Chapter 3 outline

Joel Mattfolk

Although firmware implementations vary from manufacturer to

manufacturer, most BIOS and EFIs provie an interactive facility to
configure them.
o To enter this tool, you press the delete key or function key during
the boot sequence.
o Youve just installed Linux on a new computer with a single SATA
hard disk. What device identifier will refer to the disk?
/dev/sda or /dev/hda

IRQ: an interrupt request is a signal sent to the CPU instructing it to

suspend its current activity and to handle some external event such as
keyboard input.
o You can explore what IRQs are being used by using the cat
command: Cat /proc/interrupts
o What are common IRQs for Rs-232 serial ports?
1, 4

I/O: once a linux system is running you can explore what I/O addresses
the computer is using by examining the contents of the /proc/ioports
file. To do this use the command: cat /proc/ioports
DMA Addresses: Direct Memory addressing is an alternative method
of communication to I/O ports. Rather than have the CPU mediate the
transfer of data between a device and memory, DMA permits the
device to transfer data directly, without the CPUs Attention.
o To check what DMA channels your system is using use the
command cat /proc/dma
BIOS: The bios boot process begins with the computer reading a boot
sector from a disk and then executing that code.
o Boot options for BIOS based computers are limited. You can only
select the order in which various boot devices are examined to
find a boot sector
EFI: The boot process for EFI involved the computer reading a boot
loader file from a filesystem on a special partition, known as the EFI
System Partition(ESP). This file either can take a special default name
or can be registered in the computers NVRAM.
o EFI computers have an extended range of boot options including:
default boot loader files from various devices, and multiple boot
loaders on the computers hard disk.

Problems with boot sequences

o If you use a removable disk and somebody leaves a CD or DVD in
the drive it will prevent the system from booting.
o Some Viruses are transmitted by BIOS boot sectors, so this can
lead to viral infections.
o If you leave a removable disk as the default boot loader this
opens a door to intruders who have physical access to the
computer.
CHS geometry: a holdover from the early days of the x86
architecture. Hard disks are built from platters, each of which is broken
into tracks, which are further broken into sectors
o Typing fdisk -1 /dev/sada produced a listing of four partitions:
/dev/sda1, /dev/sda2
Either /dev/sda1, or /dev/sda2 is an extended partition
o Problems with CHS Geometry:
All but the earliest hard disks use variable numbers of
sectors per cylinder. Modern disks squeeze more sectors
onto outer tracks than inner ones, fitting more data on
each disk.
CHS tops out at 504 MiB
LBA: Logical block addressing. More used mode today.
o In LBA a single unique number is assigned to each sector on the
disk, and the disks firmware is smart enough to read from the
correct head and cylinder when given this sector number.
Coldplug and hot plug devices:
o Coldplug: can be physically attached and detached only when
the computer is turned of
o What tool would you use to disable a motherboards sound
hardware if you dont want to use it?
Firmware
Examples: CPU, memory, PCI cards, and hard disks.
o Hotplug: can be physically attached and detached only when
the computer is turned on.
Examples: Ethernet, USB, and IEEE-1394
Sysfs: the sysfs virtual filesystem, mounted at /sys, exports
information about devices so that user-space utilities can access the
information.
HAL Daemon: The hardware Abstraction Layer daemon, is a userspace program that runs at all times and provides other user-spaceprograms with information about available hardware.
D-bus: The Desktop bus provides a further abstraction of hardware
information access.

o D-bus runs as a daemon.

o D-bus enables processes to communicate with each other as well
as to register to be notified of events, both by processes and by
hardware.
Udev: creates dynamic device files as drivers are loaded and
unloaded.
o you can configure udev through files in /etc/udev, but the
standard config is usually sufficient for common hardware.
o What is the purpose of udev?
TO manage the /dev directory tree
Insmod: inserts a single module into the kernel.
o To use it type:
insmod
/lib/modules/3.16.6/kernel/drivers/Bluetooth/Bluetooth.ko
Why Partition?
o Multiple OS support: keep the data from diferent OSs seprate
o Filesystem Choice: you can use diferent filesystem data
structures designed to hold all of the files on a partition on each
partition.
o Disk Space Management: you can lock certain sets of files into
a fixed space.
o Disk Error Protection: Disks sometimes develop problems.
These problems can be the result of bad hardware or errors that
creep into filesystems. Splitting a disk into partitions provides
some protection against these problems
o Security: you can sue diferent security-related mount options
on diferent partitions
o Backup: some backup tools work best on whole partitions. By
keeping partitions small. You may be able to back up more easily
then you could if your partitions were large.
o Which of the following directories is most likely to be placed on
its own hard disk partition?
/home
o You discover that an MBR hard disk has partitions with type
codes of 0x0fm 0x82, and 0x83. Assuming these type codes are
accurate, what can you conclude about the disk?
The disk holds a partial or complete linux system
Fdisk: the linux tool for MBR disk partitioning.
o To use fdisk type the command name followed by the name of
the disk device that you want to partition
Example: fdisk /dev/had
o You run linuxs fdisk and modify your partition layout.

Type q
o Display the current partition table: to do this type p, or if
you want to display only the current table type fdisk -1 /dev/had
o Create a partition: type n
o Delete a partition: type d
o Change a partition type: type t
o List partition types: type l
o Mark a partition bootable: type a
o Get help: type m or ?
o Exit: type q to exit the program without saving. Type w to write
your changes to the disk and exit the program.
Common file system types
o Ext2fs: the second extended file system is the traditional linux
native file system. It was created for linux and was the dominant
linux filesystem throughout the late 1990s. it can be a good
choice for a small /boot partition, and for small disks
o Ext3fs: the third extended file system is basically ext2fs with a
journal added. It recovers from power outages and system
crashes more quickly then ext2fs.
o Which files contain essential system information such as IRQs,
direct-memory access channels, and and I/o Addresses?
/proc ioports, /proc/dma /proc/interrupts
o Ext4fs: the fourth extended. It adds the ability to work with very
large disks or very large files as well as extensions intended to
improve performance.
o A new linux administrator plans to create a system with separate
/home, /usr/local. Which of the following best describes this
config?
The system wont boot because /etc contains config files
necessary to mount non-rott partitions
o ReiserFS: designed from scratch as a journaling filesystem for
linux. Its good at handling large numbers of small files. Because
ReiserFs uses carious tricks to dqueeze the ends of files into each
others unused space. These small savings can add up when
files are small.
o What does the following command accomplish? Mkfs -t ext2
/dev/sda4
It creates a new ext2 filesystem on /dev/sda4, overwriting
any existing filesystem and data
o Which of the following best summarizes the diferences between
windows fdisk and linuxs fdisk?

The two are completely independent programs that

accomplish similar goals, although Linuxs fdisk is more
flexible
What mount point should you associate with swap partitions?
None of the above
Which of the following options is used with fsck to force it to use
a particular file system type?
-t
Which of the following pieces of information can df not report?
How long the file system has been mounted
What is an advantage of journaling filesystem over a
conventional file system?
Journaling filesystems require shorter disk checks afgter a
power failure or system crash.
To access files on a USB flash drive, you type mount /dev/sdc1
/media/flash as root
All of the above
Which of the following /etc/fstab entires will mount /dev/sdb2/ as
the /home directory at bootime?
/dev/sdb2 /home reiserfs /home defaults 0 0
What filesystem options might you specify in /etc/fstab to make a
removable disk mountable
User users owner
What is the minimum safe procedure for removing a usb drive,
mounted from /dev/sdb1 at /media/usb from a linux computer?
Type umount /media/usb wait for the command to return
and disk activity lights to stop, and then unplug the driver

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