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The UNIX Systems Administration Handbook
Introduction
There are a few books which most sysadmins will mention in hushed tones when discussing reading material, and one of those is the famous "Red Book", the second edition of this book (the new edition's purple). I'd heard good things about it ever since people actually started paying me to do systems admin rather than just mucking about with computers for fun, so when the new third edition came along, I was keen to take a look at it.
The book aims to cover the basics in a wide range of areas that good UNIX admins need to know about. The contents range right through from booting the system and adding disks to dealing with users and the inevitable people-politics that help make the job so . . . varied and exciting. While the second edition covered six commercial versions of UNIX, the new edition has simplified this and now covers two commercial UNIX systems (Solaris 2.7 and HP/UX 11.00) and two free operating systems (Red Hat Linux 6.2 and FreeBSD 3.4), which accurately reflects the changes in the UNIX world since 1995. The last edition also came with a CD full of useful tools, but there's no such companion to the new edition -- near-universal Internet access for sysadmins has made such things far less useful than they used to be.
What's Bad?The big shock upon getting hold of a copy of this book is the price tag. Here in Ireland, it's going for about IR£68 in shops, and the U.S. list price is $68. This is a lot to pay for a book, and to my mind it's quite likely to put off a number of potential readers. I can understand the price tag -- with four principal authors and 850 pages of dense information it's bound to be costly, but it's a shame that it had to be quite so expensive. Online it's available for about US$55, but that's still not cheap.
It should also be made clear right from the start that this is not a book for newcomers to UNIX. Don't look here if you're wondering how to list files or send mail -- there are plenty of books out there already that cover those areas more than adequately. The book assumes that the reader is already familiar with UNIX from a user's point of view.
What's Good?When you get down to actually reading the book, though, it's immediately apparent that the authors really know their stuff. It's a book written from the perspective of people who know what it's like to be a sysadmin in the trenches. They have opinions that are obviously derived from painful experience, and aren't nervous about sharing them when the need arises -- if they think something sucks, they make damn sure you know about it. The information density is remarkably high for such a fat book, and the writing has a light touch which makes it extremely readable both as a desk reference and as bedtime reading. The advice given is sensible and solid, and I found myself nodding in agreement with the authors at some points, while feeling somewhat chastised and guilty at other points for not having done some of the things suggested. The humour helps to keep the book readable rather than getting in the way as it could easily have done.
As with all good computer books, there are cartoons (drawn crudely but funnily by Tyler Curtain) scattered through the book. My favourite is on the subject of "Co-operating With Windows." It involves, well, brides, rednecks and shotguns, something with which anyone who's ever gone through the pain of trying to make Windows machines play nicely in a UNIX environment will identify.
Things that only need a short chapter to cover the essentials (Web serving, for instance) aren't bogged down with extraneous detail, while the areas that always inspire fear among sysadmins (print services, DNS, mail ... ) are covered in all the necessary depth. Each chapter ends with a section of pointers to further information for those needing to know more than is covered in the book. The information is of high quality and feels very reliable, making it a good guidebook for those trying to find their way through the world of confusion, vendor-specific idiosyncrasies and divided loyalties that is UNIX administration.
So What's In It For Me?If you're just interested in the basics of how to keep your Linux system running smoothly, you'd probably be better served by O'Reilly's "Running Linux" or any of the myriad similiar works out there. On the other hand, if you're starting out in system administration, or if you're an experienced sysadmin with anything less than universal guru status, this is a splendid book. The price is high, but if you're really serious about your work it's definitely money well spent -- think of it as an investment in your career.
Besides, with forewords from Linus Torvalds, Eric Allman, Marshall Kirk McKusick and Dennis Ritchie, who am I to argue? The only reason I've given it nine instead of ten out of ten is the price. To summarise -- I wish I'd read this book five years ago.
Table of Contents- Where To Start
- Booting And Shutting Down
- Rootly Powers
- Controlling Processes
- The Filesystem
- Adding New Users
- Serial Devices
- Adding A Disk
- Periodic Processes
- Backups
- Syslog And Log Files
- Drivers And The Kernel
- TCP/IP Networking
- Routing
- Network Hardware
- The Domain Name System
- The Network File System
- Sharing System Files
- Electronic Mail
- Networking Management And Debugging
- Security
- Web Hosting And Internet Servers
- Printing
- Maintenance And Environment
- Performance Analysis
- Cooperating With Windows
- Policy And Politics
- Daemons
- Colophon
- Index
Purchase this book at ThinkGeek.
