CSE411- Introduction to Computer Systems Administration

This course teaches some of the things someone who wants to work as a Systems Administrator would need to know. For the most part the material concentrates on the UNIX Operating System, though the basic principles can be applied to other operating systems as well. As much as possible the material targets basic principles that are present in all modern Operating Systems in an effort to prepare students for a multi-vendor multi-OS environment. The course is relatively time consuming. It has roughly weekly homework assignments, three projects, and two exams. For two of the projects students have a SUN workstation dedicated to their use and are expected to complete some Systems Maintenance type work (e.g. install the Operating System for the second project) within a 22 hour period.

Due to equipment availability the course primarily focuses on SUN's Solaris Operating System and FreeBSD, which gives examples of both a SYS-V based UNIX and a BSD based UNIX. If you know of anyone willing to donate equipment to this lab so we can expand on what is available feel free to send them our way.

Registration information about this course available here on UB-Wings. This course is only offered in the Fall semester. For information specific to any given semester see the Instructor's Web page.

The instructor for this course is Ken Smith, who can be reached by sending email to kensmith@dcsl.buffalo.edu.