Solaris Solutions for System Administrators: Time-Saving Tips, Techniques, and Workarounds, Second Edition [Paperback]

Sandra Henry-Stocker (Author), Evan R. Marks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2003

• Teaches how to work smart and avoid the many pitfalls of managing Solaris systems
• Covers the latest release of Solaris, Solaris 9, as well as earlier versions
• Written by experts with years of Solaris experience
• Packed with practical, hands-on solutions to tough problems, showing how to avoid costly mistakes
• Tackles managing system performance; the Sun Fire line of Solaris enterprise servers; installing, configuring, and patching Solaris; and ensuring security

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Learn how to work smart and avoid common pitfalls of managing Solaris systems

The Solaris operating system is used by hundreds of thousands of companies worldwide to run everything from Web services to back-end financial systems. The Solaris 9 release improves manageability; however, it also increases the complexity of the operating environment and the amount of skill needed to engineer and implement quality, long-lasting solutions.

Written by two experts, this book is packed with honest coverage of Solaris’s strengths and weaknesses. The authors tackle tough issues that experienced Solaris system administrators face on a daily basis, such as how to build highly available solutions and how to manage Solaris in a heterogeneous environment. Their practical guidance on how to work smarter and avoid the pitfalls of managing Solaris–whether you’ve upgraded to version 9 or are still using an earlier version–is invaluable.

The authors show how to:

• Manage system performance
• Administer the Sun Fire line of servers and the older E10K
• Install, configure, and patch Solaris
• Maintain high availability
• Automate system administration functions
• Ensure system security

On the companion Web site you’ll also find:

• The latest version of scripts found in the book
• Links to the best Solaris resources on the Web

About the Author

SANDRA HENRY-STOCKER is the author of two books on Solaris and a columnist for ITworld.com. A twenty-year Unix veteran, she currently works as a systems engineer for TeleCommunication Systems in Annapolis, Maryland, and teaches classes on Unix and Internet topics at Anne Arundel Community College.

EVAN R. MARKS has more than fifteen years as a Unix system administrator in the financial and manufacturing industries. Currently, he is assistant vice president of enterprise engineering at MassMutual Financial Group and is responsible for the Unix engineering and image workflow teams.

Product Details

• Paperback: 656 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 2 edition (March 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047143115X
• ISBN-13: 978-0471431152
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 8.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #194,709 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #6 in Books > Computers & Technology > Operating Systems > Solaris

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A COPY OF THE INDEX--CHECK IT OUT!, July 31, 2000

By 

Conrad B. Senior (Easton, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: SolarisTM Solutions for System Administrators: Time-Saving Tips, Techniques, and Workarounds (Paperback)

Understand Unix and want to dig deeper into Solaris Admin? Then this is the book for you. I love this book--it is my new bible and I study it every chance I get. Well written. I had been using Unix for a long time but was weak in Sys Admin. Partly because I didn't have a good reference. Without a knowledge of the boot process, diaganostic tools, I felt I had a major weakness in this area. I looked around for a book that would fill this need and was very happy to find this book. I especially liked the chapter on setting up an Internet site.

I listed the index below, since it's one thing I like to read before purchasing a book. Hope this helps you make your decision.

The Index:

1. Making Smart Decisions About File Systems

2. Planning Backups and Restores

3. Booting and Hardward Diagnotics

4. Configuring Run States

5. Installing and Patching your Solaris System

6. Exloring Jumpstart

7. Setting up Name Services

8. Network Information Services NIS+ and NIS

9. Monitoring your Environment

10. Understanding File Systems--So that's what those are!

11. Automate everything..Well almost!

12. Keeping your Solaris Systems Secure

13. Implementing High Availability: Eliminating Single Points of Failure

14. Maintaining your Sun Hardware

15. Peripheral Vision: Understanding and Configuring Other Hardware

16. The E10000 (Starfire)--Not Just a Big Unix Box

17. Running an Internet Site

18. Coexisiting with the Evil Empire (Windows)

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating book, June 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: SolarisTM Solutions for System Administrators: Time-Saving Tips, Techniques, and Workarounds (Paperback)

I thoroughly recommend this book! It is perfect for anyone who works with Solaris, Unix, or Sun hardware. There are tidbits for everyone. For me, I found the chapter on the E10K the most interesting. Since I only work with the lower enterprise machines, I was fascinated by the descriptions of what administering and working with 10K's were like. As for technical details, I'd probably look through other books. (Manuals from Sun would work.) This book gives a lot of general guidance on how systems should be run and what administrators should concern themselves with (i.e. security issues- tcp wrappers, tripwire, etc.). They definitely know what they are talking about. As for who should read it... Well, I think most System Admins should read it for learning what path they should take to make life easier. As for other people, it's a good reference on what professional admins should be doing.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for rookies to the most experienced., May 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: SolarisTM Solutions for System Administrators: Time-Saving Tips, Techniques, and Workarounds (Paperback)

As a mid-level member (6 yrs. experience)of a team that combines over 45 yrs. experience we found this book to be unique in that it's informative for both the rookies on the team and the senior members. Chapters 6 and 11, on JumpStart and Automation were awesome. The Diagnostic, and Backup and restore stuff as well... This book is useful to push the boundries of what we're doing and also as a reference book, and a get-acquinted book. Very well rounded.