I wonder, how does the reviewed book compare to "essential unix system administration" by Frisch/O'Reilly? I found the O'Reilly book rather good.
I can't believe they changed the color!
The red book is actualy the second edition.
I still have an old crusty copy of the first edition, aptly known as the yellow book.
It'd be kinda silly for them to go from the yellow book to the red book to the red book.
--Gus
It was so rife with factual errors about Solaris that I had to recommend against reading the book.
For instance...?
Not that I doubt you. I'm just curious.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I wrote this review. There's either some weird synchronicity thing going on or Mr Michaels has, ah, "borrowed" my words.
> DOS RULES FOREVER!!!!
Note.. Dos.. not Windows.. Dos.. the command line operating system Windows runs on top of...
Fight it all you like... users want the command line.... Dos and Unix.. Not Windows...
I don't actually exist.
It excerises the file I/O buffering and context switching services of the kernel.
So you didn't see the first line of the article?
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
you are my hero
Umm...
1) Slashdot book reviews almost always contain a link to purchase a book.
2) The reviews are also generally written by people who are not Slashdot employees.
3) The general response in the comments so far also show a large amount of support for this book.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
Why does that list remind me of the only good scene in the otherwise godawful film "Hackers"?
Even if you aren't in to *nix enough to justify the price...there are many other uses!
1. Who needs a club when you've got this 850 page baby!
2. Forget using the phone book to "boost," this will put some real knowledge "behind" you.
3. Not up on all the tech talk? Go through the book and look up any words you don't know. Great vocabulary builder!
4. Forget bedtime stories, this book should be able to put any kid to sleep (but watch out! you might end up with another Linus on your hands!)
Just a friendly reminder!
Trick question. Unix mv doesn't have a -v option; that's another embrace-and-extend gnuisance.
Read the blue book, wake up in bed believing anything you want.
Read the red book, and your life will never be the same.
-Morpheus
We've got that book in the office, and among some of us, it's coveted. One thing I really liked about it is its chapters on some of the tools like sed and awk -- very good examples that couldn't be replaced with eighty pages of typical technical docs. The only book I've seen with such good examples is Unix in a Nutshell -- another fine book.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
I did consider buying this book based on this review, until I saw the "Purchase this book at ThinkGeek" link on the bottom.
Makes you wonder how objective this review is ....
RFC1925
.
--
the new edition has simplified this and now covers two commercial UNIX systems (Solaris 2.7 and HP/UX 11.00) and two free operating systems
Red hat is a 400 million dollar company. That doesn't sound like a non-commerical entity to me. There's continual misunderstanding within and without Open Source community that being open or closed source is equivalent to being commercial or non-commercial. They have nothing to do with each other, whatsoever.
Some examples
Open Source, Commercial: Red Hat Linux
Open Source, Non-Commercial: Tomsrtbt
Closed Source, Commercial: Windows 2000
Closed Source, Non-Commercial: PowerArchiver
----
I just ordered this book about 2 weeks ago (it has yet to arrive) and after reading this review, I can't wait to get it! The <hushed-tone> Red Book </hushed-tone> has been one of the most useful books I've ever read, and with the addition on the new *nix variants to this new volume, it's an improvement on a masterpiece. If there is room for only one (non O'Reilly) book on your book shelf, make it this one.
-Jason
If I could only live my life with my threshold at 4...
Hi. I'm just curious, but being a Mac & Unix guy (gender neutral use of guy, just in case) I was wondering what you thought of Mac OS X??
Personally I'm a Windows (3.0) to Linux guy but am really into all things *NIX (including FreeBSD) where as my wife is really a Mac person (she studies Graphic Design and Illustration etc). So I'm trying to get opinions on the true BSDness of OS X, as I think that it could solve the problem of us sharing a computer?
So would you (or anyone else for that matter) know just how UNIXy OS X is. Apple seem to claim that the user should never need to see BSD, but if you want to can you get up to your armpits in bash shells and what not? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
I think that the Blue Book (O'Reilly's Unix sysadmin book) is pretty good, but it's getting pretty outdated, considering it's got a lot of OS-specific info. The Drill Book, though, is the BEST general Unix reference I've used. (I don't have the Red/Purple Book yet, but I've ordered it.) The Drill Book's coverage of shell programming is better than I've seen anywhere else. And, generally speaking, it's got so many of the answers that used to have to be answered by seasoned, full-fledged Unix gurus.
