How to Check Your Hard Drive (HDD/SSD) Health

If you are looking for a tool to monitor and display HDD and SSD health and failures under
Fedora 21 or older, I suggest that you trySmartmontools which is used to prevent hard disk or
SSD failure and it will give you the most accurate disk health rating.
Smartmontools will verify the health status of your hard drive by inspecting the SMART status of
the drive. The user will be warned if an error or some unexpected behaviors is detected before
it's too late (data loss).

Smartmontools Installation
To install Smartmontools on Fedora 21 or older, open terminal and issue this command:

sudo yum install smartmontools

Once Smartmontools is installed, you will have these two tools installed as
well:Smartctl and smartd. In this tutorial we will only see the Smartctl tool which requires
root privileges to work on your hard drives.
In Terminal, run this command to check your hard disk:

sudo smartctl -i /dev/sda

Note: Replace /dev/sda with your own hard disk (check it using this command:parted -l)
Here is an example of output you may receive:

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===

Device Model:

HARDDISK

Serial Number:

09497d65-843b8578

Firmware Version: 1.0

User Capacity:

17,352,228,864 bytes [17.3 GB]

Sector Size:

Device is:

ATA Version is:

Local Time is:

SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.

SMART support is: Enabled

512 bytes logical/physical

Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA/ATAPI-6 published, ANSI INCITS 361-2002
Wed Apr 22 15:00:33 2015 CET

To check the health status of your hard disk, run this command:

sudo smartctl -H /dev/sda

If the test is passed, you may get an output similar to this:
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
If the test fails then you need to backup your data immediately and move them to another disk
because your drive is about to fail. For more functions for Smartctl, run this command:

smartctl -h

RHCSA(EX200) & RHCE(EX300) Paper

Read all the instructions carefully
RHCSA exam is 2.5 hours long. 300 Marks-------------Min Marks is 210.
RHCE exam is 2.0 hours long. 300 Marks-------------Min Marks is 210.
Student have to bring original photo ID proof with himself/herself & Passport size photograph.

Fill up the form. After filling form you will be provided with username and password for the base machine.
Here provide password is for local user, not admin.
Login to the base machine.
After login to the base machine you are suppose to see a file on the Desktop in which information
regarding the exam is given.
There is also an icon on the Desktop by clicking which you will be able to access your Virtual
Machine.
You will solve all the questions in virtual machine.
As there is no Browser installed on Virtual Machine, you are supposed to open your exam paper in
Base Machine.
The packages can be installed using FTP from ftp://192.168.0.254/pub/rhel6/dvd
RHCSA PAPER
1). First step is to crack password of Virtual Machine
On start up the cpu press E (for edit)
Now go to on second line
Press E(for edit)
Now give space and write 1(or s) then press enter
Now press b
Now we change password for root
setenforce 0
passwd root
reboot
2). setup a ip addr for virtual macine as ip addr 192.168.0.y subnet mask 255.255.255.0

Default gateway 192.168.0.254 nameserver 192.168.0.254 and hostname as

serverx.example.com ( where "x" is the fourth byte of base machine ip & y=x+100 ).

Rite click on Network Manager(In graphical)

Edit connections
Add
IPv4 setting
Now select manual
Now click on add

Add details as per above mentioned

Apply
Service NetworkManager restart
Chkconfig NetworkManager on
Hostname
Hostname serverX.example.com
Vim /etc/sysconfig/network
Now edit hostname- HOSTNAME=serverx.example.com
Service network restart
Nslookup serverX.example.com
Ping 192.168.0.254
Ethtool eth0

Iptables F
Service iptables save
Service iptables restart
Chkconfig iptables on

By default firefox is not installed on VM so we can install firefox on VM

First create yum
Vim /etc/yum.repos.d/exam.repo
[exam]
Baseurl= ftp://192.168.0.254/pub/rhel6/dvd
Gpgcheck=0

3). Create a new Partition

Your system has a new physical partition mounted under /common with a 400MiB ext4
file system.
[Note: Because partition sizes are seldom exactly whatever specified when they are
created, anything within the range of 350 to 450MB is acceptable.]

