Server Administration
Installation and roles
Boot methods include USB, ISO/optical, and PXE network boot. Before installing, plan partitions and file systems, licensing, hostname, and IP addressing. Common roles: AD DS/DNS/DHCP, file and print, web, database, mail, and hypervisor.
Virtualization and cloud
A Type 1 hypervisor runs on bare metal (ESXi, Hyper-V); a Type 2 hypervisor runs on top of a host OS (Workstation, VirtualBox). Understand vCPU and memory oversubscription, thin versus thick provisioning, live migration, and the fact that a snapshot is not a backup. Cloud service models: IaaS (you manage everything from the OS up), PaaS (you manage only the application), SaaS (the vendor manages it all). Deployment models are public, private, hybrid, and community.
Core services
Know DNS record types (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, PTR, TXT), DHCP scope/reservation/exclusion/lease behavior, and NTP time sync, which underpins Kerberos authentication and consistent log timestamps. Understand share versus NTFS permissions, group nesting, and Group Policy application.
Automation and monitoring
Use scripting (PowerShell, Bash), scheduled tasks, and configuration management to make changes repeatable. Build a performance baseline and monitor CPU, memory, disk queue length, and network throughput with alerts, SNMP, and centralized logging. Remote administration runs over RDP, SSH, and VNC.
Traps: questions reverse Type 1 and Type 2; snapshots are described as backups; IaaS and PaaS are swapped; a DHCP reservation is still DHCP-delivered and is not the same as a manually configured static address; time skew breaking authentication is often overlooked.
Worked example: an application server must always receive 10.10.5.20 - create a DHCP reservation bound to the server's MAC address so the address stays centralized and cannot be leased to another host.