I'm a Sr. Network Administrator and I have two words for all those sys admins out there who would rather not pay $50+ for a book: man man
I rarely need additional info to what the system's man pages contain (its usually acurate and up-to-date). And on Linux, which RedHat does a piss poor job of implementing, you can also browse /usr/doc and /usr/src/linux/Documentation to learn how Linux really works.
It is the bible for Unix System Administrators. It will help you lock down your system and get the most out of it. 'Nuff said!
Which O'R titles did you find obsolete?
illegitimii non ingravare
I told a new admin-in-training to go get this book. The first thing he did (smart man!) was figure out if he could expense it. The first thing he did after buying it (even smarter!), was decide not to expense it, because it was going to be the core of his personal admin library.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
uh Oh, sorry.
I think this is a record, an non-sarcastic slashdot post!
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Of course, stuff like god, noclip, and give just won't work; those are Quake specific.
Quake -> Unix command conversion:
god -> su
noclip -> chmod 755 directory_name (directory must be executable or it will clip you)
give -> elm -s "NEED MONEY FOR UPGRADE" ceo@company.com
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
It is traditional in book reviews to list the title of the book being reviewed, the authors, and the publisher. While from the comments it seems that some people know exactly what "The Red Book" is, I doubt I can go to my local Barnes and Noble and ask for it by that name. If you would adjust the review to include the above information, I would find it more useful.
The correct way of writing it according to The Open Group's Trademark Usage Guide is actually "UNIX systems".
Actually, at fatbrain, the old is $74.00, the new is $61.20
go figure...
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Many years ago I coughed up the dough for the Red Book, and I must say that it still sits on my shelf here at work. It's an indespensible reference, and I'm sure the latest edition is just as good, if not better due to it's more current coverage.
but even better... now you can talk about 'red book' with the purple cover, and it'll just add to your aura to newbie sysadmins
---
I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
They're still in, aren't they?
---
I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
They're still in, aren't they?
By the way, does a new edition mean old ones will be available cheaper? Anyone want to give away a Red Book?
When I "inherited" responsibility for an entire site (first guy quit, second admin was put on bed rest for her pregnancy), I ran out and bought BOTH these books. I thought they complemented one another well.
I love vegetarians - some of my favorite foods are vegetarians.
Thought i'd see how much Chapters was selling it for (in impoverished CAD). Mysteriously, i find under the description of that book a review reportedly by one "Jeff Michaels from Markham, ON, Canada" which contains the verbatim text from the second paragraph and a good chunk of the text from the first paragraph under What's Good. Here's the www.chapters.ca page. Scroll down a bit to see reader reviews.
The way it's going, the next edition will be Infrared. You will need special goggles to find it on the shelf.
In grad school I took a unix systems administration class from Evi Nemeth (one of the authors of the book). This was 5 years ago, so we used the Red version of the book. While the book was indeed very useful, I found and continue to find that I have to look at man pages or other info on the web if I really want to know the details of how to do something with a system. Also, I think she didn't like me, because unlike the undergrads in the class, I was willing to challenge her on things (like, "Why are you always late to class, professor?")
All is Number -Pythagoras.
I took a UNIX administration class from Evi while getting my BS in CS at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the class was strongly biased towards HP-UX, which is what all of the undergraduate labs ran. No Solaris, no IRIX, no Linux, no *BSD, no nothing except HP-UX. As far as I know Evi is still teaching there and the labs she runs are still HP-UX only.
Since the review doesn't say much about what's actually in the book, you can download a sample chapter in PDF format and read the table of contents at Prentice-Hall, the publisher of the book.
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
cat
The book isn't a cracking tool in the least it's just a technical manual.
Respond to s
Make it kind of like an encyclopedia and sell updates to the book and have an online version. That would be really cool.
Respond to s
Plus they don't have that personal touch
Respond to s
What is with all the posts in CODE tags lately? Is that a bug in Slash or are you and this guy and the rest of you all using the same buggy browser?
For what it's worth, this book is only $58.95 (US) at http://www.bookpool.com.
chown -R us
...I learned from the Quake console. It's true; the first few commands that I tried out in bash were from Quake (clear, quit, ping, status, etc.). Of course, stuff like god, noclip, and give just won't work; those are Quake specific.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I just wanted to correct you, you don't write "UNIXes" it's Unices. Sorry for being picky :)
-Håkan
I'm sure that this will be said a million times in this thread: If you only purchase one book, this is by far the best one out there. Period.