Fdisk l /dev/vda
Fdisk /dev/vda
N
E
3
9837
Whole memory
Enter
W
Fdisk /dev/vda
N
L
Enter
+400M
w
Partx a /dev/vda
Mkfs.ext4 /dev/vda5
Mkdir /common
Vim /etc/fstab
/dev/vda5

/common

ext4

defaults

00

Mount a
Df h
4). Create the following users, groups, and group memberships:

Create the following users, groups, and group memberships:

A group named sysadmin.

A user natasha who belongs to sysadmin as a secondary group.
A user sarah who also belongs to sysadmin as a secondary group.
A user harry who does not have access to an interactive shell on the system, and
who is not a member of sysadmin.
natasha, sarah and harry should all have the password of thuctive.
Groupadd sysadmin
Useradd Natasha
Usermod G sysadmin Natasha
Usermod G sysadmin sarah
Useradd s /sbin/nologin harry
Passwd Natasha
Thuctive
Passwd sarah
Thuctive
Passwd harry
Thuctive
5). Create a collaborative directory

Create a collaborative directory /common/admin with the following characteristics:

Group ownership of /common/admin is sysadmin.
The directory should be readable, writable, and accessible to members of
sysadmin, but not to any other user.
(It is understood that root has access to all files and directories on the system.)
Files created in /common/admin automatically have group ownership set to the
sysadmin group.

Mkdir /common/admin
Chgrp sysadmin /common/admin
Ll d /common/admin

Chmod 770 /common/admin

Chmod 2770 /common/admin( for making group ownership to sysadmin group)
Su natasha
Cd /common/admin/
Touch arp
Ls l
exit

6). Install the appropriate kernel

Install the appropriate kernel update from:ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/updates The

following criteria must also be met:
The updated kernel is the default kernel when the system is rebooted.
The original kernel remains available and bootable on the system.

Click on link
After that you will find two rpm packages
1) Kernel 2) kernel Firmware
Download both of them on desktop
First install kernel-firware
Now install kernel
Just by double click on them
Entries of kernel will be in vim /boot/grub/grub.conf
7). Enable IP forwarding on your machine

Enable IP forwarding on your machine

Vim /etc/sysctl.conf
At Line no 7

net.ipv4.ip-forward=1

Sysctl p(for cross check)

8).

Implement a web server

Implement a web server for the site http://serverx.example.com then perform the
following steps:Download ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/rhce/station.html
Rename the downloaded file to index.html
Copy this index.html to the Document Root of your web server
Do NOT make any modifications to the content of index.html
Yum install httpd* y
Cd /var/www/html
Wget

ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/rhce/station.html

Ls
Mv station.html index.html
Service httpd restart
Chkconfig httpd on

9). Resize the Lvm partition

Resize the Lvm partition "home" to 150MiB.

W
Lvdisplay
Df h
Umount /dev/vgsrv/home
E2fsck f /dev/vgsrv/home
Resize2fs /dev/vgsrv/home 150M
Lvreduce L 150M /dev/vgsrv/home
Mount a
Lvdisplay
Df h

For extend we use following command

Lvextend L 250M /dev/vgsrv/home
Resize2fs -f /dev/vgsrv/home
Mount -a

10).

Configure FTP access

Configure FTP access on your system:

Clients within the example.com domain should have anonymous FTP access to
your machine

Yum install vsftpd

Service vsftpd restart
Chkconfig vsftpd on

Booleans on of Selinux
getsebool -a | grep ftp (1,5)
setsebool P Boolean name on

11). Configure a cron job

The user natasha must configure a cron job that runs daily at 14:23 local time and
executes /bin/echo hiya

Crontab u natasha e
23 14 * * * /bin/echo hiya
Service crond restart
Chkconfig crond on
Crontab u natsah -l

12). SELinux must be running in the Enforcing mode.

SELinux must be running in the Enforcing mode.

sestatus
Setenfoce 1
Vim /etc/Selinux/config
getenforce
13). Copy the file /etc/fstab to /var/tmp

Copy the file /etc/fstab to /var/tmp. Configure the permissions of/var/tmp/fstab so that:
The file /var/tmp/fstab is owned by the root user.
The file /var/tmp/fstab belong to the group root.
The file /var/tmp/fstab should not be executable by anyone.
The user natasha is able to read and write /var/tmp/fstab.
The user sarah can neither write nor read /var/tmp/fstab.
[Note: all other users (current or future) have the ability to read/var/tmp/fstab.]

