CentOS System Administration Using Text-Based User Interfaces

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Administering CentOS 6 from the command line is not always intuitive and easy, especially when it comes to complex commands with hard-to-remember arguments and strict syntax. Many CentOS servers lack an X Window System graphical interface, which supports applications that could ease administration tasks. They can, however, run text-based user interfaces (TUI), which are often in the form of wizards, and which provide options for navigation, accept text input, and show progress bars.

CentOS has plenty of TUIs available from the official CentOS repository. For instance, system-config-network-tui helps you configure the CentOS network. This powerful Python script saves you the burden of editing numerous files to modify your network interfaces, routes, and DNS information. Similarly, system-config-firewall-tui helps you configure your firewall. It offers basic options to just allow incoming services, such as DNS and FTP, and more advanced options to fine-tune the iptables rules, such as configuring trusted interfaces and masquerading.

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