Fedora Server Edition Basic Administration Guide

General basic system administration is covered in Fedora’s overall System Administrator’s Guide. However, there are some Fedora Server-specific topics that are not included therein.

This section covers topics like name resolution tools, DHCP support, special network configuration, local disk space management, and similar topics. Other sections address specific topics such as virtualization, containerization, or providing services.

Currently, the compilation and description of administrative tasks is still under construction. It will be continuously expanded.

Fedora Server Edition is designed as a headless device, i.e. without a graphical user interface. Corresponding packages are not even installed. Accordingly, only a simple text-based terminal is available on the box by default, which is somewhat euphemistically called a Command Line Interface (CLI).

Very many servers do not even have a monitor and keyboard permanently connected. The administrator works over the network from his desktop. In this case, a graphical tool is also available, Cockpit, a lightweight web-based graphical user interface. It is very powerful and greatly simplifies administration even for experienced and CLI-savvy ("hard core") administrators.

Fedora is very concerned about security. Accordingly, as part of the installation, the system is already fitted with many security-relevant configurations. Thus, by default, a firewall is installed and also activated, which only allows an ssh as well as a cockpit connection. SSH uses the latest encryption algorithms and blocks outdated, insecure methods.

There is not much left for the system administrator to do. Measures that may be required are described together with the corresponding services.

However, the installation process cannot perform all security-related configurations automatically.The system manager must weigh the pros and cons and make a decision. Admins should process these items immediately after the installation. For detailed information see Post Installation Tasks.