Cp /etc/fstab /var/tmp
Ll /var/tmp/fstab
Setfacl m u:Natasha:rw- /var/tmp/fstab
Setfacl m u:sarah:--- /var/tmp/fstab
Getfacl /var/tmp/fstab

14). Configure NTP

Configure your system so that it is an NTP client of instructor.example.com.

Ntpdate b 192.168.0.254

Service ntpd stop

Vim /etc/ntp.conf

Server 192.168.0.254
Service ntpd start
Chkconfig ntpd on

15). Find the files

Find files in your system which is owned by natasha user & copy all the files on
/backup/somefile directory

w
Find / -user natasha
Find / -user Natasha -exec cp -rvf {} /backup/somefile/ \;
Mkdir p /backup/somefile;find / -user Natasha exec cp a rvf {} /backup/somefile \;
Ls l /backup/somefile/

16). Create a swap partition

Create a SWAP partition of 450 megabyte and make available at next reboot.
Free m
Fdisk /dev/vda
N
L
+450M
T
6
82
W
Partx a /dev/vda

Mkswap /dev/vda6
Swapon /dev/vda6
Free m
Vim /etc/fstab
/dev/vda6

swap swap defaults

00

Mount a
Free m

17). Authenticate users from LDAP Directory Servers

Authenticate users from LDAP Directory Servers which have:

ServerName: instructor.example.com. Base DN: dc=example,dc=com.
Download certificate from ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/EXAMPLE-CACERT
Authenticate with users ldapuserx with have password of password.
Configure autofs such that server's home directory
instructor.example.com:/home/guests/ldapuserx mounted on
/home/guests/ldapuserx.
Now ldap client configuration
Yum install openldap* -y
System-config-authentication
First choose Identity & Authentication tab
In user account configuration choose ldap user
Now write Base DN: dc=example,dc=com
& ldap server name: instructor.example.com
Now click on use TLS to encrypt
Now click on Download CA certificate
Now enter url as ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/EXAMPLE-CA-CERT
Now in authentication method choose ldap password
Chkconfig sssd on

Su ldapuser7
Here is showing error. For removing error we make directory & mount server directory on this
Mkdir p /home/guest/ldapuser7
Mount 192.168.0.254:/home/guests/ldapuser7

/home/guests/ldapuser7

Su ldapuser7
Logout

Now we can also use other way to do this task

Add entry in file
Vim /etc/auto.master
/home/guests

/etc/auto.misc

Add other entry in file as

Vim /etc/auto.mics
Ldapuser7

-rw,soft,intr

instructor.example.com:/home/guests/ldapuser7

Due to bug first make service stop & then start

Service autofs stop
Service autofs start
Chkconfig autofs on
Su ldapuser7

18). Create a user with uid

Create the following user name neo with uid 1337 and set the password
password:
Useradd u 1337 neo
Tail -1 /etc/passwd
Passwd neo
Password

19). Create the lvm partition with P.E.

Create the volume group with name myvol with 8 MiB P.E. and create the lvm
name mydatabase with the 20 P.E. and format this lvm with vfat and create a
directory /database and mount this lvm permanently on /database.

Fdisk /dev/vda
N
L
+167M
T

7
8e
W
Partx a /dev/vda
Pvcreate /dev/vda7
Vgcreate s 8M myvol /dev/vda7
Vgdisplay Myvol
Lvcreate L 160M n mydatabase myvol
Lvdisplay
Mkfs.vfat /dev/myvol/mydatabase
Mkdir /database
Vim /etc/fstab
/dev/myvol/mydatabase

