After strengthening my SSH fundamentals on Day 7, Day 8 focused on secure access and real-world system awareness—skills that are critical when working with cloud servers, production machines, and remote environments.
Today’s learning moved beyond basic connectivity and into authentication, trust-based access, and system visibility.
🔹 What I Learned & Practiced
🔹 SSH Key Generation (Password-less Authentication)
I generated an SSH key pair using ssh-keygen to understand how public-key authentication works.
✔️ This created:
- A private key (kept securely on my system)
- A public key (used to grant access)
Key-based authentication is:
- More secure than passwords
- Widely used in cloud servers (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Essential for automation and CI/CD workflows
🔹 Understanding the .ssh Directory
After generating the keys, I explored the .ssh directory to verify the key files.
✔️ This helped me understand:
- Where SSH stores authentication files
- The role of id_rsa and id_rsa.pub
- Why correct permissions matter for SSH security
🔹 Accessing a Remote System Using SSH
I then tested real-world usage by accessing my friend’s Ubuntu system over SSH.
✔️ This validated that:
- SSH service was working correctly
- Network connectivity was stable
- Authentication was successful
- This step made SSH feel practical and real, not just theoretical.
🔹 Introduction to Disk & System Monitoring Commands
Beyond SSH, I explored essential Linux commands used daily by system administrators:
- Disk usage awareness (df, df -h)
- Directory size analysis (du)
- System performance snapshot (vmstat)
- Process management (ps)
- Running tasks in background (nohup)
✔️ These tools help in:
- Diagnosing disk space issues
- Monitoring system load
- Managing long-running background processes
I focused on understanding when and why these commands are used, not just memorizing syntax.
🚀 Day 8 Takeaway
Day 8 showed me that Linux administration is about trust, visibility, and control.
SSH key-based authentication builds secure access, while system monitoring commands provide clarity into how a machine behaves under real workloads. Together, these skills form the foundation of reliable Linux and cloud operations.
Learning Linux step by step is making complex systems feel structured, predictable, and powerful.
Consistency continues to be the key 🔑
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