Teach Yourself UNIX System Administration In 24 Hours

Spencerian writes "UNIX guru and writer Dave Taylor's Teach Yourself Unix System Administration in 24 Hours is a strong "rosetta stone" reference and tutorial for beginning and intermediate Mac OS X, Linux and UNIX system administrators. The book covers fundamental and specialized UNIX sysadmin tasks for three UNIX flavors: Red Hat Linux 7.2, Solaris 8, and Mac OS X, version 10.1.2. Although Mac OS X and Red Hat have advanced in versions since this book was published, it doesn't appear to affect the book's usefulness since many of the tasks involve the venerable UNIX command line." The rest of Kevin's review is below -- read on to see if this book might help you. Teach Yourself Unix System Administration in 24 Hours author Dave Taylor pages 508 publisher Sams Publishing rating 8 reviewer Kevin Spencer ISBN 0672323982 summary Teach Yourself Unix System Administration in 24 Hours makes an excellent rosetta stone for beginning or intermediate UNIX sysadmins.

The Big Picture As you might get from the title, Sams Publishing's "24 Hours" book series attempts to teach specific tasks or steps within 1 chapter per hour. UNIX can get pretty complex, so it would seem that this format would limit the effectiveness of this book. Not so.

Topics from the book include:

• Unix Installation
• Documentation
• File Ownership
• Disk Usage
• Account Management
• Package Management (including the Fink system for Darwin)
• Process and System Controls
• Network configuration
• Web Server Management and shell scripting

Almost every chapter views how a particular task is handled with Linux as its normal focus, where many commands are shared between Solaris and Mac OS X. When functionality differs, Taylor downshifts to show how matters are handled in each respective operating system. As someone very experienced with Mac OS X, I found Dave Taylor's discussions on Mac OS X idiosyncrasies in contrast to Red Hat and Solaris very useful, particularly where Darwin overrides the traditional dotfile preference configuration, substituting the convoluted NetInfo services.

What to Expect Dave provides a Q & A section after each chapter. In an early chapter, Dave answers a typical geek question, "What Unix distributions do you run on your own systems?" Dave provides a very geeky answer--his Apple PowerBook G4 is running Mac OS X (with Darwin as its core, of course), along with a PC running Windows 2000, Linux Mandrake 8.1, and a web server running Red Hat Linux 7.2--a varied assortment that shows Dave puts the author in authority. In a later chapter, Dave touches on emulators such as WINE and Virtual PC as options for additional operating system support.

What makes the book work is that Dave provides a very conversational tone throughout the book, almost as if you're sitting with him in front of a system, talking while you do your thing. Humorous moments are scattered in appropriate moments to make things less dry (this is UNIX, after all).

Questions that weren't answered for me as a beginning UNIX sysadmin in another book by Dave Taylor, Learning UNIX for Mac OS X , were available in droves in this book. Topics such as scripting with perl or from the shell, disk quotas, crontabs, rlogin, managing system logs, and the like--all answered. Ever wondered how Mac OS X handles system init states? You'll discover that its a tad different from other UNIX systems, but not too much.

The Bad and the Upshot I ran into several layout problems in the book that were somewhat annoying, such as where tables or notes were sliced between pages, making them difficult to read. It wasn't a showstopper at all, but I hope that a later reprint will pass muster.

If you're still getting your feet wet with a few basics, or have a really mixed environment of UNIX flavors, this book may be very useful to you. I'd recommend this book to any Mac OS X technician who wants to take advantage of its UNIX underpinnings. Beginning Linux users should also find this a strong general reference. The book's cost ($25) is very reasonable, even a bargain for a book of this depth. Overall, Teach Yourself Unix System Administration in 24 Hours makes for a very well rounded reference, as well as a tutorial book. Perhaps the title should be shorter--it's quite a tongue twister.

