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Teach Yourself UNIX System Administration In 24 Hours
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.
Does it have anything in it about making backups? I'm learning UNIX (AIX, actually) in a "trial-by-fire" sort of way, and it's different enough from Linux for me to have problems finding good info on backups. Luckily I'm not the main guy running this machine (yet) but I like to learn all I can. Does anyone know of a crazy straw?
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Learning UNIX administration in 24 hours is like learning how to secure a Microsoft server in 24 hours.
Well, I guess since it's actually possible to administer UNIX, there's a difference.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
I've read a couple of the "Teach Yourself X in N [days|hours]" books. I have not read this one, but my experience with the others is that they can be best considered an "entry point" into the subject, and a reference for only the most basic questions. Anyone who thinks they will acquire even an intermediate level of skill (starting from an unskilled base) by reading these books are, IMHO, mistaken.
All Your Memory Are Belong To Java
> 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.
I would argue that running Linux and OS X does not (necessarily) make someone an "authority" on UNIX. Where's his Solaris, SUNOS, HPUX, IRIX, and BSD experience? Has he ever installed cross-platform software? Only using a few machines, I would doubt he's using NIS or NFS. Has he ever?
I hope he's already got those skills too. But for those of us who dabble in *nix systems as a hobby rather than as a profession / religion, books like this are quite nice.
do not read this line twice.
Well what slashdotter didn't start off the first day of their *nix experience with familiarising themselves with all the man pages?
I've actually purchased a couple of "for dummies" books...
The truth is, they can be a great intro to a subject that you don't know anything about. That said, however, they seem to be one-off books. That is, you read them once, and then never use them again. (The possible exception would be the "cheat-sheets" that some of the books include inside the back flap.)
So I would certainly consider getting, say, PHP for Dummies if I was looking for a quick intro into the basics of PHP, after which I would sell it again and by myself a good look-up reference for when I start getting into the details.
I read book on system administration and find them often times helpful in terms of putting together ideas of different ways to do things that maybe I had not thought of before seeing as I am the only big unix person in my org at the moment.
_ _
However, I despise the title of these sorts of books. I know that other people have said it but you cannot learn something that is in and of itself a profession within simply 24 hours and the title itself is just silly.
I feel that these sorts of books are almost a put-down to people that have spent years honing their craft only to find some dipstick book-maker claims that within a day someone starting from scratch could do the things I do.
The hell they can.
Note to the PFY of the world. Find a crusty old BOFH, be patient with them and learn slowly from them. No book, or certfication comes close to haing a good mentor when learning the craft of system administration. Not even close.
_______________________________________________
ACK
No. But, for all I knew before I googled him, Kevin Spencer WAS a pastry chef.
If you're going to review a book, tell us who you are. An average Joe? The author's peer? Did you share a room with him at a UNIX conference in Toledo? Do your daughters play soccer together?
Slashdot readers are intelligent people who don't like to waste their time or be told half-truths. Any information about the identity of the reviewer that might allow us to form a more informed opinion of the book should be divulged. This isn't amateur hour. Lots of professionls use this site and as such upholding some basic journalistic tenets is a sound idea.
Want to learn fast?
read ALL comp.sys.blah postings. Try to resolve them on your own.
get some second hand UNIX gear (HP,DEC,SGI,SUN...) or some cheap PC gear (SolarisX86,RedHat,debian,freebsd,MacOSX...),build a LAN.
make NFS/NIS/LDAP/DNS/SMTP/NNTP/etc. work on your new LAN.
Read the documentation for each of your platforms.
Compile and use all the opensource packages you can find. Start with GCC and the major gnu packages. Do not go the easy out pre-compiled route (compiler for first compiler excluded.)
Make a NFS /usr/local to install all variants into. Make them work on each of your platforms.
Add printers/scanners/disk/peripherals to each platform. Add any bit and piece that you can find.
try to find EMC/compaq/netapp storage gear. make that all interoperate.
make everything work with everything else
Get on the help desk at a LARGE company or university and answer/resolve as many questions as possible.
never stop learning.
comment directly in my journal
It sounds more like you are talking about "how to become an expert at UNIX sysadmining". Now if you are going to be an admin you should of course endevor for this BUT we all have to start somewhere. Being elitest about it gets people nowehere, we were all newbies at one point. the idea of a 24 hour book like this is to try and learn the basics.
Of course experience is the real teacher, but it's hard to start from zero and get experience. You have to know SOMETHING to do anything, and a book is a great starting point. Initally, you know so little you don't even know what questions to ask and what to learn. Something like this can start you out.
What are they doing for the remaining 23'55" ?
I have read several of these, and I have found that they offer a nice introduction to a topic that I'm not sure how deep I want to get into yet. So now I know a little bit about everything(operating systems, programming languages, etc) but I'm not an expert in any of them. Those books, plus a little creativity on my resume makes me look like the perfect guy for the job -every job(well at least entry level).
I have not read this book and, thus, cannot comment upon its ability to communicate the intricacies of system administration to its readership.
I would, however, consider it fairly obvious that the author does not anticipate people sitting down to a twenty-four hour caffeine-fuelled cram-session.
The title of the book suggests, rather, that UNIX system administration may be learned in twenty-four hour long sessions. Ideally, these would be supplemented with meditation on the topic at hand and, perhaps, the completion of the exercises provided.
