Customer Reviews

Solaris 8 : System Administrator's Reference

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is not a bad book, but it is redundant when you have your trusty man pages and online documentation at docs.sun.com. I recommend the Solaris 8 System Administrator's guide Vol 1-3 at docs.sun.com for a cheaper alternative.

This book sucks. I get more and more disgusted as the pages turn. It covers NO (read: none, zero, zed, zilch) advanced topics (LDAP, installation, mail subsystem, diskless operation, NIS(+) initial setup, routing protocols, firewalling, routing, X11 setup, xdm, IPsec, RADIUS, AMD, Kerberos, SNMP, performance tuning, kernel details, etc.).

Most of the book doesn't even cover solaris specific stuff; it is mainly vanilla UNIX, OS agnostic (like shells, environments, lp, SVR4 stuff). It should be callled "using AdminTool to get your workstation on the network and how to do your day to day tasks."

I know UNIX well (Linux, *BSD, etc.) but not Solaris 8 and wanted a reference for all the quirks of Solaris. This book was a complete waste of time. Do not buy this book unless you are a novice and haven't figured out how to use man pages.

I've been doing a combination of Cisco Engineering and Solaris administration (outside my personal Linux activities) for most of the last 5 years. This book is not the be all and end all guide to Solaris System Administration. I just scanned most of the book and paid special interest to those things marked as new in the text. It gave me sufficient information to pass the certification upgrade to 8 in combination with the Complete reference to Sun Solaris 8. I'm never satisfied with just a book or two on any subject, I knew what to expect I bought the earlier Solaris admin books by the same author. Use it as a stepping stone and you won't be disappointed.

While the info in this book is clear and correct, it really is just an enhancement of the info found in the man pages. I suppose that its best purpose is as a desk reference utilized when you would like to see better versions of man pages in printed format.

It doesn't contain all the admin stuff about Solaris one would like to know but is useful.

I thoroughly recommend this book! It is perfect for anyone who works with Solaris 8, Unix, or Sun hardware. This is a good reference for Solaris 8.