CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005)

Discover how to use the Linux terminal and the command line, distinguish terminal from command line, and customize terminals, profiles, fonts, and colors for local or remote work.

Discover the Linux command line interface and how to access a terminal. Learn about shells like Bash and Dash and essential commands such as ls, cd, mkdir, pwd, and cat.

Learn to access Linux help with man pages and the manual. Explore section numbers, view local docs in /usr/share/man, and use whatis and apropos to find commands.

Explore installing and managing software on Red Hat based systems with dnf, yum, and rpm. Learn how repositories drive searching, installing, updating, and autoremove decisions.

Install and manage software on Debian-based systems using apt, apt-get, and dpkg, leveraging repositories, updates, upgrades, dist-upgrade, and auto remove.

Explore sandboxing with snaps, flat packs, and app images, bundling dependencies to isolate applications. Compare chroot and container-style isolation, and see practical Ubuntu and Fedora usage.

Explore why and how to build applications from source, obtain source code, compile with GCC and make, and run a program tailored to your system.

Navigate the Linux file system from the terminal using cd, ls, mkdir, touch, and cat. Learn hard and soft links and essential tools like cp, mv, rm, and rsync.

Discover editing configuration files with nano and vim on linux. Master saving, quitting, searching, replacing, and navigating in vim's command and insert modes.

Discover how to locate files on Linux using the find command, locate, grip, and the type command, with tips on permissions, file size, and built-ins.

Explore how grep searches for fixed strings and regular expressions across files and directories, using pipes, wildcards, and basic regex patterns to locate text efficiently.

Learn how to back up data using file archives with tar and gzip, create tarballs, and copy entire disks with dd for secure, efficient backups.

Learn how to elevate privileges for admin tasks using su and sudo, configure sudoers with visudo, and explore PolicyKit pkexec for fine-grained control and secure access.

Manage users from the command line by creating, updating, and deleting accounts with useradd and passwd, review defaults from login.defs, and verify via /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, and /home.

Learn how to manage Linux user accounts with password security: reset passwords with passwd, enforce aging via chage and login.defs, and implement account lockout with faillock and pam.

Master how to create, modify, and manage Linux groups using groupadd, groupmod, and gpasswd; assign users, avoid changing primary groups, and verify groups with /etc/group, groups, and getent.

Explore how to view, interpret, and modify file permissions in Linux using ls -l, chmod, and chown, including numeric and letter notation, umask, and ownership concepts.

Explore advanced file permissions with ACLs (facls), learn to enable, view, and modify them using getfacl and setfacl, and apply default and sticky bit settings for directories.

Learn to localize linux by configuring locale, language, date formats, and currency symbols. Use locale ctl to set and verify, and ensure ntp time synchronization and correct time zone.

Identify linux performance issues by spotting runaway processes with top and system monitor, then reclaim CPU, memory, and disk using kill, renice, free, df, and du.

Understand block and object storage in Linux, including device naming with udev, labels, and UUIDs. Learn RAID basics, hardware vs software RAID, and mounting object storage with fuse.

Explore creating partitions and volumes on drives using MBR and GPT, with fdisk, gdisk, and parted, plus GUI tools like Disks (GNOME disk utility) and gparted.

Explore linux file systems, choose among ext4, xfs, and btrfs, and learn to create and format them with mkfs, swap with mkswap, and set labels, resize, and manage space.

Mount linux file systems by attaching ext4 and xfs partitions to /mnt/storage1 and /mnt/storage2, then persist them via /etc/fstab and verify with df -h and lsblk.

Explore the linux filesystem hierarchy standard (fhs) and how it standardizes folders across distros, with key directories like /boot, /etc, /home, /bin and /usr/bin.

Learn how logical volume manager (lvm) version two uses physical volumes, volume groups, and logical volumes to flexibly expand and manage storage across multiple disks, with creation, resizing, and mounting.

Troubleshoot disk access on Linux systems by diagnosing storage health, reading logs, and using fsck and xfs repair to repair or recover data, including inode considerations.

Identify disk performance bottlenecks using iotop, iostat, ioping, and SAR, and optimize by adjusting schedulers (mq-deadline, kyber, bfq) for NVMe and other disks.

Create and execute bash scripts to automate tasks, writing simple command sequences with echo, read, test, loops, and using a shebang, chmod, and exported variables.

Master interactive bash scripting by accepting user input, prompting for data, and using read and echo to create scripts; redirect stdout and stderr and use exit codes to control flow.

Discover how programming constructs, such as for loops, while loops, and conditional tests, add logic to scripts, plus error detection and handling in shell scripting.

Learn how containers provide isolated, portable environments on Linux, using Docker, podman, and Docker Hub to pull images, run instances, and manage lifecycle with docker run, ps, stop, and rm.

Automate container deployment, updates, and scaling across development, staging, and production using Docker Compose and Kubernetes, while leveraging Portainer and YAML definitions for consistency.

Explore host automation for Linux, from single machines to enterprise deployments, using agent-based and agentless tools like Ansible to enforce baseline configurations and security policies.

Learn how to install and use Git to track changes, clone repositories, manage commits, create branches, and merge changes to collaborate on code and configs.

Explore the five-stage Linux boot sequence from power to login. Learn how bios and uefi, the grub 2 bootloader, and the kernel with initrd and systemd drive the startup process.

Explore how the Linux kernel is monolithic and extended at runtime with modules to manage hardware, and learn to load, inspect, and verify them.

Learn to troubleshoot the Linux boot process by inspecting dmesg and journalctl logs, using live CDs for recovery, repairing grub, and diagnosing slow boots with systemd analyze blame.

View and configure Linux network adapters across Red Hat and Ubuntu, using ifconfig, ip addr, and netplan. Configure static IPs and DHCP, gateways, and DNS, with netplan try for safety.

Learn how to configure name lookups in Linux using system d resolved or legacy resolve dot com, including global vs adapter-specific DNS settings and the nsswitch order.

Explore Linux network troubleshooting tools such as ping for connectivity and DNS lookups with dig, nslookup, and host, plus tracers like traceroute, mtr, and tracepath to diagnose connectivity issues.

Learn to copy files across networks using wget, curl, and rsync, including remote synchronization over ssh, incremental backups, and dry-run testing.

Configure and use secure shell (ssh) to remotely access Linux servers and run the command line. Install, enable, and restart ssh server and client, and perform file transfers with sftp.