authentication

How to Configure Network Interface Settings with nmcli and ip on RHEL 9 — step-by-step RHEL 9 tutorial on Progressive Robot

How to Configure Network Interface Settings with nmcli and ip on RHEL 9

Network configuration on RHEL 9 is managed by NetworkManager, and the primary tools for working with it are nmcli (NetworkManager Command-Line Interface) and the traditional ip command from the iproute2 package. Understanding both is essential: nmcli creates persistent network profiles that survive reboots and are managed by NetworkManager, while the ip command makes temporary changes […]

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How to Perform a System Security Audit with auditd on RHEL 9 — step-by-step RHEL 9 tutorial on Progressive Robot

How to Perform a System Security Audit with auditd on RHEL 9

Security auditing is the practice of recording and reviewing system calls, file accesses, user actions, and configuration changes to detect policy violations, investigate incidents, and demonstrate compliance with standards like PCI DSS, HIPAA, and SOC 2. On RHEL 9, the Linux Audit Framework — provided by the auditd daemon — captures events at the kernel […]

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How to Use journalctl for Systemd Log Analysis on RHEL 9 — step-by-step RHEL 9 tutorial on Progressive Robot

How to Use journalctl for Systemd Log Analysis on RHEL 9

The Linux kernel’s systemd journal is a structured binary log that stores the output of every service, kernel message, boot sequence, and user session. Unlike traditional text-based syslog, the journal stores metadata alongside each log entry — the unit name, PID, UID, executable path, systemd unit state, and priority level — enabling far more precise […]

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How to Use rsync for Efficient File Synchronisation on RHEL 9 — step-by-step RHEL 9 tutorial on Progressive Robot

How to Use rsync for Efficient File Synchronisation on RHEL 9

rsync is the Swiss Army knife of file synchronisation for Linux administrators. Unlike scp, which blindly copies every file every time, rsync computes a rolling checksum to identify changed file blocks and transfers only what has changed — making subsequent syncs dramatically faster and less bandwidth-intensive. It preserves file attributes (permissions, ownership, timestamps, ACLs, extended […]

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How to Manage Users and Groups with useradd, groupadd and passwd on RHEL 9 — step-by-step RHEL 9 tutorial on Progressive Robot

How to Manage Users and Groups with useradd, groupadd and passwd on RHEL 9

While the earlier tutorial in this series covered the core useradd, usermod, and userdel tools for user lifecycle management, this guide goes deeper into the full toolkit for managing users and groups at scale on RHEL 9: bulk creation, password management with chpasswd, group administration with gpasswd, per-user resource limits with ulimit and /etc/security/limits.conf, user […]

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How to Set Up a Bash Profile and Environment Variables on RHEL 9 — step-by-step RHEL 9 tutorial on Progressive Robot

How to Set Up a Bash Profile and Environment Variables on RHEL 9

Every time you open a terminal on RHEL 9, Bash reads one or more startup files before presenting you with a prompt. Which files are read depends on whether the shell is a login shell (started by SSH, a console login, or su -) or an interactive non-login shell (a new terminal window in a […]

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Initial Server Setup with RHEL 9 — step-by-step RHEL 9 tutorial on Progressive Robot

Initial Server Setup with RHEL 9

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL 9, codenamed “Plow”) is the most significant release of RHEL in years, built on Linux kernel 5.14, OpenSSL 3.0, and shipped with a hardened-by-default security posture including SELinux enforcing mode, nftables as the default firewall backend, and full support for the latest POWER, ARM, and x86_64 architectures. Whether you […]

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How to Add and Delete Users on RHEL 9 — step-by-step RHEL 9 tutorial on Progressive Robot

How to Add and Delete Users on RHEL 9

User account management is one of the most fundamental administrative tasks on any Linux server. On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, every process, file, and network socket is owned by a user and group, making correct account hygiene essential for both security and auditability. Understanding the full lifecycle — creation, modification, and removal — and […]

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How to Set Up SSH Key-Based Authentication on RHEL 9 — step-by-step RHEL 9 tutorial on Progressive Robot

How to Set Up SSH Key-Based Authentication on RHEL 9

SSH key-based authentication is the gold standard for remote server access. Unlike passwords, SSH keys cannot be guessed by brute-force attacks. An Ed25519 private key is a 256-bit secret that would take longer than the age of the universe to crack by exhaustive search. When combined with a key passphrase, you have two-factor authentication: something […]

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How to Configure Fail2Ban to Protect SSH on RHEL 9 — step-by-step RHEL 9 tutorial on Progressive Robot

How to Configure Fail2Ban to Protect SSH on RHEL 9

Even with SSH key authentication enabled, a badly configured or temporarily accessible server with password auth still faces a constant barrage of brute-force login attempts. Fail2ban monitors log files for authentication failures, counts them per source IP, and when a configured threshold is crossed it issues a temporary ban by injecting a drop rule via […]

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