Looking back at my career, one of the most rewarding chapters was the time I spent as a Linux Administration instructor at Fundación Código Libre Dominicano.
This journey began in 2006, following what the foundation recognized as an “outstanding study” period where I deeply immersed myself in the world of Unix-like systems. By 2007, I transitioned from student to instructor, a role I would hold until 2012.
Building the Foundation
Teaching at FCLD wasn’t just about showing people how to use a terminal; it was about fostering a mindset of freedom and technical sovereignty. My students were often professionals or aspiring sysadmins looking to break away from proprietary stacks and embrace the power of the GPL.
I focused on two main areas: Linux Fundamentals and Linux Server Administration.
The Stack We Taught
In those years, we were building the backbone of many Dominican infrastructures. We didn’t have the “cloud” as we know it today; we had bare metal, virtualization (Xen/KVM), and a lot of configuration files.
Some of the core services I instructed on included:
- Identity & Directory Services: Setting up LDAP for centralized authentication and integrating it with other services.
- Networking Basics: DNS (Bind) configuration, master/slave setups, and zone management.
- Web Infrastructure: Scaling HTTP (Apache) servers and managing virtual hosts.
- File Sharing: Bridging the gap between Linux and Windows environments using SAMBA.
- Automation: Mastering Cron for task scheduling and system maintenance.
- Security: Implementing Kerberos for secure authentication in distributed environments.
The Impact
During those five years, I had the privilege of seeing hundreds of students transform into capable administrators. Many of them now hold senior positions in major telecommunications companies, banks, and government institutions in the Dominican Republic and abroad.
Teaching these “important Linux services” day in and day out is what solidified my own understanding of system internals. It’s the reason why, even today as a Software Engineer, I feel just as comfortable debugging a Java heap issue as I do troubleshooting a network stack or a systemd unit.
Open source changed my life in 2006, and being able to pay that forward through Fundación Código Libre Dominicano—and later as a tutor at ITLA Santiago from 2017 to 2020—is something I will always be proud of.