The Linux Network Administrator's Guide

Networks are everywhere, and more of them than ever are running Linux, which makes sense given its cost and its Unix background. If you're responsible for more than a handful of networked Linux machines, you probably run into more than a few situations each day that you wish you had a trusted advisor (or a few) to help you get through. How do I set up a server for [task X]? What do I do when my mail storage needs change? Christopher Thompson here briefly dissects O'Reilly's Linux Network Administrator's Guide, which promises to be a decent partner when you have network SNAFUs, at least much of the time.

The Linux Network Administrator's Guide author Olaf Kirch, Terry Dawson pages 450 publisher O'Reilly & Associates rating 7.5 reviewer Christopher Thompson ISBN 1565924002 summary A handy reference book for intermediate and experienced Linux networkers.

Introduction At long last, O'Reilly has released their second edition of the Linux Network Administrator's Guide. Updated to cover the 2.2 kernel, this book also serves as a handy reference for people using 2.0 or 2.4 kernels.

The book covers a wide variety of topics, including TCP/IP, DNS, SLIP, PPP, and PLIP, NIS, NFS, email servers, news servers, firewalling, masquerading, and IPX configuration.

Target Audience This book is clearly aimed at network administrators rather than Linux newbies. If your network consists of one or two computers, there will likely be little of value here. On the other hand, if you have a more complicated home network or administer an office lan, you will find much of value.

What's Good? This book is based on the Linux Documentation Project, though the online copy available there is rather outdated. O'Reilly have provided the entire contents of the book online, however, as part of their Open Books Project and should be commended for this.

The Network Administrator's Guide provides a great deal of information, complete with background, clear explanations, and examples. Although covering a range of topics, the guide is complete and fairly comprehensive. It is far more convenient to refer to this book rather than scanning through numerous HOW-TOs in order to set up your network. The guide covers each topic in sufficient detail that a reader is unlikely to resort to the HOW-TOs. Furthermore, the guide is a much easier read.

The author has taken considerable effort to ensure the information will not immediately become obsolete. The chapter on firewalling, for example, gives commands for kernels 2.0, 2.2, and the upcoming 2.4.

What's Bad? Unfortunately, there are some problems with the Network Administrator's Guide, both in what it contains and in what it does not.

The guide is mysteriously silent on a number of topics, not least of which are Samba, Apache, and Coda. While O'Reilly sells separate books covering at least the first two of these topics, some basic information on them would have been quite appropriate for this book. Many networks contain one or more Windows boxes and everyone seems to run web servers these days.

Sendmail and exim are covered fairly well but no mention is made of other mail transport agents such as qmail. This can be excused as no book of this size could be entirely comprehensive. Still, some of these choices seem arbitrary.

Also confusing is what the book does contain. There is, for example, an entire chapter on UUCP, as well as several references elsewhere. Although UUCP is certainly not dead, I question its importance for the majority of network administrators.

Dead Tree? Or Online? So is this book worthwhile? If you are involved in administering a Linux network, unquestionably yes. You may need additional information if your network also contains Windows boxes but this book should still prove valuable.

As to whether it is worth the purchase price or whether you should just read it online, this comes down to personal preference. Some people are satisfied with online content but I prefer having the information in dead-tree format, for reference when I am without a network connection. I also find it easier to read a book than a web page. I have no doubt that this guide is worth its purchase price.

Table of Contents

1. Chapter 1. Introduction to Networking
2. Chapter 2. Issues of TCP/IP Networking
3. Chapter 3. Configuring the Networking Hardware
4. Chapter 4. Configuring the Serial Hardware
5. Chapter 5. Configuring TCP/IP Networking
6. Chapter 6. Name Service and Resolver Configuration
7. Chapter 7. Serial Line IP
8. Chapter 8. The Point-to-Point Protocol
9. Chapter 9. TCP/IP Firewall
10. Chapter 10. IP Accounting
11. Chapter 11. IP Masquerade and Network Address Translation
12. Chapter 12. Important Network Features
13. Chapter 13. The Network Information System
14. Chapter 14. The Network File System
15. Chapter 15. IPX and the NCP Filesystem
16. Chapter 16. Managing Taylor UUCP
17. Chapter 17. Electronic Mail
18. Chapter 18. Sendmail
19. Chapter 19. Getting Exim Up and Running
20. Chapter 20. Netnews
21. Chapter 21. C News
22. Chapter 22. NNTP and the nntpd Daemon
23. Chapter 23. Internet News
24. Chapter 24. Newsreader Configuration
25. Appendix A. Example Network: The Virtual Brewery
26. Appendix B. Useful Cable Configurations
27. Appendix D. SAGE: The System Administrators Guild

Comments

Does slashdot pay attention at all? NAG2E is here.

[poet]

The second addition of the Network Administrator has been out for some time. The second edition is also on the LDP website and can be found here.

There is also a great book on security and optimization (which the NAG doesn't cover). It is called Securing and Optimizing Linux: RedHat Edition. It can also be found on the LDP Website. It can also be purchased from LinuxCentral.Com or LinuxPorts.com and comes with two CD's.

All you need.

[naught]

If you're using a simple network setup, or are learning the network side of system administration, this is a great book. It's the only network admin I've ever needed to use for Linux.

Just a note on O'Reilly, if you don't have a user group in your area, set one up. The user group gets free books, discounts on conventions and conferences, and lots of pre-release input and useful information. There's a link on their website, but you have to dig.

O'Reilly and Associates

ESA2

[mirko]

Though this is a good idea to write abook about complex Linux-based networks, I'd like to highlight the fact that in real-life, the most frequent situation a sysadmin might encounter consists of complex hybrid networks, i.e. gathering tons of different machines together like (in my case) Digital Unix, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, Windows NT, etc.
There is an ORA book about this which I venerate : Essential System Administration, 2nd Edition.
It not only covers most situations (though more aimed at single machines) but is also written a very pleasant way by a woman: AEleen Frisch.
I especially appreciated when ORA asked a French(-speaking) woman: Céline Valot to translate it to French, thus preserving the typical flavour of the original author's feminine humor.
It is one of my fery few French computing books.
ESA2 not only covers most aspect of all the different unices but also implicitely conveys its reader to uniformize the way each machine has to do each job, hence making the resulting network even more homogeneous and easy to administer.
--

I think

[AbbyNormal]

that my company is going to have their print queue occupied for the next couple of hours.