You can purchase Teach Yourself UNIX System Administration in 24 Hours from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

UNIX rosetta stone

[Plutor]

I'm sure its not nearly as comprehensive as this UNIX rosetta stone.

Re:UNIX rosetta stone

[OrangeSpyderMan]

This custom drawing feature requires IE 5 or better

This means it works on Mozilla :-)

and it does!

I prefer THE O'Reilly book

[pigeon]

Essential System administration by Aeleen Frisch. Covers Solaris, Aix, Linux, HPUX, SCO etc. Alas no OS X.

Rosetta stone

[dnoyeb]

aka Rashida stone is an Egyptian relic which contained some text written in Heiroglyphics, Greec, and Demotic. It contained the same text written in 3 different languages thus allowing people to understand a great deal about how to translate between the 3 languages.

The rosetta stone reference Is supposed to imply this book will help you understand UNIX and make what appears foreign, understandable.

I assume this is what the reference is supposed to mean.

Re:Rosetta stone

[SN74S181]

As an aside, Sun just published what should be considered the 'Rosetta Stone' for Solaris. If you get into wrestling matches with Sun systems and need a good comprehensive introduction, you need to download this one RIGHT NOW.

Re:backups

[Anonymous Coward]

Try http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/unixbr/ by Curtis Preston. It is a great resource.

Why reinvent the wheel ???

[TTL0]

The purple book is all you will ever need.

If you remember when it was a different color, consider yourself the BOFH.

UNIX System Administration Handbook

[pizza_milkshake]

UNIX System Administration Handbook 3rd ed. doesn't cover OS X, but it does cover Solaris, HP-UX, FreeBSD, and RedHat Linux. I believe the 2nd edition (1995) cover Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, SunOS, OSF/1, and BSDI

Re:UNIX System Administration Handbook

[odaiwai]

This is *the* book for someone dumped into being a sysadmin. See http://www.admin.com/ for updates.

http://www.admin.com/ for a link

dave

Re:UNIX System Administration Handbook

[Anonymous Coward]

As a UNIX (DEC,AIX,HPUX,Sun) system admin for the last 8 years, although not for the faint of heart, I would strongly recommend this book. WARNING: This book does not start out with a lesson on how to use the 'cat' command so if you don't know how to use it or what I am talking about, don't buy it. It is sooo good, I once had the book stolen by another sysadmin when he left the company. Good book...don't get it stolen and if you are the guy who stole my book, "Curses upon you and your boxen!" Also I would recommend, "Unix for the Impatient" ISBN 020182376, Addison-Wesley.

24hrs is good.

[Inda]

This sort of book does not try and teach you everything in 24hrs. It is expecting too much to think otherwise.

I love the SAMS Teach Yourself stuff. The JavaScript and ASP books have been invalueble to me over the last few years. They are not reference books, although I have refered back to them many times. They are a starting point, a cheap starting point.

Re:For some reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I actually like the 24hours/21days books, they're not always as comprehensive as other books (O'Reilly books) so they're not as useful as references, but they still do a good job. I hate the dummy books and complete idiot books, they aren't nearly as good and like you said, they insult your right on the cover. The big thing about the Sam's books though is that they really are cheap ($15-20 usually) and really they do cover the groundings well, which is what most computer/programming courses do themselves. There have been multiple of courses I've taken that only use the first half of a $75+ text that could have instead used all of a $20 Sam's text. Sam's 24 hour/7 day/21 day books never make you an expert, but they do a great job at introducing the material. Their name sounds a little cheesy, but they're good books.

In 24 Hours? Yes.

[d1taylor]

Hi slashdotters. Just a quick note that those of you who are asking "is this book really sufficient for you to become an expert sysadmin": the answer is, of course, no. I'll quote the introduction:

What This Book Isn't

I'd like to state my intent with this book up front, while you're still browsing in the bookstore: This book is not intended to be the only system administration material you ever study. Indeed, this book grew out of a course I have taught, an introduction to Unix system administration. The reason for this distinction is because there are a number of very good reference works on administration (that typically run 800-1,100 pages) that offer a cookbook approach of "if this is wrong, do this to fix it." That's very helpful, and I have these titles on my reference shelf, but they don't teach you how to approach, diagnose, and solve problems the Unix way. That's a major goal for this book.

