Learning Red Hat Linux

Chapter 7. Configuring and Administering Linux

This chapter equips you to perform common system administration tasks, focusing on tasks you can perform using linuxconf, a utility that provides a visual interface to system configuration information. By using linuxconf, you can override many configuration choices made during system installation. You’ll learn how to add, delete, and modify user accounts, and how to add and delete groups and change their membership. You’ll also learn how to configure swap space and how to cause Linux to automatically mount filesystems. This chapter shows how to configure LILO to load the kernel of your choice and how to use LILO to boot other operating systems. Finally, you’ll learn how to use linuxconf to configure your system’s TCP/IP networking facility.

Using linuxconf

linuxconf lets you view and modify system configuration information. Traditionally, system administrations have configured Unix systems by using a text editor to tweak files that hold configuration information, a complicated and error-prone process. linuxconf greatly simplifies Linux system administration: You don’t have to recall what file holds what information or understand the format in which the configuration information is stored. Instead, linuxconf presents a menu of tasks, from which you simply choose the task you want to perform. Based on your choice, it then presents a dialog box that lets you view and change information.

Launching linuxconf

linuxconf supports several ...