends a print job to a printer

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 The Common UNIX Printing System (2 of 5)
• CUPS daemon (cupsd): assigns the print job a unique print job ID
and places a copy of the print job into a temporary directory on
the filesystem
• Print job ID: unique identifier assigned by cupsd
• Print queue: directory holding print jobs waiting to be printed

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 The Common UNIX Printing System (3 of 5)
• Printer can accept or reject request to print
• If rejected, CUPS displays an error message
• Spooling or queuing: accepting print jobs into a print queue
• If printer is enabled and ready to accept print jobs, the CUPS
daemon sends the print job from the print queue to the printer
• The copy of the print job is removed from the print queue
• If printer is disabled, print job remains in the print queue

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The Common UNIX Printing System (4 of 5)

Figure 10-1: The print process

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 The Common UNIX Printing System (5 of 5)
• The lpstat command: with –t (total) option, lists all printers and
their status
• The cupsaccept, cupsreject, cupsenable, and cupsdisable
commands: manipulate the status of a printer
• The -r option: used to specify reason for cupsdisable and cupsreject
commands

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Managing Print Jobs (1 of 2)
• The lp command: create a print job
• The lp –d command: specify the destination printer name
• If –d option is omitted, prints to default printer
• The cancel command: remove print jobs from print queue
• The -u option: remove all the jobs sent by specified user
• The lpadmin command: restrict specific user access to specific
printers

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Managing Print Jobs (2 of 2)
Table 10-2: Common options
to the lpstat command
Option Description
-a Displays a list of printers that are accepting print jobs
-d Displays the default destination printer
-o printername Displays the print jobs in the print queue for printername
only
-p Displays a list of printers that are enabled
-r Shows whether the CUPS daemon (scheduler) is running
-s Shows printer and printer status information
-t Shows all information about printers and their print jobs

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 The LPD Printing System
• Line Printer Daemon (LPD): used on legacy Linux systems
• The lpr command: send documents to a print queue
• The lpc command: view status of printers
• The lpq command: view print jobs in print queue
• The lprm command: remove print jobs
• CUPS contains versions of the lpr, lpc, lpq, and lprm commands

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Configuring Printers (1 of 9)
• /etc/cups/cupsd.conf: contains cupsd settings
• /etc/cups/printers.conf: contains each printer’s configuration
information
• Be default, the CUPS daemon detects locally connected and
network-shared printers
• Automatically adds an entry for them in the printers.conf file
• For any printers that the CUPS daemon does not detect and configure,
you must provide the necessary information

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Configuring Printers (2 of 9)
• On Fedora Linux, the Printers tool within GNOME desktop can be
used to create new printers and manage them
• Access the Printers tool by navigating to the Activities menu, Show
Applications, Settings, Printers
• Most comprehensive way to create and manage CUPS printers is
by using the CUPS Web administration tool
• Use a Web browser on TCP port 631

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Configuring Printers (3 of 9)

Figure 10-2: The Printers tool

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Configuring Printers (4 of 9)

Figure 10-3: The CUPS Web administration tool

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Configuring Printers (5 of 9)
• Create a new printer using CUPS Web administration tool
• Select the Administration tab, click Add Printer, and log in using the root
username and password
• Select the type of printer

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Configuring Printers (6 of 9)
• After selecting printer type, you will be prompted to specify:
• Printer name
• Description
• Manufacturer and model
• Default printer options
• Whether to share the printer using IPP
• After creating a printer, other options are available on the
Administration tab to configure and manage the CUPS printing
service

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Configuring Printers (7 of 9)

Figure 10-5: CUPS administration options

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Configuring Printers (8 of 9)
• CUPS allows you to configure collections of printers that can be
used as a single unit
• Collections called printer classes
• Often used in larger organizations, where multiple printers are stored in a
print room
• To create a printer class, select the Add Class button

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Configuring Printers (9 of 9)
• Manage Job allows you to view, modify, and delete print jobs that
have submitted to the queue
• Regular users can use the CUPS Web administration tool and select the
Jobs tab to manage their own jobs
• The Server section allows you to edit the CUPS configuration file,
access log files, and perform advanced functions

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Log File Administration
• Log file: file containing system information
• Typically recorded during daemon activity
• Information includes error messages
• /var/log directory: contains log files
• Many programs store log files in subdirectories of the /var/log directory
• Most common logging daemons used on Linux systems today
• System Log Daemon (rsyslogd)
• Systemd Journal Daemon (journald)

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Working with the System Log Daemon
• System log daemon (syslogd): the traditional and most common
logging daemon
• Creates /dev/log socket for system processes to write to
• Writes to appropriate log file using /etc/rsyslog.conf file
• Facility: area of system to listen to
• Priority: importance of information

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Working with the Systemd Journal Daemon (1 of 2)
• The Systemd Journal Daemon replaces the System Log Daemon
on Linux distributions that use Systemd
• Similar to System Log Daemon
• Events logged are not controlled by specific rules
• Journald logs all information to a database under the
/var/log/journal directory structure
• Events are tagged with the same facility and priority information as the
rsyslogd daemon

