CentOS Stream: An Alternative to Red Hat

Your outline for a Rocky Linux Server Administration course is well-structured and comprehensive. It covers a wide range of essential topics that any system administrator should be familiar with. Here are a few suggestions to enhance the course even further:

1. Introduction to Rocky Linux: Before diving into specific tasks, it might be helpful to provide an overview of Rocky Linux itself, its history as a fork of CentOS, and its community-driven development model.

2. Security Best Practices: Include lessons on security practices such as firewall configuration (using firewalld or nftables), securing SSH access, and the importance of regular updates and patches.

3. System Backup Strategies: A lesson dedicated to backup solutions (such as rsync, bacula, or restic) and disaster recovery planning is crucial.

4. Monitoring System Performance: Cover tools like htop for real-time system monitoring, iostat for I/O statistics, and vmstat for virtual memory statistics.

5. Log Management and Analysis: Teach how to manage log files (using /var/log), rotate them with logrotate, and analyze logs with tools like less, grep, awk, or dedicated log analyzers like Splunk or Kibana.

6. Virtualization Basics: If applicable, introduce virtualization technologies that Rocky Linux can host, such as KVM/QEMU, and how to manage virtual machines.

7. Containerization with Docker or Podman: Explain how to use containerization technologies for application deployment and management.

8. Automation with Ansible: Introduce the basics of using Ansible for automating system administration tasks.

9. Troubleshooting Common Issues: A lesson dedicated to common issues that arise in a Rocky Linux environment and how to troubleshoot them effectively.

10. High Availability and Clustering: Provide insights into setting up high-availability services using Pacemaker or similar clustering solutions.

11. Advanced Networking Topics: Expand on networking with lessons on IPv6, VPN configurations (OpenVPN, WireGuard), and advanced network scripting.

12. Performance Tuning: Discuss how to tune the performance of key components like the kernel, web servers, and databases.

13. User and Group Best Practices: Delve deeper into user and group management by covering best practices for creating and maintaining user accounts, especially in a multi-user environment.

14. Scripting for System Administration: Introduce some basic shell scripting to automate repetitive tasks.

15. Final Project or Lab Environment: Offer a capstone project or a lab environment where students can apply what they've learned by building and managing their own Rocky Linux server with all the services and configurations they've studied throughout the course.

By incorporating these additional topics, you'll provide a more rounded education in Rocky Linux Server Administration that prepares students for real-world scenarios and diverse system administration challenges.