UNIX System Administrator's Bible [Paperback]

Yves Lepage (Author), Paul Iarrera (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 076453162X | ISBN-13: 978-0764531620 | Publication Date: July 28, 1998

This text presents the reader with the facts to run their Internet server and their entire network in a dynamic way. It provides end-to-end coverage on networking with the most popular "flavours" of UNIX, with an emphasis towards proactive analysis and performance tuning techniques. Fundamental UNIX network security issues and implementation - such as firewalls - are covered to suit all network configurations. Analysis tools and practical optimization techniques are also presented in a logical, hands-on format for network administrators to simply access details which can greatly enhance their network performance. The book's accompanying CD contains UNIX network management utilities, freeware and shareware products.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

While many books in this series are plodding, multi-author tomes to which editors add tons of ancillary information, Unix System Administrator's Bible is the exception. If you've just been assigned Unix administration duties and have little knowledge of the operating system, this book will get you up to speed quickly.

Authors LePage and Iarrera begin with a quick overview of key system-administration commands, then get into some conceptual information about how various elements (hardware, kernel, etc.) combine to form a Unix system. They pay a lot of attention to networking and include intelligent documentation on the security risks involved in putting a Unix machine on a network.

This book really excels in its coverage of the "soft" (but hardly unimportant) aspects of administration. How do you plan a file system for an academic environment, as opposed to a transaction-intensive business environment? What kind of backup policy do you need? Clearly, much of the real-life information here derives from LePage's experiences as a system administrator at McGill University and Iarrera's experiences in his consulting business. For example, a story about tracking down and solving a POP server performance problem is not only informative, but as much of a page turner as any mystery novel.

The complete BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) 2.2.5, with source, appears on the companion CD-ROM. --David Wall

About the Author

Yves Lepage has authored or contributed to a number of books on networking-related topics, given networking presentations to IT professionals, and taught UNIX seminars. As an experienced UNIX network administrator, he has obtained a great deal of hands-on UNIX networking mastery while working with the McGill University network in Montreal, Canada.; Paul Iarrera is an information systems consultant working in the financial and telecommunications industries. He has written course materials, and provided hands-on UNIX systems management training for IT professionals in the corporate environment. His experience implementing UNIX solutions for enterprise-level computing affords him knowledge and expertise in-depth UNIX systems integration.

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (July 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076453162X
• ISBN-13: 978-0764531620
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,759,129 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #57 in Books > Computers & Technology > Operating Systems > Unix > Administration

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Better titled "UNIX System Management Leisure Reading", January 14, 2000

By 

Yong Huang (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: UNIX System Administrator's Bible (Paperback)

This book is for managers, not for techies. Quite different from Aelene Frisch's or Nemeth's books, this book talks a lot about management issues and sometimes tells us real world stories. However, writing too much about these in an overly verbose manner makes me feel uneasy about the price of the book. Verbose talk on such topics is typically published in magazines which you read once and discard. Since the authors want to distinguish them from Frisch and Nemeth by these topics, I'd love them to tell us more real world stories like the three cases in Chapter 13. Or tell us more on what to watch for in vmstat, iostat etc. in the context of a real working environment. In addition, authors' and editors' fault on letting screen output inappropriately wrap, frequent typos (such as "./etc" instead of "/etc") all reduce the value of this book. Some people find some code snippets in this book valuable. Me too. Such as timedexec (I assume the authors wrote this program). But in other cases such as the buffer overflow attack, the authors should at least describe the logic of the source code instead of just listing the original code. I guess it's too difficult for them too.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good book, slightly biased toward Solaris, June 23, 2000

By 

Nikolai N Bezroukov "kievite" (Budd Lake, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: UNIX System Administrator's Bible (Paperback)

It's impossible to cover everything about Unix in one book. And this book should not be you the first or the only Unix sysadmin book. I think that book devoted to a particular flavor of Unix (one that you are using) should be the first one. But this is a very good general book and it does contain information that other books often miss to cover. IMHO the book is slightly biased toward Solaris. A couple of chapters would be interesting for a professional of any level and that IMHO more than justify the cost of the book.

For example I especially like Ch.5 (TCP/IP networking), Ch.7 (Administration Roles and Strategies) and Ch 19 (Setting up DNS server). Your mileage may vary.

I think the biggest success of the book is Chapter 7: Administration Roles and Strategies.That chapter is a must for a novice sysadmin and is very useful for professionals too. Another interesting part of the book is a very educating case study (a non-trivial POP client troubleshooting case) in the chapter 13.

It's one of the best general books on Unix administration.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars So-So, August 14, 2001

By 

SeaMomma (ARLINGTON, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: UNIX System Administrator's Bible (Paperback)

This book was good for reviewing terms and concepts after leaving sysadm for a couple of years. It's not very good for applying to anything.