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Linux for Cloud & DevOps Engineers

Duration: 8–10 weeks (≈ 45–60 hours contact time at a professional pace)

A production-focused Linux course for administering, troubleshooting, automating, and operating Linux systems used in Cloud, DevOps, Platform Engineering, and SRE — practical engineering, not certification-only knowledge.

Course status

Track ready — 16 modules · 25 tutorials, labs, quiz, cheat sheet, interview prep, and projects. Start with Linux Fundamentals — Distributions and Architecture.

1. Course overview

Purpose

Prepare learners to confidently operate Linux on cloud VMs, bastions, CI runners, and container hosts.

Target roles

Linux Administrator · DevOps · Cloud · Platform · SRE · DevSecOps · Infrastructure Engineer

Prerequisites

None beyond basic computer knowledge. A disposable Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 (or Rocky/RHEL) lab VM is enough.

Tools

Tool Notes
Ubuntu LTS or RHEL-family Preferred lab images
Terminal + SSH Local VM, WSL2, or cloud Free Tier
sudo user Not daily root
Snapshots Before storage/security labs

Capstone outcomes

Administer servers · troubleshoot production · secure environments · optimise performance · support Kubernetes nodes · operate cloud VMs · automate admin tasks · prepare hosts for DevOps/Platform work.

Certification mapping (light)

Theme RHCSA/LFCS RHCE/LFCE Modules
Users / permissions / ACL ● ○ 4
Storage / LVM ● ● 8
systemd / services ● ● 7
Networking / SSH ● ● 9, 13
Security / firewalls / MAC ● ● 13, 16
Containers host concepts ○ ● 14
Troubleshooting / performance ● ● 12, 15, 16

2. Modules and tutorials

Module 1 — Linux Fundamentals

# Tutorial Level Time
1 Distributions and Architecture Beginner 45 min
2 Boot Process and Filesystem Hierarchy Beginner 45 min

Topics: What is Linux · Distros · Architecture · Kernel · User Space · Shell vs Terminal · Boot Process · FHS

Module 2 — Command Line Essentials

# Tutorial Level Time
3 Essential Linux Commands Beginner 50 min

Topics: pwd ls cd mkdir rm cp mv touch cat less head tail stat file history

Module 3 — Linux Filesystem

# Tutorial Level Time
4 Paths, Links, Mounts, and Inodes Beginner 50 min
5 Disk Usage and File Attributes Beginner 40 min

Topics: Directory structure · Absolute/relative paths · Hard/symbolic links · Mount points · File attributes · Disk usage · inode

Module 4 — Users & Permissions

# Tutorial Level Time
6 Users, Groups, and sudo Beginner 45 min
7 Permissions, ACLs, and Special Bits Intermediate 50 min

Topics: Users · Groups · sudo · chmod · chown · chgrp · umask · ACLs · Sticky · SUID · SGID

Module 5 — Text Processing

# Tutorial Level Time
8 Text Processing with grep, sed, and awk Intermediate 55 min

Topics: grep sed awk cut paste tr sort uniq wc xargs

Module 6 — Process Management

# Tutorial Level Time
9 Process Management Intermediate 50 min

Topics: ps top htop kill pkill jobs fg bg nice renice nohup

Module 7 — Services & Boot

# Tutorial Level Time
10 systemd Services and journalctl Intermediate 55 min
11 systemd Targets, Timers, and Boot Intermediate 50 min

Topics: systemd · systemctl · journalctl · Targets · Services · Timers · Boot

Module 8 — Storage Management

# Tutorial Level Time
12 Disks, Partitions, and Filesystems Intermediate 55 min
13 LVM, Swap, and Disk Monitoring Advanced 55 min

Topics: lsblk fdisk parted mkfs mount umount · LVM · Swap · Disk monitoring

Module 9 — Linux Networking

# Tutorial Level Time
14 Linux Networking Tools Intermediate 55 min
15 SSH and Remote Access Intermediate 45 min

Topics: ip ss ping traceroute dig nslookup host curl wget tcpdump netcat · SSH

Module 10 — Package Management

# Tutorial Level Time
16 Package Management Beginner 45 min

Topics: apt dnf yum zypper snap flatpak

Module 11 — Scheduling & Automation

# Tutorial Level Time
17 Scheduling — cron, at, and Timers Intermediate 45 min

Topics: cron crontab at systemd timers

Module 12 — Logging & Monitoring

# Tutorial Level Time
18 Logging — syslog, journald, logrotate Intermediate 45 min
19 Host Monitoring — vmstat, iostat, sar Intermediate 45 min

Topics: syslog journald logrotate · vmstat iostat free uptime df du sar

Module 13 — Linux Security

# Tutorial Level Time
20 SSH Hardening and Firewalls Advanced 55 min
21 SELinux, AppArmor, Fail2Ban, Auditd, PAM Advanced 55 min

Topics: SSH hardening · SSH keys · firewalld · ufw · SELinux · AppArmor · Fail2Ban · Auditd · PAM

Module 14 — Containers & Cloud

# Tutorial Level Time
22 Containers — Namespaces, cgroups, and OCI Advanced 55 min

Topics: Namespaces · cgroups · OverlayFS · OCI · Container runtime basics

Module 15 — Troubleshooting

# Tutorial Level Time
23 Troubleshooting Linux Systems Advanced 60 min

Topics: Boot · High CPU/memory · Disk full · Permissions · Network · Services · Logs · Performance

Module 16 — Production Linux

# Tutorial Level Time
24 Production Hardening and Performance Advanced 55 min
25 Backup, Disaster Recovery, and Capacity Advanced 55 min

Topics: Hardening · Performance tuning · Capacity · Monitoring · Logging · Operational excellence · Backup · DR

3. Practice

Labs

Lab Focus
Install and first boot Lab VM ready
SSH secure access Keys and SSH
Users and permissions Identity lock-down
Storage lab Disks / mounts
Services and logs systemd + journal
Firewall hardening Secure the host
Performance troubleshooting CPU/memory/service
Ops toolkit Monitoring + cron toolkit
Production incident triage Scenario drill
App server from zero End-to-end host build

Projects

Level Project
Beginner System Information Utility
Intermediate Server Health Dashboard
Advanced Operations Toolkit
Capstone Production Linux Operations Platform

Assessment & reference

Start here

  1. Linux Fundamentals — Distributions and Architecture
  2. Lab VM with snapshots
  3. After Module 11–12, deepen automation in Shell Scripting