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Red Hat Linux System Adminstration Handbook
The Scoop In a bookcase-breaking extravaganza last summer, Slashdot reviewed several books intended for new Linux users. While the kernel, Free Software and Open Source applications, and distributions often undergo periods of rapid change and improvement, the basic principles of use and administration remain constant.
On those lines, Red Hat Linux System Adminstration Handbook is a solid book. Though it specifically discusses Red Hat, most of the information can be applied to other distributions. It strikes a unique balance between the needs of an end user and an administrator. Additionally, the authors go out of their way to explore proprietary and libre software for certain needs.
What's to Like The book imparts a good sense of flexibility. In just a few pages, the RPM chapter enumerates several installation options, covers SRPMs in decent detail, and lists helper applications to simplify life. Many of the other chapters are similarly dense. This doesn't detract from the book's readability, and it covers most of the common details. Readers will learn the necessary basics while being made aware of extra information available. This is also evident in the Networking chapter. While focusing on medium-sized networks, there's enough data provided to get a few boxes up and running with little fuss. The backup chapter is excellent, and so is the chapter on Samba.This book covers several details often omitted from other books. For example, the installation chapter discusses dual booting with both FreeBSD and Windows NT. Another section outlines PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules, used to configure finer-grained access). Even the chapters on sendmail and wu-ftpd talk about more secure alternatives, such as qmail, BeroFPT, and ProFTPD.
It's hard to quantify what makes a good system administrator. Part of it is wisdom and experience, part is natural talent. Another component develops with time. Tucked into corners here and there, the authors provide useful nuggets designed to spark intuition in a budding junior administrator's mind. This is very subtle, but there's definitely an underlying theme.
What's to ConsiderThe book covers Red Hat 6.0. Only a few spots have gone out of date with recent releases. For example, the kernel configuration and hardware support information describes the 2.2.x family. As well, packet filtering and masquerading use ipfwadm and ipchains, instead of iptables (available in the 2.4.x family). Most configuration and administration advice still applies.
Some chapters are short. Linux handles printing much differently from Windows, but it receives only 7 pages. The material is good, if skimpy. (Luckily, the Samba chapter fills in some blanks.) Adding more links to sources of additional information would improve this. On the whole, this is a workable reference book, but it won't replace a Nutshell handbook.
Summary and Table of Contents On the whole, the Handbook packs in a lot of data. Administrators already familiar with Windows will get the most from the book. It will require some sense of exploration and adventure, but that's one of the most compelling parts of free software.Bundled with a CD-ROM, this book forms part of a Training course. It includes several demonstration videos and animations accompanied by audio. Each course corresponds to a book chapter (minus the chapters describing available software or the programming languages) along with practice tests. Easily installed, everything runs in a web browser under Linux or Windows. It won't substitute for a live teacher, but corresponds nicely with the text. This could come in handy for a small business or group on a budget.
- Introduction
- Installation
- Linux Boot and Shutdown
- Account Administration
- RPM
- Networking with Linux
- Printing and Print Sharing
- Samba
- Setting up FTP Services
- Applications for Linux
- Linux Database Software
- Programming Languages
- Web Serving
- X Windowing System
- Securing Linux
- Kernel Administration
- System and Network Monitoring
- Backing Up Your Data
- Talking to Your Peripherals
- Connecting to the Internet
- Appendix A (URLs)
- Appendix B (miscellaneous)
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain. Note: Also available with audio/video CD and tests in The Complete Red Hat Linux Training Course , available as ISBN 0-13-088223-2.
Red Hat (or any other distro for that matter) is secure *if* you take the time & effort to do so (for me, that means uninstall any unnecessary services/packages, install the latest updates, and install/configure portsentry). That, plus a little common sense makes for a secure RH install (not 100% mind you, but close enough).
It's a tradeoff when writing. Fortunately, I was able to pick up some of the concepts that you don't see in other books from the time. PAM and qmail are two excellent examples of this. While the book itself may be older, PAM and qmail work pretty much the same way. Much of what I wrote talking about RPMs and init scripts and the like is also good.
The real tradeoff is that one one hand, you can write everything you know about a subject and get real detailed. But when the version changes, you are very quickly out of date. On the other hand, you can write in general about a topic and get the concepts across. The "shelf life" of such a book is much longer, since the information will give you a base to start from, understand the concepts, then look at the documentation for the latest version. The down side of that is you're no longer being specific, and having to point the reader at various other bits of documentation. It's hard to keep that balance, but I've tried.
No really, I'm Mark.
:)
This book is almost 2 years old. It's nice to see Slashdot reviewing it, but it is a bit out of date. So please be gentle about how "old" it appears. On the good side, a lot of the concepts are still current.
If you want something more up to date, please check out the Computer Based Training CD that I did. It's only about a year old, but don't worry, that will get updated too
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Ah, but what kind of coffee beans? It makes a difference whether it's Peet's or Folgers.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Well, forgive me for trying to grab some karma (check my posting history, I don't do it often ;p) but if you want to read something free, my Linux Admin Made Easy (LAME) guide is rather uhh, Redhat-centric.
It's a _tad_ out-of-date but still relevant (and I'll be releasing an updated version "any day now").
If you want a REALLY good book to read, I'd suggest taking a look at The Unix Philosiphy by Mike Gancarz. It's a rather consise book on why Unix is the way it is, and (unintententionally) demonstrates why Unix will never be a mainstream entity. People want apps that can do most anything, don't want to mess with low-level detail and just plain want it to do stuff withougt caring how it's done. Unix is almost the complete opposite of those desires.
