Basic System Administration Course

Course Overview

This course provides foundational knowledge and practical skills in system administration, covering Active Directory, host setup, virtual machines, and basic firewall configuration. By the end of the course, students will be able to manage Windows and Linux systems in a small-to-medium business environment.

Note: For students who do not want to set up EVE-NG themselves, Colourfi can provide pre-configured EVE-NG machines with remote access, complete with ready-to-use lab environments.

Course Duration

8 Weeks (can be adjusted based on pace) Approx. 3–5 hours per week including labs.

Prerequisites

• Basic computer literacy

• Familiarity with networking concepts (IP addresses, DNS, DHCP)

• EVE-NG installed, or access to a pre-configured Colourfi EVE-NG machine

Course Modules

Module 1: Introduction to System Administration

• Overview of system administration roles and responsibilities

• Understanding server vs. client environments

• Intro to linux

Hands-on Exercise: Basic System Administration Course - Module 1

ColourFi Subscribers only Quiz

Module 2: Setting Up Hosts (Windows & Linux) and Firewall

Installing Windows Server and Linux VMs in EVE-NG

Configuring system settings: hostname, IP, time zone

User account creation and management

Basic pfSense firewall setup

Hands-on Exercise: Basic System Administration Bootcamp - Module 2

Module 3: Virtual Machines and Hypervisors

• Understanding hypervisors: Type 1 vs. Type 2

• Creating and managing virtual machines

• Snapshots, cloning, and resource allocation

Hands-on Exercise: Create multiple VMs in Hyper-V, adjust CPU/RAM, and save snapshots

Module 4: Active Directory (Windows)

• Introduction to Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS)

• Creating a domain, organizational units (OUs), and users

• Group Policies (GPO) basics

• Joining computers to a domain

Hands-on Exercise: Set up a small AD domain in a Windows VM, create OUs, users, and apply a GPO

Module 5: Basic Networking & Firewall Configuration

• Overview of firewalls and their purpose

• Windows Firewall basics

• Pfsense Firewall basics

• Opening/closing ports and creating rules

• VLANs and inter-VLAN routing

Hands-on Exercise: Configure firewall rules and VLANs

Module 6: File Sharing & Permissions

• Windows: NTFS permissions, shared folders

• Linux: chmod, chown, and NFS/Samba shares

• Mapping network drives

Hands-on Exercise: Share a folder on Windows and Linux VMs in EVE-NG and set appropriate permissions

Module 7: Backup & Restore Basics

• Importance of backups

• Windows Server Backup

• Agent Based Backups

• Restoring data

Hands-on Exercise: VM backups using Veeam Community and restore them

Module 8: Monitoring & Maintenance

• Checking system logs (Event Viewer, /var/log/)

• Resource monitoring (CPU, memory, disk)

• Updating systems (Windows Updates, Linux package managers)

Hands-on Exercise: Set up basic monitoring and schedule system updates on your VMs

Assessment & Project

• Final project: Deploy a small lab environment in EVE-NG with 2–3 VMs, AD domain, file shares, and configured firewall rules

Recommended Tools & Software

• EVE-NG (for virtual lab environment) — can be self-installed or accessed via Colourfi pre-configured machines

• Windows Server 2022 evaluation ISO

• Windows 11 evaluation ISO

• Ubuntu Server 24.05