Essential System Administration Pocket Reference (Paperback)

by Æleen Frisch (Author)
Key Phrases: specified filesystem, special filenames, specified queue, Essential System Administration Pocket Reference, Red Hat, System V-style (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The Essential System Administration Pocket Reference is a quick reference to all the fundamental and essential tasks required to run such divergent Unix systems as Solaris, Linux, AIX, BSD, SuSe, Red Hat, and more. Beginners and experienced administrators alike will quickly be able to apply its principles and advice to solve everyday problems. The book is divided into three parts: Commands, Syntax and Their Applications, Configuration Files and Formats, and Operating System Specific Information. The information in this book is a must-have for any administrator or user of a Unix system. O'Reilly's Pocket References have become a favorite among technology professionals everywhere. By providing a wealth of important details in a concise, well-organized format, these handy books deliver just what you need to complete the task at hand. When you've reached a sticking point and need to get to a solution quickly, the new Essential System Administration Pocket Reference is the book you'll want to have.

About the Author
Frisch has been a system administrator for over 15 years. She looks after a very heterogeneous network of UNIX and Windows NT systems.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc. (May 11, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596004494
• ISBN-13: 978-0596004491
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #57,580 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #23 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Networking > Networks, Protocols & APIs > LAN
  #37 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Networking > Network Administration
  #74 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Operating Systems > Unix

• This item is part of The O'Reilly Pocket Guides Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars <Extremely compact information for UNIX System administrator, December 20, 2002

By	Gregor Theis (Meerbusch Deutschland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book contains a lot of very useful information for every UNIX admin on very little space. When I bought this book, I thought that I would only use it as an aide-mémoire but a learned a lot of new things while reading this booklet.

The organization of this book into several topics that comprise a certain area of system administration like e.g. "Networking" help, if you want to gain a good overview of the commands, configuration files and specialties (e.g. device files) for this area.

A booklet of this size can of course not replace all the books and UNIX man pages that dig very deeply into each of the subjects mentioned in this book. As an overview book this was not the intention of the author anyway. This is meant as an overview book only that mentions the important details. You will not find many examples in this book (if any). This book is not meant for beginners or for learning the subject of UNIX system administration. If you want to learn this I recommend the big edition of this book as a good starting point.

I especially liked the following about this book:
- The different options for the UNIX derivates (Red Had Linux 8.0, Suse 8.1, Solaris 8 and 9, Free BSD 4.7, AIX 5 and HP-UX 11) can be found next to each other, this is really helpful if you work with more than one version of UNIX at a time
- Not only the commands the but configuration files and the device files on the platforms are covered
- The coverage of commands is surprisingly big (e.g. I did not expect DHCP configuration instructions in the book)

"Essential system admin pocket reference" covers some of the GNU commands. Unfortunately I am missing coverage for the following commands that are very helpful in problem analysis:
- lsof (list open files)
- truss / strace / trace (trace system calls)
- top (CPU and System Monitor)

This book has the perfect size for a reference book to carry around.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book ROCKS!, April 21, 2004

By	James K. Hoffman "Book Addict" (Jersey Village, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Ahem. I know this is only the "pocket" version of this book, but Essential System Administration Pocket Reference is the best system admin book I've seen in a long time. Now, I'm relatively new to Unix system admin, but I've knocked around the industry for over ten years now, so I know a thing or two about sysadmin work. Usually, what I look for in a reference guide is either something quick and simple or with miles and miles of depth. If I'm new to a system, or I only administer it as a backup or "once in a blue moon", the quick guides suit me well. In this case, that was precisely what I was looking for in a Unix system administration guide. Essential System Administration Pocket Reference provides this to a "T".
Without getting bogged down in lengthy descriptions or philosphical discussions of which tool to use when, this pocket reference lists the basic administration commands, beyond GREP (though it lists that, too!), with a short description of what it does. It's easier to read than the MAN file, usually gives me few examples, and I don't have to open a second terminal window to use it! Seriously, I really reccomend this guide to anyone new to Unix, including Linux, system administration. Or, like me, is getting back into it for the first time since, well, since the Dark Ages. It's a great guide or refresher and it literally does fit in your pocket!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complete for the reluctant or casual sys admin, May 3, 2005

By	P. Fry "Pauli" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm a programmer and support analyst, but I work for a company with servers all over the world and no "in-house" sys admin at my location. So from time to time I get called upon to set things up, troubleshoot operating system problems, etc. This book always seems to have the answer. If you get this book along with another pocket book called "UNIX Shell Commands: Quick Reference" by QUE then you'll be pretty well set without lugging anything big around.