If someone's going to allow submission of a review for a 2+ year old 'How-to config' book they should review this 9+ year old "Why is it the way it is" book. This one has been a great read so far.
-'fester
it's kinda good that it covers redhat 6.2. all the desktops here run 7.1 but our servers are still running 6.2.
why? because while 7.1 is fairly nice and it supports alot more required by workstation users it's stability is still questionable in my mind. 6.2 has most of the bugs worked out and i would imagine more people are useing it on servers than 7.1. so your book is still valid for those who want to setup a stable fileserver/nis/firewall/etc using redhat.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Running Linux, Linux in a Nutshell, and Linux Network Administrators Guide. With those three you can handle most any distro.
Best Slashdot Co
Unless there is a very specific need for 7.x, why upgrade?
I can give you one good reason. And before I continue, I want to say that I agree it's not good to do this on mission-critical machines. I would not recommend extending the following attitude to those machines:
You have to learn it eventually.
Get a leg up folks, and improve your knowledge, forgoodnessakes.
(but only on machines in the office, at first... Then you'll be prepared to accomplish the same on mission-critical machines).
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
Let's think a little bit more about security, performance and customization, maybe RH isn't the best option for this. Of course that RH is wonderful for desktop machines, but, for admins...
For admins, check out Netcrafts study of what Linux distribiution more than half of all Linux based web servers are running. Red Hat is AFAIK the only distribution that provides firewalling and tripwire out of the box.
And as someone pointed out before, customization is a moot point. You can still open a shell and hack away. Nobodies taken that away, and nobody will. For those who can't be bothered though, Red Hat provide some great tools.
Performance isn't something that can be discussed without a benchmark. Could you provide one? I'd have thought by releasing current, stable software Red Hat would have a performance gain on distributions that are still shipping noncurrent kernels.
If you want a REALLY good book to read, I'd suggest taking a look at The Unix Philosiphy by Mike Gancarz. It's a rather consise book on why Unix is the way it is, and (unintententionally) demonstrates why Unix will never be a mainstream entity.
I haven't read that book, but I have read `25 Years of Unix', whose explanations of Unix philosophy seems to indicate to me why its feasible Unix will become mainstream. Write something that performas a single function and do it well perfectly descrives the componentized web browser I'm typing this into, Konq. Nothing abouyt Unix philisophy limits it to haivng to be run from the command line, and nothing prohibits the creation of a modern desktop environment. Its just that older users are so used to seeing the trees they forgot about the forest.
Why are 2 year old books getting reviewed? How useful are "beginners" guides, or at least beginners to Linux, when they are out of date. If I were to start using Linux today, I'd go out and get the latest version, and I'd want a book that covered it.
/., and the comment is always, "a little out of date, but still some good information." How about reviewing books that aren't out of date?
By all means, seeing reviews of "classic" books, like O'Reilly's Essential System Administration or something would be valuable, but introductory books that are not current are not so valuable. It's not the first review for an older book that I've seen on
I shouldn't really bitch, however, because I'm not spending my time reading and reviewing the latest releases in the computer section of the bookstore.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
My problem with the book is that it only covers RedHat 6.0! First of all, as far as RedHat releases go, the .0 versions are the least stable. 6.0 = the most unstable 6.x version. 7.0 = the most unstable 7.x version (or as 'unstable' as linux can be) Granted, they're all EXTREMELY stable when compared to windows. Also, RedHat has changed since 6. The locations of some of the crucial files needed by sysadmins has changed, and a person using a 6.x book will be thrown-off when trying to find some of the stuff in 7.0 or 7.1.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
How about a link to that $4.5/lb coffee? I've been getting the decent stuff here in Lafayette for about twice that at the grocery store, so I'm really interested.
Nels
See what I've been reading.
I know, let's turn every story that mentions a specific linux distribution into a distro flame war by mentioning which distro we like more for which task! Your comment is, of course, completely bizarre, since RH, like many other distros is perfectly configurable at the /etc/* level and man pages, HOW-TOs, and ESP will all help just as much on RH as any other distro.
Frankly, I think the variety of software available for any given distro and the variety of tasks to which any given linux is suited makes writing a comprehensive book about any linux a difficult task. Couple that with the tremendous rate of change, and by the time a book is in print it is likely to have large sections that are competely stale.
I do not have a signature
Even though this book might be useful in this direction I can't help but feeling the need for a unified administration tool for Linux as this is becoming somehow discouraging to see so much differences between SuSe, Debian, RedHat, etc.
Maybe a unique book covering all these topics at once like this one but only aimed at Linux distros?
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Systems administrators -- good system administrators -- are worth their weight in coffee beans weekly, probably more if you count overtime...
I don't where Timothy buys his coffee, but most decent coffee can be be bought on-line for around $4.50/lb USD. If you take an arbitrary weight of 180 pounds for an admin, thats $810 USD per week, or $42,120 USD per year for a good sys admin.
I don't know about you guys, but before I take a Linux Sys Admin job, I'm going to balloon up to 350 - 400 lbs first.
As an aside, for those who are Metricly challanged, 2.2 pounds is approximately 1 kilogram.
Good example of this was recently when our company was installing some remote control software, we chose VNC because of its small footprint and cross-platform nature. One of the NT admins whined about how it couldn't do file transfers like pcAnyWhere. We tried to explain to him how in the UNIX world, a tool generally does one thing, and does it very well. But he was distracted as MS Word asked him if he was writing a letter...
This provides good information for how to manipulate Linux; it hasn't changed so much that it would be useless. As you said, a lot of the concepts are still current.
I also think that it's important for people to understand how procedures evolve. A better understanding results in a better application results in better sys-admins. :o)
Screw 3...