/database

vfat

defaults

00

Mount a
Df h

20). Find the string

Find the string root from /etc/passwd file and save the result in /searchfile.
Grep root /etc/passwd > /searchfile
Cat /search
/usr/local/sbin/install-vserver( for Installation virtual machine)
RHCE PAPER
Two Network have been given here
example.com-------192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
cracker.org---------172.24.0.0/255.255.0.0
iptables -F
service iptables save
service iptables restart

chkconfig iptables on
Now create yum
1). Configure SSH access
Configure SSH access as follows:
sarah has remote SSH access to your machine from within example.com
Clients within cracker.org should NOT have access to ssh on your System

vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
allowusers sarah root
here we use TCP wrapper secruity. we make some entries as such follows
vim /etc/hosts.allow
sshd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
vim /etc/hosts.deny
sshd: 172.24.0.0/255.255.255.0
service sshd restart
chkconfig sshd on
2). Restrict crontab
User neo should not be able to use crontab.
for this make entries in below mentioned file
vim /etc/cron.deny
neo
service crond restart
chkconfig crond on
3). Configure FTP access
Configure FTP access on your system:
Clients within the example.com domain should have anonymous FTP access to your machine
Clients outside example.com should NOT have access to your FTP service.

yum install vsftpd* -y

yum installl ftp* -y
vim /etc/hosts.allow
vsftpd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
vim /etc/hosts.deny
vsftpd: ALL
service vsftpd restart
chkconfig vsftpd on
ftp 192.168.0.110
ftp 127.0.0.1
Boolean again on as previous question in ftp
Getsebool a | grep ftp
Allow_ftpd_annon_write(1)
ftp_home_dir(5)
setsebool P Allow_ftpd_annon_write 1
setsebool P ftp_home_dir 1

4). Share the /common directory via SMB

Share the /common directory via SMB:
Your SMB server must be a member of the STAFF workgroup
The shares name must be common.
The shared share must be available to example.com domain clients only
The shared share must be browseable.
sarah must have read access to the share, authenticating with the same password flectrag, if necessary.

mkdir /common
yum install samba* -y

vim /etc/samba/smb.conf
workgroup=STAFF
[common]
path=/common
browseable=yes
valid users=sarah
hosts allow=192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
read only=yes

useradd sarah
smbpasswd -a sarah
ls -lz /etc/samba/smb.conf
ll dZ /common
ll dZ /etc/samba
chcon -t samba_etc_t /common
service smb restart
chkconfig smb on
smbclient //192.168.0.110/common -U sarah

5). Implement a web server

Implement a web server for the site http://serverX.example.com then perform the following steps:Download ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/rhce/station.html
Rename the downloaded file to index.html
Copy this index.html to the Document Root of your web server
Do NOT make any modifications to the content of index.html

yum install httpd* -y

cd /var/www/html

wget ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/rhce/station.html
mv station.html index.html
vim /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
NameVirtualHost 192.168.0.110:80

<virtualhost 192.168.0.110:80>
Document Root /var/www/html
servername server10.example.com
</virtualhost>
service httpd restart
chkconfig httpd on
clients http://server10.ecample.com

6). Extend your web server

Extend your web server to include a virtual host for the site http://wwwx.example.com/, where x is your station
number, then perform the following steps:
Set the DocumentRoot to /var/www/virtual
Download ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/rhce/www.html
Rename the downloaded file to index.html
Place this index.html in the DocumentRoot of the virtual host
Do NOT make any modifications to the content of index.html
Ensure that sarah is able to create content in /var/www/virtual
[Note: The original web site http://serverX.example.com must still eaccessable. DNS resolution for the
hostname wwwx.example.com is already provided by the name server on instructor.example.com.]

mkdir /var/www/virtual
cd /var/www/virtual
wget ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/rhce/www.html

mv www.html index.html
vim /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
NameVirtualHost 192.168.0.110:80

<virtualhost 192.168.0.110:80>
Document Root /var/www/html
servername server10.example.com
</virtualhost>

<virtualhost 192.168.0.110:80>
Document Root /var/www/virtual
servername www10.example.com
</virtualhost>

service httpd restart

chkconfig httpd on
clients http://server10.ecample.com
clients http://www10.example.com
setfacl -m u:sarah:rw /var/www/virtual

7). Configure Web Server access

Implement a web server for the site http://serverX.example.com then perform the following steps:Create a directory in your DocumentRoot named "restrict"
Download ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/rhce/station.html
Rename the downloaded file to index.html
Copy this index.html to the "restrict" directory in the DocumentRoot of your web server
Do NOT make any modifications to the content of index.html
"restrict" directory should not be accessible to anyone except example.com network

yum
install
httpd*
-y;mkdir
/var/www/html/restrict;cd
ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/rhce/station.html; mv station.html index.html;

/var/www/html/restrict;wget

vim /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
<Directory /var/www/html/restrict>
order allow,deny
allow from 192.168.0.0
</Directory>

service httpd restart

chkconfig httpd on

8). Export your /common directory via NFS

Export your /common directory via NFS to the example.com Domain only.