I have the second and third editions of this book on the shelf next to me. My copy red bible has been read by dozens of co-workers and has become the first book that I recommend when somebody asks me what they should read in order to get started down the unix admin path. (I send them to the O'Reilly sys admin book only _after_ they have first read this one)
This is not a book for programmers, nor is it a cookbook for those who just want to get something done real quick. This is the book you read to understand what is going on and why things work the way they do.
I give it a 10/10. Despite the price, it is well worth it.
I wasn't being sarcastic.
---
Moderators: I've got tons of accounts, do your worst.
True, true.
---
Moderators: I've got tons of accounts, do your worst.
You're probably right. Being an admin does not require thinking.
---
Moderators: I've got tons of accounts, do your worst.
What was your email? ryan@lovespyt.com ? Gary
"Making linux GPL was the best thing I ever did" - Torvalds. I'd hate to see the worst thing...
Looks like that this would be really useful... too bad it's so expensive... Any body wanna try to open source the book... Just kidding... Wouldn't want to screw the authors out of their royalties... If I get some money in the next couple of months, I will have to get this... or put it on my Christmas list...
Eric Gearman
--
Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!
I wonder, how does the reviewed book compare to "essential unix system administration" by Frisch/O'Reilly? I found the O'Reilly book rather good.
I would recommend both. I use the Red Book (now the purple book) as the textbook for my class on Unix System Administration at Washington State University. However, I really like the Frisch book, and in fact, the way it presents info fits my thinking better. But, by emphasizing one topic at a time, the Nemeth book fits a class situation better, and makes a better reference book.
I like the new edition. And it is so nice this semester not to need to explain all the points where the book was badly out of date (especially the chapters on sendmail and BIND).
My only beef with the Nemeth book is that it does not cover shell scripting. The Frisch book covers the basics of Bourne shell. If the Nemeth book covered Bourne shell, it would be perfect for my class. As it is, I still use it, and just cover shell scripting separately.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
>ln -s /usr/bin/su /usr/bin/god
/" > /usr/bin/noclip
>echo "#!/bin/sh\n\nsudo chmod -R a+rw
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I will be the first to admit that when I paid 70 for it I was uhm less than enthused. I had bought
the previous 2 versions though and had found them
to be still useful guides when dealing with older
Unixs (SGI/Ultrix/OSF) that I would run into...
The extra $30 I paid for the 3rd edition is in the
depth they go into subjects that need to be done..
I retired 3 O'Reilly books this week after finding
the information not up to par with this book.
Personally I think every support engineer and sysadmin should have a copy of this book.
-- SJS smooge at smoogespace dot com
You're quite right, of course. What was really intended there was "It's good for reading a bit of while you're stuffing food into yourself after another 12-hour day at the office, prior to slumping unconscious onto the nearest reasonably flat surface, which may or may not be a bed".
Apologies for the confusion.
As an AC has already pointed out, the second edition covered Solaris back in 2.3/2.4 days, when it sucked a hell of a lot more than it does now. A lot of my job involves adminning Solaris, and the Solaris-related stuff in the third edition seems pretty accurate to me. Others more guruish than I may spot more errors, of course.
I have the Yellow Book (whatever edition that was -- if it's a first edition I'll have to hang on to it, eh?). Since I'm now two colors behind I guess I should get the Purple Book now? Especially since the Yellow Book was very BSD oriented, AT&T flavors were not covered too heavily, and some newer variants weren't mentioned at all. (I think the Yellow edition came out before Linus finally got fed up with Minix. :-) )
But US$70+??!! I think I paid about US$30 for the Yellow version.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
In my experience, the most competent Linux users were good SunOS, AT&T UNIX, SCO, or *BSD users. Good logic is timeless, as the *NIX model of command processing.
I know this one is going on my bookshelf.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
"UNIX System Administration Handbook" is one of the few books that I consider essential to my job. I bought a copy for myself, and then I got my employer to buy one to add to my ever-growing professional library here at work. The book really is that useful.
The best thing about the book, to me, is the way the authors tell it to you straight. There is very little of the usual mealy-mouthed cow-towing to the Almighty Producers of Computer Products here. Instead, readers get the benefit of the authors' considerable experience and knowledge, unfiltered.
