Linux System Administration [Paperback]

Tom Adelstein (Author), Bill Lubanovic (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0596009526 | ISBN-13: 978-0596009526 | Publication Date: March 1, 2007

If you're an experienced system administrator looking to acquire Linux skills, or a seasoned Linux user facing a new challenge, Linux System Administration offers practical knowledge for managing a complete range of Linux systems and servers. The book summarizes the steps you need to build everything from standalone SOHO hubs, web servers, and LAN servers to load-balanced clusters and servers consolidated through virtualization. Along the way, you'll learn about all of the tools you need to set up and maintain these working environments.

Linux is now a standard corporate platform with users numbering in the hundreds of millions, and there is a definite shortage of talented administrators. Linux System Administration is ideal as an introduction to Linux for Unix veterans, MCSEs, and mainframe administrators, and as an advanced (and refresher) guide for existing Linux administrators who will want to jump into the middle of the book. Inside, you'll learn how to:

• Set up a stand-alone Linux server



• Install, configure, maintain, and troubleshoot a DNS server using BIND



• Build an Internet server to manage sites, perform email and file transfers, and more



• Set up an email service for a small-to-medium-sized site, complete with authentication



• Install and configure Apache, PHP, and MySQL on a web server built from scratch



• Combine computers into a load-balanced Apache web server cluster based on the free Linux Virtual Server



• Set up local network services from distributed file systems to DHCP services, gateway services, print services, user management and more



• Use Linux virtualization with Xen or VMWare to run multiple kernels on one piece of hardware; manage each kernel's access to processor time, devices, and memory



• Create shell scripts and adapt them for your own needs



• Back up and restore data with rsync, tar, cdrecord, Amanda, and MySQL tools

Linux System Administration is not only knowledgeable and practical, but convenient. The ingredients for this book had been scattered throughout mailing lists, forums, and discussion groups, as well as books, periodicals, and the experiences of colleagues. Everything is now in one handy guide. In the course of their research, the authors also solved many problems whose solutions were completely undocumented. They now pass their lessons on to you.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tom Adelstein works as a system administrator and a technical writer. He became a young author by accident in 1985 and has written prolifically ever since. Tom's career began in public accounting and investment banking where he excelled by using computer technology to help his companies become industry leaders in the financial service sector. In 1993, he decided to change industries completely to pursue information technology full time. He says he chose to follow his heart instead of his head.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 291 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media (March 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596009526
• ISBN-13: 978-0596009526
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #355,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Quite Disappointing, August 5, 2007

By 

James M. Barker II (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Linux System Administration (Paperback)

I shelled out the full price for this at a local bookstore with the hopes that it could help me setup a new Debian LINUX server. Normally, O'Reilly books have a very high level of accuracy and detail, this one deviates from that standard quite a bit. I used to admin BSD boxes many moons ago and thought this would be the perfect refresher course for me to get back up to speed with the current technology. From the beginning of the book, I started running into problems and was getting confusing errors that were not at all mentioned in the book. For starters, this book is based on older software packages that aren't included in the current distribution, so you have to use your favorite search engine to find out what the current version and installation package names are. Next, the configuration files the authors tell you to modify are in many cases wrong or non-existent. They have you comment out lots of lines in various config files only to discover later on in the book that you have to uncomment them so things like PHP will actually work. On top of that, the ISPCONFIG setup fails, as there is some sort of problem with the PHP installation. AARGH! I think I spent more time playing Sherlock Holmes on the web than I did reading the book. Which, I actually recommend that YOU do if you are in a similar position as me... To add to my frustration with the authors, their website is basically vacant. My opinion is they cashed the check from O'Reilly and forgot about the rest of their commitments to the readers who are spending from $29 to $44.99 USD on a copy of this outdated and confusing waste of paper. There might be a few useful tidbits here and there, but the web is your best resource for this information. I gave it 2 stars because it does point you in a general direction of how you might want to set things up, but the explanation of it all is generally wrong.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This Book should be renamed Debian Sys Admin, July 31, 2007

By 

T. Brown "Lynwode" (Vic, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Linux System Administration (Paperback)

I found this book very disapointing. My main concern was with the authors decision to base the examples solely on Debian distros of Linux. This is not mentioned in the the books description.

The book also advises that there is a website to accompany the book with examples, tips and new procedures. This turns out to be a one page website with 5 links that refer back to the same homepage with no content.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful survey of interesting software & technology, May 26, 2007

By 

Robert A. Uhl (Denver, Colo.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Linux System Administration (Paperback)

I've just finished reading O'Reilly's latest GNU/Linux title, Linux
System Administration (full disclosure: I was sent a reviewer's copy).
Bottom line up front: it's a handy introduction for the beginner
GNU/Linux sysadmin, and a useful addition to an experienced sysadmin's
bookshelf.

The book is essentially a survey of various Linux system-administration
tasks: installing Debian; setting up LAMP; configuring a load-balancing,
high-availability environment; working with virtualisation. None of the
chapters are in-depth examinations of their subjects; rather, they're
enough to get you started and familiar with the concepts involved, and
headed in the right direction. I like this approach, as it increases
the likelihood that any particular admin will be able to use the
material presented. I've been working with Apache for almost a decade
now, but I've not done any virtualisation; some other fellow may have
played with Linux for supercomputing, but never done any web serving
with it; we both can use the chapters which cover subjects new to us.

I really like some of the choices the authors made. A lot of GNU/Linux
'administration' books focus on GUI tools--I've seen some which don't
even bother addressing the command line! I've long said that if one
isn't intimately familiar with the shell--if one cannot get one's job
done with it--then one isn't really a sysadmin. Linux System
Administration approaches nearly everything from the CLI, right from the
get-go. Kudos!

The authors also deserve praise for showing, early on, how to replace
Sendmail with Postfix. In 2007, there's very, _very_ little reason to use
Sendmail: unless you know why you need it, you almost certainly don't.
Postfix is more stable and far more secure.

Another nice thing is how many alternatives are showcased: Xen & VMware;
Debian, Fedora & Xandros; CIFS/SMB & NFS; shell, Perl, PHP & Python and
so forth. One really great advantage of Unix in general and GNU/Linux
in particular is choice--it's good to see a reference work which
implicitly acknowledges that.

The authors are also pretty good about calling out common
pitfalls--several got me, once upon a time. It'd have been nice to have
had a book like this when I was cutting my teeth...

Lastly, I liked that the authors & their editor weren't afraid to refer
readers to books from other publishers, in addition to O'Reilly's
(uniformly excellent) offerings. Not all publishers would be so
forthright; O'Reilly merits recognition for their openness.

The book's not quite perfect, though. I wish that PostgreSQL had at
least been mentioned as a more powerful, more stable (and often faster
in practice) alternative to MySQL, and one doesn't actually need to
register a domain in order to set up static IP addressing. Still, these
are pretty minor quibbles.

I'd say that the ideal audience for this book is a small-to-medium
business admin who'd like to start using Linux, or who already is but
doesn't really feel confident yet. It covers enough categories that at
least a few are likely to be relevant. Even an experienced admin will
probably find some useful stuff in here.