Hello there! Welcome to my blog post where I'll share my experience with the RH124 course end-of-chapter lab for Chapter 15: Access Linux File Systems. In this lab, I had the opportunity to explore the file-system hierarchy and learn how to identify a directory and the device where it's stored. Moreover, I delved into accessing the contents of file systems by adding and removing file systems in the file-system hierarchy. One of the most valuable skills in Linux is searching for files quickly and efficiently, and I got to practice using the find and locate commands. Specifically, I mounted a local file system and locate specific files on that file system. So, join me as I take you through my journey of exploring the Linux file system!

Question 1: On the serverb machine as the root user, identify the UUID for the /dev/vdb1 device, and mount it by using its UUID on the /mnt/freespace directory.

Solution:

To complete the task of identifying the UUID for the /dev/vdb1 device and mounting it by using its UUID on the /mnt/freespace directory, I first logged into the serverb machine as the root user using the ssh command followed by the sudo -i command. Next, I used the lsblk -fp /dev/vdb command to check the UUID of the /dev/vdb1 device. This helped me to identify the UUID for the device. Then, I created the /mnt/freespace directory using the mkdir command. With the directory in place, I used the mount command along with the UUID that I had identified earlier to mount the device on the /mnt/freespace directory. Specifically, I used the command mount UUID="f33ab7cc-a526-49a7-878c-c57700ce245d" /mnt/freespace to mount the device by using its UUID. To confirm that the device had been successfully mounted, I used the lsblk -fp /dev/vdb command again to check the status of the device. This allowed me to verify that the device had been mounted on the /mnt/freespace directory as intended.

Question 2: Generate a disk usage report for the /usr/share directory. Save the result in the /mnt/freespace/results.txt file.

Solution:

To generate a disk usage report for the /usr/share directory and save the result in the /mnt/freespace/results.txt file, I used the du command followed by the file path of the directory that I wanted to generate the report for. Specifically, I used the command du /usr/share. This command generated the disk usage report for the specified directory. To save the output to a file, I used the output redirection operator > to redirect the output of the command to the /mnt/freespace/results.txt file. Specifically, I used the command du /usr/share > /mnt/freespace/results.txt. This saved the output of the command to the specified file, allowing me to access the report at a later time.

Question 3: Locate all the files that match the rsyslog.conf keyword, and store the result in the /mnt/freespace/search1.txt file.

Solution:

To locate all the files that match the rsyslog.conf keyword and store the result in the /mnt/freespace/search1.txt file, I used the locate command. Before using the locate command, I updated the database by using the updatedb command. This helped to ensure that the locate command would be able to find all the relevant files. To locate the rsyslog.conf file, I used the locate rsyslog.conf command. This command searched the updated database for all files that match the specified keyword and returned their file paths. To store the result in the /mnt/freespace/search1.txt file, I used the output redirection operator > to redirect the output of the command to the specified file. Specifically, I used the command locate rsyslog.conf > /mnt/freespace/search1.txt.To confirm that the command had worked as intended, I used the cat command to view the contents of the /mnt/freespace/search1.txt file. This allowed me to verify that the command had located the desired files and saved the output to the specified file. With this approach, I was able to quickly and easily locate all files that matched the rsyslog.conf keyword and store the result in the /mnt/freespace/search1.txt file for future reference.

Question 4: Store the search result of all files in the /usr/share directory that are greater than 50 MB and less than 100 MB in the /mnt/freespace/search2.txt file.

Solution:

To store the search result of all files in the /usr/share directory that are greater than 50 MB and less than 100 MB in the /mnt/freespace/search2.txt file, I used the find command. The find command is used to search for files in a directory based on different criteria. To specify the size criteria for the search, I used the -size option and specified a range of greater than 50MB and less than 100MB using the +50M and -100M arguments. The output of the find command was then redirected to the /mnt/freespace/search2.txt file using the output redirection operator >. The full command I used was: find /usr/share -size +50M -size -100M > /mnt/freespace/search2.txt To confirm that the command had worked as intended, I used the cat command to view the contents of the /mnt/freespace/search2.txt file. This allowed me to verify that the command had located all files in the /usr/share directory that matched the specified size criteria and saved the output to the specified file.

Question 5: Return to the workstation system as the student user.

Solution:

To return to the workstation system as the student user, I used the exit command twice. The first exit command logged me out of the root shell, which should be the serverb machine, and returned me to the serverb machine as the student user. The second exit command logged me out of the serverb machine and returned me to the student user shell on the workstation machine.

Conclusion

The Access Linux File Systems lab provided a great opportunity to learn about managing file systems in Linux. I was able to identify a directory in the file-system hierarchy and the device where it is stored, access the contents of file systems by adding and removing file systems in the file-system hierarchy, and search for files on mounted file systems with the find and locate commands. These skills are essential in managing files and directories in Linux, and I believe this lab has further improved my Linux proficiency. I would like to hear from you, my readers. Have you ever encountered challenges managing file systems in Linux? What strategies did you employ in resolving the challenges? Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.