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Working with the Systemd Journal Daemon (2 of 2)
• The journalctl command: use to view events within the journald
database
• Type journalctl and press the Tab key to see a list of areas and criteria
that can be queried
• You can query events related to a specific process or daemon
• Specify the path name to the executable file or PID

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Managing Log Files and the journald Database
(1 of 2)
• Log files can take up unnecessary space
• The journald database is configured to use persistent storage by default
• For systems using Systemd
• Limit the size of the journald database by uncommenting and configuring
the SystemMaxUse line in /etc/systemd/journald.conf
• Prevent key older events from being overwritten
• Create a shell script that executes the appropriate journalctl commands to
either print or save them to a text file

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Managing Log Files and the Journald Database
(2 of 2)
• For log files within the /var/log directory
• Clear contents occasionally
• Use > redirection symbol to clear log file
• Use the logrotate command to back up and clear log files from entries stored in
the /etc/logrotate.conf file and files stored in the /etc/ logrotate.d directory

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Administering Users and Groups (1 of 4)
• Authentication: verify user’s identity
• Compare username and password to system database
• Database containing user account information typically consists
of two files
• /etc/passwd: user account information
• /etc/shadow: encrypted password and expiration information
• The pwconv command: convert system to use an /etc/shadow file
for encrypted password storage
• The pwunconv command: revert back to using an /etc/passwd file
only
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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Administering Users and Groups (2 of 4)
• User Identifier (UID): unique user ID for each user
• Group Identifier (GID): primary group ID for each user
• Primary group: group owner for all files created by a user
• General Electric Comprehensive Operating System (GECOS):
text description of user

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Administering Users and Groups (3 of 4)
• Root user is usually listed at top of /etc/passwd file
• Followed by user accounts used by daemons, followed by regular user
accounts
• Password field differs in the two files:
• /etc/shadow: contains encrypted password
• /etc/passwd: contains an x character
• Lastchange field: date of most recent password change
• Number represents number of days since January 1,1970

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Administering Users and Groups (4 of 4)
• Passwords can be set to expire at certain intervals
• Three fields of the /etc/shadow file indicate:
• Min: number of days a user must wait before changing password
• Max: number of days a user can use the same password without changing it
• Warn: number of days before a password would expire that a user is warned to
change his password
• When a password has expired, the user is still allowed to log in to
the system for a certain period of time
• Number of days allowed is represented by the disable1 field in etc/shadow
• /etc/group file: lists all groups and their members

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Creating User Accounts (1 of 2)
• The useradd command: add new user accounts
• Most new user information comes from two files
• /etc/login.defs
• E-mail location, password expiration, minimum password length, range of UIDs and
GIDs
• /etc/default/useradd
• Default primary group, home directory location, password expiration info, shell,
skeleton directory

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Creating User Accounts (2 of 2)
• Skeleton directory: contains environment files to copy to new
users’ home directories
• Usually /etc/skel
• Override default parameters by specifying options to useradd
command
• The passwd command: set a user’s password

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Modifying User Accounts
• The usermod command: modify user account information
• The chage command: modify password expiration information
• Lock an account: temporarily prevent a user from logging in
• The usermod -L command
• The passwd –u username
• The chsh command

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Deleting User Accounts
• The userdel command: delete user accounts
• Specify user name as argument
• When an account is deleted, files previously owned by the user
become owned by a number representing UID of deleted user
• Next user with that UID will own the files

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Managing Groups (1 of 2)
• Add groups to a system
• Edit the /etc/group file using a text editor
• Use the groupadd command
• Use the -G option to the usermod command to add members to
the group
• The groupmod command: modify GID name of a group on the system
• The groupdel command: remove a group from the system
• The groups command: list groups that a user belongs to
• The id command: list GIDs of groups

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Managing Groups (2 of 2)

Figure 10-6: Configuring users and groups within a desktop environment

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Summary (1 of 4)
• Print jobs are spooled to a print queue before being printed to a
printer
• You can configure spooling or printing by using the cupsaccept,
cupsreject, cupsenable, and cupsdisable commands
• Print jobs are created using lp, can be viewed in the queue using
lpstat, and are removed from the queue using cancel command

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Summary (2 of 4)
• Configure printers using the lpadmin command, the CUPS Web
administration tool, or by modifying the /etc/cups/printers.conf file
• Most log files in Linux are stored in /var/log directory
• System events are typically logged to files by the System Log
Daemon or to a database by the Systemd Journal Daemon
• You can use the journalctl command to view the contents of the
journald database

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Summary (3 of 4)
• Log files should be cleared or rotated over time to save disk
space
• User and group account information is typically stored in the
/etc/passwd, /etc/ shadow, and /etc/group files
• Use the useradd command to create users and the groupadd
command to create groups
• All users must have a valid password before logging in to a Linux
system

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Summary (4 of 4)
• Users can be modified with usermod, chage, chfn, chsh, and
passwd commands, and groups can be modified using groupmod
command
• The userdel and groupdel commands remove users and groups
from the system, respectively

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.