Proposed ISA Program Changes
Current ISA Courses
Semester I
- SYA710 System Administration
- SPR720 Scripting
- LPT730 Linux Power Applications
- XWN740 X Window System
- NAD710 Networking
Semester II
- SYA810 System Administration
- NAD810 Network Administration
- SCR821 Advanced Scripting
- SEC830 Security Issues
- SRA840 Server Administration
Recommended Changes
- Increase the level of the courses to minimize overlap with current CTY program and to make the program more attractive to experienced Junior- and Intermediate-Level system/network administrators.
- Require a certain base level of competency with basic Linux system administration tasks, including use of the command line and basic installation of Linux on a PC. For students with borderline ability in these areas, a pre-program workshop could be held.
- Move Python to an early point in the scripting courses. Have the first scripting course cover some basic Bash scripting and then go into Python; have the second course cover advanced Bash scripting and then advanced Python or Perl. (The last offering of the scripting course droped PHP in favor of Python).
- Schedule the program so that it can be completed by attending two days per week. Place the lecture periods for all classes on two days (for example, Monday/Tuesday) and plan the labs in such a way that they can be performed in person or remotely and/or hold the 2nd class in each course online.
- Incorporate cross-course projects where students will be working directly within the Fedora community (see below).
Note that the Fedora project is actually a collection of approximately 5800 RPMs (software groups) that are packaged, integrated, built, tested, and distributed using highly-automated tools (Koji, Mash, Revisor, Punji, etc). Within the Fedora umbrella we have a lot of latitude for many different types of student involvement.
ISA Course Changes
Semester I
- SYA710 System Administration
- Being involved in an Open Source community
- Advanced installation
- Kickstart, various installation media, network installs
- Package management
- Using packages
- Using repositories
- Creating packages
- Using virtual machines
- SPR720 Scripting
- Basic bash scripting
- Python
- NAD710 Networking
SYA/SPR/NAD will have combined project work. Students will work directly with the Fedora project to complete a project from a list of potential projects selected in consultation with the Fedora community. In the first semester, students will take their work to a "0.3" completion level -- stable basic functionality.
- LPT730 Linux Power Applications
- XWN740 X Window System
Semester II
- SYA810 System Administration
- Logical volume management
- SANs
- Backups
- System performance tuning
- Custom spins
- SEC830 Security Issues
- SCR821 Advanced Scripting
- Advanced Python
- Advanced Bash
- SRA840 Server Administration
- NAD810 Network Administration
Students will take their projects to the 'next level' in SYA/SEC/SCR courses. Continuing to work with the Fedora community, students will audit their projects for security, robustness, and integration with other technologies and packages, and will deploy and test them on a variety of systems. By the end of the second semester, these projects should reach a "1.0" completion level.