If you're an admin and don't have this book, buy it. You'll need many other books, too, but there's no way your library can be complete without this one.
The biases against Solaris were one of my main focuses when reviewing this book. It was always a major source of contention and a big reason why I didn't recommend the previous edition to Solaris admins.
That being said, I submitted quite a bit of corrections in this area, and I'm pleased to say that the new edition is much fairer towards Solaris.
Also the original poster wasn't quite correct. The new edition covers many Solaris 8 issues as well. (although it doesn't go as in-depth as any general sysadmin book into nitty-gritty Solaris specifics).
This is be an excellent book. I started an ISP in 1994 with eight modems, two 386s, twenty Linux floppy disks and the first (yellow) edition of this book. I don't do much admin any more but I think I'll get it anyway just because it's a good read. Technical writing needs more literate authors like these guys (and the illustrations are good too).
I taught a chapter out of the 2nd edition, and thumbed through the rest of the book.
It was so rife with factual errors about Solaris that I had to recommend against reading the book.
So is the 3rd edition still this bad?
I've been told Casper Dik (Solaris deity) met Evi Nemeth (coauthor of this book) once. I was told that approx every other sentence out of her mouth was about how much she hated Solaris.
Granted, Sun and Solaris aren't perfect, but that's no excuse to make up things about how bad they are. That's the sort of thing that creates backlash.
Is "Essential UNIX administration" (O'Reilly). That's the one with the armadillo on the cover. Can't remember the name of the author, but it's probably easier to read for newbies than the famous 'Red Book'.
A company I worked for had two (count them, two!) copies of the Red (now Purple) book -- and they were required reading for anyone who wanted to have anything to do with UNIX. And the main sysadmin kept one on his desk at all times!
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
The O'Reilly book is quite good indeed. This is even better. More importantly, though, it's different--it goes at things from a different angle, and one may present it in a way that you 'get' better than the other.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
The words I used is "good start", I didn't say one would become a guru system admin or even a decent system admin, but reading books and learning about the system is the best way IMHO to start.
Try something. Pick a unix command, ANY unix command and key it into your console. What did you type ls or pwd? it doesn't matter what you typed. Where did you GET this commands from?
Your memory. A admin requires fast thinking, I don't deny that. But they must also remember what does what, why and when to do it.
Once your remember a good chunck of commands and what they do, THEN and only then, after you have remember them can you use your fast thinking and logical problem sloving to use those commands in a productive manner.
It requires both.
Knowledge is food for the brain and it never did anyone harm. The more knowledge you have about a certain subject is a "good start"
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
If this book is one of the Holy Books (apparently the Holiest of the Holy), what other gospels, commentaries, and books of faith on *nix would the community recommend?
Actually, there was the Yellow book first, then the Red and now the Purple. I have the Yellow and Red as well as the O'Reilly and have to say Evi's book is better.
Snide remarks towards DeadRat? More than appropriate IMNSHO. Dead Rat is a great learning tool, but you wouldn't want to risk your business on it. Too wierd, too many bits missing.
That said, I seem to attract lots of newbies who want to be a unix admin when they grow up. I send them off to d/l the RedHat ISOs and run it up. I tell them that they should use it to learn, since loading new stuff is easy enough with the RPM thing, and it's well documented on the net.
I qualify that recommendation with the instruction that once they have it grokked, they need to fdisk/newfs and install Mandrake (or, if they're sufficiently clued newbies) FreeBSD. Mandrake's a good home PC or an economy class server. FreeBSD's business class.
When the newsbies come back clued, and start asking what books they should buy, I tell them The Red Book. I've never seen a better book on Unix Admin for the pre-clued. Never leave home without it.
My copy of the red book has travelled with me to Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand (from Australia). It's more important to me than that pesky American Express card that every retailer on the planet hates!!!
Slightly different approach: When they ask about security, I send them out to buy:
1) The Red Book - good grounding in *nix for the pre-clued
2) The Crab Book (TCP/IP Net Admin - Hunt) - good for TCP/IP clues
3) The Cricket Book (DNS and Bind - Liu) - 'If something is wrong with your net connection, first check DNS, DNS, and then DNS'
4) 'Firewalls and Internet Security' - Cheswick and Bellovin. Needs no introduction. The network security bible. Brilliant teaching book.
