4.4bsd System Manager's Manual (Smm) [Paperback]

UC Berkeley Computer Systems Research Group (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 8, 1994 | Series: Smm

4.4BSD is the final release of what may be one of the most significant research projects in the history of computing. When Bell Labs originally released UNIX source code to the R&D community, brilliant researchers wrote their own software and added it to UNIX in a spree of creative anarchy that hasn't been equalled since. The Berkeley Software Distribution became the repository of much of that work.

This volume includes man pages for system administration commands (section eight of the online reference manual), plus supplementary documents useful to system administrators.

These include installation instructions for the 4.4BSD release (which are also included with the 4.4BSD-Lite CD-ROM Companion), plus papers on many system administration utilities and tasks. Some of these papers have been superceded by in-depth books, but many of them remain the definitive work on the topic, and all are of interest to serious UNIX administrators.

"Sometimes, when I'm stuck with a problem, I still go back to the original UNIX papers. They are terse, but often incredibly precise. Sometimes, a careful re-reading reveals some nuance that makes all the difference." --Tim O'Reilly

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

4.4BSD is the final release of what may be one of the most significant research projects in the history of computing. When Bell Labs originally released UNIX source code to the R&D community, brilliant researchers wrote their own software and added it to UNIX in a spree of creative anarchy that hasn't been equalled since. The Berkeley Software Distribution became the repository of much of that work. This volume includes man pages for system administration commands (section eight of the online reference manual), plus supplementary documents useful to system administrators. These include installation instructions for the 4.4BSD release (which are also included with the 4.4BSD-Lite CD-ROM Companion), plus papers on many system administration utilities and tasks. Some of these papers have been superceded by in-depth books, but many of them remain the definitive work on the topic, and all are of interest to serious UNIX administrators. "Sometimes, when I'm stuck with a problem, I still go back to the original UNIX papers. They are terse, but often incredibly precise. Sometimes, a careful re-reading reveals some nuance that makes all the difference." --Tim O'Reilly

Product Details

• Paperback: 804 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (June 8, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565920805
• ISBN-13: 978-1565920804
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,536,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars boring as can be, but useful for BSD internals, January 5, 2003

By 

jose_monkey_org "jose_monkey_org" (ann arbor, mi, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 4.4bsd System Manager's Manual (Smm) (Paperback)

this book is about as boring as they come. a collection of section 8 manpages (the admin's section) and the papers describing the release of 4.4BSD (and installation on several architectures no longer popular), this book is nothing but reference. however, it's an invaluable reference for hard core old school BSD types and deep system hackers. sometimes you have to go back to the original source, ie for 4.4BSD's filesystem design or old perl 5.

an average BSD (Net, Open, Free) user/admin wont get anything out of it. and that's fine. the book is old (1994) and dated, but still contains invaluable reference material. recommended only for the hard core BSD hacker.