As noted by other correspondents, this will by no means compensate for a lack of hands-on experience but may well inspire an interest in the subject that proves the foundation of future greatness in an aspiring sysadmin. Yeah!
export EDITOR=pico
or for you tcsh-challenged people
setenv EDITOR=pico
vi scares people, even old timers and especially newbies. IMHO vi should *never* be the defauly editor on any distribution. If a power user wants it, let them change it. Give the newbies (the ones that don't know how to change it) something they can use like pico or joe. If we really want to make our OS user-friendly (read: newbie-friendly) we're going to have to start making some compromises on the default settings. The default editor should be easy to use; by default the firewall shouldn't allow local services; daemons and all their friends and relatives should NOT be running by default. Until we make concessions such as these, we can not expect Linux (or any other *nix except for OS X) to be easy for newbies to grasp. We're skilled enough to be able to turn on advanced features and change the defaults to suit our needs. Newbies are usually barely competent enough to get the install right. Lets think about our next Linux generations for a while.
True enough, but how do you define the target audience for a book that purports to teach a subject in 24 hours? Wouldn't that be people who know nothing about the subject going in?
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
When it comes to technical books, I look for a good publisher first, and a good author second.
A good publisher can help a so-so author (by, for example, good editing, technical and otherwise). A really good publisher can return a rotten manuscript as unpublishable and refuse to distribute the darned thing. The publisher can only do so much, of course, but I wouldn't lightly underestimate how much.
Any author, good or bad, gets a lot of value from the publisher. No book is perfect in the early drafts. A so-so publisher may often put out a very imperfect book.
I've had a little experience (from both sides of the keyboard) with Sams at one point in its history. I don't feel they were a publisher that added a lot of value once the author's work is done. They may have gotten some good authors who put out some good books, but not as consistently as (say) O'Reilly. (I don't know how Sams is doing these days.)
A couple of replies to earlier comments:
"... In 24 Hours" doesn't mean "start at 9 a.m. Monday, be done 9 a.m. Tuesday." It means, "put in a couple of hours a day, be done in about a couple of weeks."
Some people have complained this is an introductory book that's not very deep. Fine; it's not for gurus. It might well be a good book to read before reading the "purple book"; and that's not a bad thing.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Great, just what I need, anohter 24 hours book. I remember once when a manager under me hired someone who learned programming from a QUE 24 hour book. He could code, but he sure as hell couldn't think. Just because I tell you how to do something doesn't mean you've LEARNED anything. Any kid can memorize how to DO sysadmin tasks, it takes an EDUCATION on how to IMPLEMENT AND USE what you've learned. Sorry but the DOT.COM area has ended and the BLOT.COM (Copyright 2003) era has begun. Time to go back to 4 year degrees (or 10 years of experience, I'll accept either) and suits. God I miss the days when computer professionals used to wear lab coats and could actually think instead of quote a useless text book.... sob....
:) )
REAL QUOTE FROM A RECENT MCSE HIRE
While working with a lacky on fixing an Exchange server we had to disable several features in the registry. When I ask him why he didn't disable the keys himself he said,
"It never mentioned in the textbook how to do that."
I would gladly take a smart recently converted AMISH FARMER over ANY MCSE that has been certified in the last 2 years. I can always teach a smart person what I need them to do (and hire them at a lower pay rate initially to boot!
Here is a simple quiz on how to find a SMART person. Use this!
"A deaf and dumb (mute) man walks into a hardware store and wants to buy some nails. He approaches the store owner and places his left hand on the counter and starts pounding with his right hand, as if holding a hammer.
The store owner gets him a hammer.
The deaf man shakes his head and uses two fingers on his left hand and does the same pounding motion with his right hand.
The store owner nods and gets several nails for the man to pick from. He picks two nails and buy a couple of boxes.
The next day a blind man comes in. How does he ask for a pair of scissors? (What is you guess, think about it then read on.)
Now if your employee makes a scissors motion with his hands I would move him (or her) to the bottom of the stack. Why? The man is blind, not mute, he would simple ask for a pair of scissors. It's this kind of INTELLIGENCE that is needed in the work place that isn't being taught in most schools. I did this test to several instructors at universities to see what kind of staff they had. Most fail. To give credit where credit is due I discovered this test in Issac Asimov's book "The Realativity of Wrong" when Asimov was presented with this same test from... his automechanic. Asimov failed also it seems (in his younger years). This test show that there is more to intelligence than simply memorizing and regurgitating information, it's listening and applying what you've memorized, something a Blah in 24 hours book cannot teach.
P.S. No time for spell check. Later.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Learn how to be an Rocket scientist in 24 hours.
You can't get experience in a book. In my opinion you can learn way more from an experienced sysadmin then you can from a book.
Many more of us will have access to a book than an experienced sysadmin. Besides, self-learning is a valuable and viable process, after all, who taught all the guru's?
You can't get experience in a book. In my opinion you can learn way more from an experienced sysadmin then you can from a book.
But I can't even get the sysadmin to come into the bathroom stall with me at work, much less come home with me...
I'm pretty newbie-ish about Linux, and wanted to learn Vi, knowing it's the default editor on a lot of systems.
I installed Vim on my machine, which comes with a nice little tutorial, vimtutor. I learned the very basics of Vim using vimtutor in an hour, because I was taking it slow - vimtutor says it should take half and hour.
I've found it's motivated me to master Vim. It's really elegant. I told a friend of mine this and he looked at me like I'd gone crazy, and he hacks kernel stuff...
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.