Chapter 4: Red Hat System Configuration

Overview

To make effective use of your Linux system, you must know how to configure certain features and services. Administrative operations such as adding users and installing software can now be performed with user-friendly system tools. This chapter discusses basic system administration operations that you need to get your system up and running, as well as to perform basic maintenance such as adding new users or printers.

There are four basic system configuration tasks that you most likely will have to deal with: user management, printer setup, display configuration, and software management. You can manage users, adding new ones, removing others, and updating user properties. Different kinds of printers, remote and local, can be set up for your system. For your video card and monitor, you can select the resolutions and color depths you want. You can also install new software packages and update or remove current ones. You were asked to perform all of these tasks during installation. In addition, there are other tools you can use to configure devices such as your keyboard, sound card, and mouse, as well as perform tasks such as setting the system date and time or selecting a language to use (see Table 4-1). You can make changes or additions easily using the administrative tools described in this chapter.

Table 4-1: Red Hat System Configuration Tools

Red Hat Administration Tools	Description
System Settings	Red Hat window and menu for accessing administrative tools
redhat-config-users	User and Group configuration tool
redhat-config-printer	Printer configuration tool
redhat-config-xfree86	Red Hat display configuration tool (video card and monitor)
redhat-config-packages	Software management
redhat-config-rootpassword	Changes the root user password
redhat-config-keyboard	Changes the keyboard configuration
redhat-config-date	Changes system time and date
redhat-config-mouse	Configures your mouse
redhat-config-language	Selects a language to use
redhat-config-soundcard	Configures your sound card

Configuration operations can be performed from a GUI interface such as GNOME or KDE, or they can be performed using a simple shell command line at which you type configuration commands. You can manually access system configuration files, editing them and making entries yourself. For example, the domain name server entries are kept in the /etc/resolv.conf file. You can edit this file and type in the addresses for the servers.

Note

Configuration tools are accessible only to the root user. You will first need to log in using root as your username and providing the root password you specified during installation.