CentOS Stream: Enterprise Linux Administration and Infrastructure Modernization

CentOS Stream Architecture and Release Philosophy

• Understanding the CentOS Stream rolling-release model versus point release distributions.
• Relationship between CentOS Stream and Red Hat Enterprise Linux upstream development.
• Naming conventions, stream repositories, and content versioning strategy.
• Selecting and switching between multiple streams for application compatibility.

Installation and Automated Deployment

• Interactive Anaconda graphical and text-based installer walkthrough.
• Kickstart files for fully automated unattended installations.
• PXE network boot and TFTP-based network-install workflows.
• Containerized and cloud-init-based provisioning for cloud deployments.
• Partitioning strategies, filesystem selection including Btrfs and XFS defaults.

Package Management and Module Streams

• DNF advanced operations, transaction management, and dependency resolution.
• Module streams for flexible software versions and language runtimes.
• Repository configuration, GPG signing verification, and custom repo creation.
• Content views and errata tracking for enterprise update management.

System Service Management with systemd

• Understanding systemd targets, units, and dependency graph.
• Creating, enabling, and debugging custom service units.
• Journal logging, log rotation, and persistent log storage.
• Resource control via systemd slice and resource manager policies.
• Kdump crash dump configuration and kernel panic handling.

Modern Network Configuration

• NetworkManager CLI and CUI configuration essentials.
• Interface bonding, bridge, VLAN, and teaming configurations.
• Firewalld rich rules, zones, services, and port forwarding.
• IPv6 routing, firewall rules, and DNS resolution via systemd-resolved.
• Network debugging tools and packet capture techniques.

Container and Pod Infrastructure

• Podman vs Docker: daemonless container workflow fundamentals.
• Buildah container image creation without Dockerfile or daemon.
• Rootless container deployment and user namespace mappings.
• Red Hat Universal Base Images and Alpine-based lightweight containers.
• Storage drivers, volume mounts, and network inter-container communication.
• Container lifecycle management and monitoring with skopeo and crun.

Security Hardening

• SELinux enforcing mode configuration, policy management, and audit troubleshooting.
• Firewalld hardened zone design and rule composition.
• SSH hardening, key-based authentication, and bastion host setup.
• Password policies, PAM modules, and privilege escalation via sudo.
• FIPS 140-2/140-3 compliance configuration and validation.
• Kernel live patching and CVE remediation workflows.

Storage and Filesystem Management

• LVM2 logical volume management for dynamic capacity planning.
• Btrfs snapshot, subvolume management, and auto-decompression.
• NFS and Samba file sharing service configuration.
• Multipath I/O for SAN storage redundancy and failover.
• Disk encryption with LUKS and automated unlock via initramfs.

System Monitoring and Kernel Management

• Performance monitoring with sar, top, and perf profiling.
• Debugging with strace, ltrace, and GDB for system services.
• Kernel updates, bootloader configuration, and GRUB2 customization.
• System state management and crash analysis.

Automation and Infrastructure as Code

• Ansible inventory design for CentOS Stream host management.
• Automated patching and compliance drift detection workflows.
• IaC modules for configuration management at scale.
• Provisioning playbooks and deployment orchestration strategies.