[Note: because you will not have root access, you will not be able to directly
Mount your exported /common directory using your guest account on the system
provided for testing. However, the auto-mounter on the system has been
configured such that it will automount your /common directory under
/home/guestx/nfs/stationx, where x is your station number. Consequently,
successful execution of ls /home/guestx/nfs/stationx indicates that the
automounter was able to automount your NFS share.]
Rpm q nfs-utils
Yum install nfs-utils
Vim /etc/exports
/common 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0(ro,sync)
Service nfs restart
Chkconfig nfs on

Service rpcbind restart

Chkconfig rpcbind on
Showmount -e
9). Configure an email alias

Configure an email alias for your MTA such that mail sent to admin is received by the
local user sarah.
Vim /etc/aliases
Admin:

sarah( add this entry to at the last of the file)

Now save the file & run the following command:

Newaliases

10). Configure SMTP mail service

Configure SMTP mail service according to the following requirements:
Your mail server should accept mail from remote hosts and localhost.
Sarah must be able to receive mail from remote hosts. Mail delivered to sarah
should spool into the default mail spool for sarah, /var/spool/mail/sarah.
Yum install postfix* -y
Vim /etc/postfix/main.cf
At line no 113
Inet_interfaces = all
#inet_interfaces = localhost
Service postfix restart
Chkconfig postfix on
Yum install telnet* -y
telnet 127.0.0.1 25
quit
telnet 192.168.0.110 25
quit

11). Mount iso image

Download ftp://instructor.example.com/pub/iso/boot.iso
mount this iso permanently as a read only on /mnt/iso
mkdir /mnt/iso
vim /etc/fstab
/root/Desktop/boot.iso

/mnt/iso

iso9660

defaults,loop,ro

00

Mount a
Df h
12). Configure an iscsi
Dicover an ISCSI device on your system and create a partition on that device of size 10
MiB mounted under directory /iscsi. Create a file named abc.txt in /iscsi directory.
Configure permission of that file such that user sarah can read, write and execute this file.
yum install iscsi-initiator-utils y
iscsiadm m discovery -t st -p 192.168.0.254:3260
Trying to login with the iSCSI
Now copy iqn.2012-10.com.example:disk1
Iscsiadm -m node -T iqn.2012-10.com.example:disk1 -p 192.168.0.254:3260 -l
fdisk l

fdisk /dev/sda
make 10MB partition
partprobe /dev/sda
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
Checking the UUID for disk
blkid /dev/sda1
now copy UUID="71e86162-011d-49f1-9b4a-9f95a277e6b5"
Add the next entry in /etc/fstab file
Vim /etc/fstab

UUID=71e86162-011d-49f1-9b4a-9f95a277e6b5

/iscsi

ext4 defaults,_netdev,acl 0 0

Mkdir /iscsi
Mount a
Df h
Cd /iscsi/
Touch abc.txt
Setfacl m u:sarah:rwx /iscsi/abc.txt

13). Configure

script

Create a script in /progrram with the name script.sh to do the following

When kernel is passed as an argument then the output is user.
When user is passed as argument then the output is kernel.
When neither kernel nor user is passed then the output is "--stdin error".
Mkdir /progrram
Cd /program
Touch script.sh
Chmod +x script.sh
Vim script.sh
#!/bin/bash
If [ $1 == kernel ]
Then
Echo user
Elif [ $1 == user ]
Then
Echo kernel
Else
Echo stdin error
fi

Now save the file and run test.

Sh script.sh
14). Pass the parameter to kernel
Pass the parameter to kernel.
Pass the parameter "kernelbp=1" to the kernel.
Enter this value at the last of the line kernel in /etc/grub.conf
Vim /etc/grub.conf
Now save and restart the machine
And now check with this
Cat /proc/cmdline