5) 'Intranet Security' - Mccarthy - Usefull for putting fear of god (and thus extracting money) from management. Also an excellent grass roots 'this is what we're on about' for newbie security types...
My twenty-five cents...
Geoff
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I think it goes without saying that the Ultimate *Nix Systems Admin Handbook, heck, the Ultimate Systems Admin Handbook period, is the BOFH. (Also available here and here)
I think all of us can relate
Information is the catalyst for revolution
You know, as a sysadmin, I usually don't have time to sleep. And when I do have time, I usually don't need to read anything to help me get to sleep. And when I do need to read, the last thing I want is more stuff to do with my job! I'm in home and in bed to get away from lusers! Not to think about them some more!
For the humor-impaired: this posting has been a joke. Thank you.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
The RED Book revisted! Seriously, if you want to become a Unix admin, there are 4 books you must study.
1. The Red Book (this book second edition, I guess now it is the purple book)
2. The Blue Book (O'Rielly's Unix System Admin book)
3. The Small Book (The Unix Philosophy by Mike Gancarz published by Digital Press)
4. The Drill Book (O'Rielly's Unix Power Tools, picture of drill on front).
I think if someone can study and know everything in those books by memory, they will have a good start at unix admin-ing. Also need a good book on your unix of choice, the man pages, and more than anything using the system.
The point being, this book is famous, it is a really good book and is required reading for anyone wanting to get into unix admin-ing.
I can't believe they changed the color! The 2 admin books where the red and blue books. Now it will be the purple and blue books, that isn't as catchy.
There is also a DOD red book on security and IBM produces a lot of "red books", so it gets confusing, but most admin know what you are talking about.
I paid I think $90 for this book at borders. It was worth it.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
I administrate a mixed shop of 70 or so systems: big HP-UX, Sun and AIX development machines with FreeBSD, Debian and a few stranger things running our infrastructure. Even tho the USAH only directly covers half the systems I have to handle, it lays down a solid groundwork =any= admin of =any= Unix system can benefit from.
The USAH saved my hash on more than one occasion, and it really bailed me out when I first wound up a professional Unix admin. You gotta realize, I'm a Mac guy...first computer was a Mac, I now write for an up-and-coming Mac webzine, and I carry my Powerbook around with me wherever I go.
So I was hired as the "IT Guy" by a small R&D company on the strength of my Mac skills. There were a dozen or so Macs in sales and marketing...and over 110 Sun workstations. From an old Sun 3 to a pretty monumental dual-UltraII clone, we had unix boxes running everything from our firewall and company web site to file servers and backup systems to circuit simulators and code compilers. As someone who's only experience to the comand line was a dial-in shell to get internet email, I was completely out of my league, and desparate to hold onto the job for reasons I won't get into here.
It was a =really= hairy situation, and I kept my head above water only because of this excellent book. Now I do the Unix thing as my main career, and use the Mac for fun and personal computing. I picked up O'Reily's Systems Administration Handbook, as well as Sun's own Solaris books, but they weren't anywhere near as concise or accurate as the USAH.
SoupIsGood Food
As a UNIX system administrator myself, I have to say that I have used the Red Book countless times, and it's saved me almost every time. I rarely have to look in another book (except perhaps the Frisch book, aka the "Blue Book," aka the "Armadillo Book"). What distressed me about this newest edition of the book is that they focus only on four OSs: FreeBSD, RedHat 6.2, Solaris 7, and HP-UX 11.00. While these are perhaps representative of the most popular UNIXes out there presently (with the exception of perhaps AIX), the authors made the conscious decision not to cover all of the OSs they had done before. The second edition, for instance, went over Solaris 2.4, HP-UX 9.0, IRIX 5.2, SunOS 4.1.3, DEC's OSF/1 2.0 (which is now Compaq Tru64), and BSD/OS 1.1.
For system administrators who are interested in supporting legacy systems, the Red Book (or, more specifically, the Second Edition) is still useful. I, for instance, needed to know how IRIX set up their /etc/exports or /etc/dfs/dfstab equivalent, and I was able to find it in seconds in the Red Book. No longer.
Otherwise, having now read the Purple Book cover to cover, I can recommend it heartily. It has the same style, flavor, and philosophy which has made the Red Book invaluable to me in the past, and I suspect that I'll be carrying around the Purple Book for years to come. Go buy it.
Note also that you can find /.'s review of the Red Book here, if you're curious.