UNIX Hints and Hacks [Paperback]

Kirk Waingrow (Author)

Book Description

Series: Hints and Hacks | Publication Date: July 15, 1999

UNIX Hints & Hacks is designed to instantly reward you through increased productivity and satisfaction with UNIX. Each and every hint and/or hack provides real value--not just a list of obvious procedures marked as secrets. Learn UNIX administration skills you can apply daily with UNIX workstations and servers. Discover networking tricks to make modifications safely over the network. Tackle security issues such as dealing with SuperUser accounts, permissions, and vulnerabilities in the UNIX operating system. Develop various ways to monitor the system logs and load averages, to aid in the tuning, fixing, and security. Also learn to add, manipulate, and modify user accounts in new ways, and improve your file management skills for modifying, viewing, and executin. With UNIX Hints & Hacks you'll look up from the reading and say, "I can't wait to try that!"

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Unix Hints & Hacks covers the science and art of Unix system administration comprehensively. While its title implies that this is a how-to recipe book for running and maintaining Unix machines--and you will find a lot of shell trickery detailed here--there's much more to this book than commands and procedures.

Much of Unix Hints & Hacks contains explicit solutions to problems that pop up on Unix machines. (Waingrow covers AT&T- and BSD-derivative kernels, along with several shells.) For each of the scores of situations he covers, such as those in sections like "Moving and Renaming Groups of Files" and "Troubleshooting ASCII Terminals," Waingrow presents a handful of solutions and explains scenarios in which each works best. Where appropriate, he provides listings of command shell scripts and explains how they work. Coverage includes user administration, file management, networking, resource monitoring, and security.

On top of his technical coverage, Waingrow includes generally ignored insights that concern the human side of administering systems. He offers advice on working with users who are experiencing trouble, suggestions for getting approval from managers for the equipment you want, and hints for developing healthy relationships with vendors' representatives.

He also presents his thoughts on applying for employment as a Unix administrator. You'll find hints on preparing a résumé that adequately represents your skill set, and the book gives you a feel for the kinds of technical stumpers you might be asked in an interview. --David Wall

About the Author

Kirk Waingrow currently runs the largest Unix resource on the Internet — The Unix Guru Universe (ugu). Over the last 4 years, Kirk has worked with over 17,000 unix administrators —learning what their needs and wants in resource material is. This book is put together from data Kirk compiled over the years that typically isn't available to the average Unix Administrator. Recently, Kirk installed a 1.5 Terabyte server system for Disney.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Que; 1st edition (July 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789719274
• ISBN-13: 978-0789719270
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #623,001 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overall book for new Sys Admins, August 1, 2000

By 

Azar (Utah) - See all my reviews

This review is from: UNIX Hints and Hacks (Paperback)

This is a great book. Its pages contain plenty of useful information for the aspiring Sys Admin. Experienced Unix administrators probably should look elsewhere, since a good majority of the material is stuff that they should already know. The book starts with hands-on "Hints and Hacks" and slowly gets more and more general (i.e. Handling Irate Users, Finding a job as a Unix System Administrator, Interviewing new Sys Admins, etc). Overall, I feel this book is well worth what you pay for it.

My only real complaint about the book is the sometimes annoying typos. Some of them can be easily overlooked and the authors desired meaning can be understood. But sometimes it gets a little ridiculous.

The author showing some hints on the VI editor:

"When you go into the command line mode, you can execute the command and write the results out to a file such as

:!date > /tmp/date.tmp

...Then position the cursor where you want the results of date command to go.

:r /temp/foo

Execute the read (r) command on /tmp/dat.tmp and the data is read..."

Errors like this can be annoying and detract from an overall great book. A couple of other similar errors, plus general typos, is why this book lost a star. Otherwise, grab this book!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rare quality book filled mostly with non-standard stuff, October 14, 1999

By 

Boris Strokopytov - See all my reviews

This review is from: UNIX Hints and Hacks (Paperback)

I think Kirk has achieved his goal. The book is really quite non-standard and entertaining. The writing style is exceptional. I could not stop reading this book during two days. Unix is not a dry subject for me anymore. The book is filled with good examples and real world situations from top to the bottom. Junior system administrators should sleep with this book. The book doesn't stick to any particular Unix platform which makes it even more valuable. I don't think that there are too many typo's in the book. You, guys, simply should adjust hints by Mr. Waingrow to your particular platform. Moreover, if you really love Unix it's really fun to find so-called "error" or "typo". I can only hope that this is not the last book from Mr. Waingrow. I consider this book as a superb achievement superior to many O'Reilly books.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great all-round book for System Admins., July 22, 1999

By 

R. EARLS "r.e." (Overland Park, Kansas USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: UNIX Hints and Hacks (Paperback)

I caught this book on sale at Amazon.com and I decided to check it out. If you're a Junior/Intermediate system administrator this book is an excellent value! Waingrow's book isn't platform specific and it doesn't re-hash simple unix commands like other books. He expects that you are mildly experienced in UNIX and gives system administration examples based on real-world experience. It would take me years of trial-and-error to learn what Waingrow packs into this book. However, good Senior administrators would probably find the book less useful.

One of the best chapters is "System Administration: The Occupation". It covers everything from creating your resume and preparing for an interview to finding other experienced administrators. I've never read another book that put as much thought into the "career" of system administration rather than the day-to-day tasks.

The only problem I have with this book is that I can't keep my co-workers from stealing it off my desk! Well worth the money.