When you finish exploring this book, you will know how to think like a good system administrator, regardless of what variation of Unix you encounter. You'll learn how to hypothesize about problems, dig through man pages and configuration files, postulate solutions, then test and verify that they've worked. And have fun in the process too!

In the same vein, this book isn't 1,001 ways to fine-tune your Unix installation. In fact, we're going to gloss over the question of installation, because for most users the system is either already installed (like Mac OS X or Solaris), or has very good installation and configuration documentation. (Red Hat and Mandrake Linux distributions are standouts in this regard.)

I hope that clarifies things. Other questions? Send me email, or, of course, post them here at off-topic chaos central, um, /.

Disclaimer My Ass!

[Spencerian]

I am not the "Kevin Spencer" you reference.

I am Kevin H. Spencer, author of one modest, now-somewhat-antiquated book on getting started with Mac OS X programming.

I am a technical editor and occasional contributing writer for a few Mac-oriented computer books from the old Dummies Press, Pearson Education, and Premier Press publishers. I make my living by supporting Macs and PCs, and have probably done so for longer than you have lived.

Aside from receiving a copy from which to make this review, I don't get a thing from this.

And, if I didn't find it more useful to explain who I am for benefit of the article, I would've used my mod points to hack your karma for making such bad presumptions. There's also a "South Park"-ish Canadian cartoon with my name in it, but I doubt he's a UNIX expert, either.

No book is a perfect reference, but this is a good one if you are getting started with system administration across various platforms. Don't knock a book due to the title. It's actually quite detailed and deeper than what the title implies.

For a relatively new system admin for Mac OS X systems, this worked for me, and it might work for others with similar skill levels.

Re:backups

[junkgoof]

O'Reilly has a good book on backups. It goes into most solutions, tar, Amanda, dd, dump etc. on several platforms. It also stresses bare metal restores, which is a good thing. I worked with an admin whose backup/restore strategy was:

1. Backup / on tape
2. Rebuild system with CD
3. Restore / from tape over running OS
4. Try and fail to boot system

I never saw him get this to work, but he would not listen to my suggestions. On the systems I backed up I either created bootable tapes or booted single-user from CD before restoring from tape, and this actually worked.

Re:The first thing you need to know...

[lowar]

> or for you tcsh-challenged people
> setenv EDITOR=pico

Errm, I think you mean

setenv EDITOR pico

Just one fscking book? Here's some more.

[Wintermancer]

Honestly, my bookshelf is ready to collapse with number of administrative related books.But if I was trying to get someone up to speed realtively quickly, I'd recommend the following:

Linux Administration: A Beginners Guide 2nd Ed.
Author: Shaw, Steve

Really, the best migration book for Windows users to the Linux world that I've seen to date. Wide, but shallow, but that does not need to be bad. It's a good primer, but it does tend towards "cookbook" solutions. Get a deeper book once you've read through this. (3rd edition is due out in November, BTW. Makes a good Christmas gift to a Windows user that you know is trying to "covert")

Linux Administration Handbook
Author: Nemeth et al.

Opinionated. Polemic. A touch of arrogance, even. But this book and read it cover-to-cover. They obviously are biased against Windows servers. So will you after using *nix as well. Mine's dog-eared and highlighted to hell.

Essential System Administration
Author: Frisch, Aeleen

Dear God, if you don't own this, please go and buy it. Honestly, a definitive book on *nix. Twice as dog-eared and worn as Nemeth. You'll get this book when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

Add a few specialty books to the mix, and you're more than set. Just read BOFH and develop the neccessary arrogant, anti-social attitude as you go ;-)

Cheers.