Customer Reviews

Solaris 8 Administrator's Guide

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

 

 

As a newcomer to Solaris, I found this book extremely informative. I found the chapters on installing and configuration was exactly what I was looking for. The configuration worksheets were great.

I would recommend this book as a great resource for any administrator looking to migrate to Solaris from another operating system or starting a Solaris network from scratch.

Had this book been titled "An introduction to Network Administration on Solaris" O'Reilly would have hit the nail on the head with this one.

The book takes a shallow and deep approach to most topics the average administrator might just need a clue on. The book has enough depth to get your feet wet in each topic - allowing you to know if you need to study more or call it good.

Overall, this book hits all the basics and gives a great overview of an immense topic.

If there's one thing I hate about computer books it's screenshots. I mean, if I'm a UNIX admin, I know what a screen looks like right? That's why I hate those 1000+ page books - full of fluff and no detail. This book is compact, few screenshots, it has lots of good examples (like installation worksheets) and a (rarely found) discussion on sizing. Downside: no discussion on VPNs which I would have expected since firewalls and encryption are covered. Almost five stars.

Hola. This books i very good and easy to understand. I speak English only a little, but I can read this book OK. I am a network administrator and I enjoyed the chapters on LDAP, routing and data management. Best of all was the e-commerce work. I only wish there was more!

I found this book a bit disappointing. I have high expectations of O'reilly books and have found them a treasure trove of valuable information. I was expecting the same in-depthness from this book. Unfortunately it seemed to me much more of a survey of the OS rather than delving into the nitty gritty of the subject matter.

If you are new to Solaris it may be a great book, but it seems to me an experienced Solaris admin will be disappointed by this book.

I just purchased this book and I know it's for Solaris 8 but what I really want is a book for Solaris 9. How 'bout it O'Reilly? Sun are talking about Solaris 10 already!

Some people are trashing the book for a few insignificant flaws. Personally, I think he spends too much time on Java, doesn't cover PAM, RBAC or other new features to Solaris 8. On the whole, though, the book covers alot of good ground for intermediate level system adminstrators - those who have some experience with Solaris, but want to know what features are relevant to Solaris 8 and Solaris networking.

The author summarizes his aims in the preface: "This book illustrates how Solaris services are used to build networks." This focus mirrors SUNs focus for Solaris 8 expressed by the slogan 'The Network is the Computer'.

The book covers the following in enough depth to be useful, while not getting bogged down in too much detail:
* networking - theory and practical setup
* installing solaris, configuring network cards
* Solaris services: dns, nfs - file sharing, email, interacting with NT, nis, nis+, ldap
* backups
* security
* hints on troubleshooting and best practice sysadmin work.

It isn't a good introduction to Solaris, nor a comprehensive reference book, but it has alot of useful information, especially about networking Solaris version 8.

An exellent overview of Solaris network admin. A bit light on 3rd party apps - especially in areas like storage where we all use commercial products. But coverage of security areas like Kerberos was most welcome. A good book for a weekend refresher - not a reference book. Will we see one for the Solaris 9 release this month???

I wonder who the targeted reader of this book is:
Beginner will not find nearly enough technical information to learn
any of the tipics mentioned and book by no means can be used as
a shelf reference for more advanced user.
Cannot recommend it to anybody.

This must be the worst O'Reilly book I have ever read and I have read atleast 20!The author reproduces much of the information from his other books "Solaris Complete Reference" which has much the same inforamtion as his "Solaris Administration -A Beginner's Guide".His coverage of important topics like E-mail consists of showing how to download sendmail through anonymous ftp.His discussion on the inetd super daemon consists of a three page listing of /etc/services file and so on.Incredible, really!I remember O'Reilly once withdrew a title on Beowulf Clusters stating that the quality was not upto reader expectations!I submit this as a definite candidate.