Course Description from the University Catalog

CS 6262 - System and Network Admin II
Credits: 3.00
This course explores advanced principles and practices in systems and network administration. Topics include backups and disaster recovery; automating tasks with scripts; performance analysis; troubleshooting; security; wireless networking; and internetworking architectures. Current professional and ethical issues as well as certification standards and processes relating to systems and network administration will be introduced.
Lecture: 2.00 Lab: 2.00
College: College of Arts and Sciences
Department: Computer Science
Pre-requisites: See hard copy catalog for pre-requisites.


Course Information

Course Syllabus
Course Page on the UWG CS Course Web (Moodle)

Course Summary

The following topics were covered in this course:
  • Backups
    • Fault Tolerance in Disk Management
    • Automating Backups
      • RSYNG
      • SSH
      • CRON
  • Public Key Infrastructure
    • Network Traffic Encryption
  • Remote Management and Monitoring
    • Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
  • Performance Tuning
    • TCP Window Size
  • 802.11 Wireless Networking
    • WEP Cracking
  • Text Processing
    • Regular Expressions (Regex)
There was also a presentation assigned  on a topic in security:
  • netcat
There was also and a final exam that took the form of a paper on professional certifications:
  • Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE)
  • Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE)
  • Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE)

Course Assessment

From the syllabus:

Learning Objectives

1.      Understand professional and ethical issues and responsibilities in system and network administration.

2.      Be able to utilize tools and scripting to automate system and network administration tasks.

3.      Understand the issues, practices, and tools involved in disaster recovery, and be able to perform system backup and recovery using automated tools.

4.      Be able to perform system monitoring and performance tuning tasks and analyze and troubleshoot problems that can arise in systems and network management.

5.      Be able to setup and configure a secure wireless network.

6.      Understand the architecture, function, and various components of the Internet.

7.      Setup and configure common Internet services, such Web and email servers.

8.      Understand the issues, practices, and tools involved in system and network security, and apply technical solutions to address security risks.

                  9.      Be familiar with the current professional certification standards and processes.

Completed Objectives?
Yes.  All of the learning objectives listed above were satisfied in this course.  See the course summary for more details.  I learned a great deal about topics in system and network administration in this class.  Since this class focused on topics in system and network administration in the realm of Linux, a group of operating systems I had previously not used extensively, I learned a great deal and found the course to be highly educational.  Dr. Baumstark made this a quite illuminating and meaningful course and I would recommend his courses to anyone interested in learning about the topics being taught.  Dr. Baumstark always presents the material in his courses in ways that are very easy to understand, which is what makes his courses so educational.


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