Slashdot Mirror
Automating Unix and Linux Administration
From the outset, Bauer takes a straightforward and principled approach to problem analysis. Usually starting with anecdotal example scenarios (many of which will have you saying "been there before") and progressing through ideals, goals and consequences, he examines many of the common issues facing system administrators with candor and realism. Almost nowhere in the book does the author assume an authoritarian stance; he questions his own decision making process and encourages the reader to come up with exceptions to his rules. Fundamentally Bauer has one goal -- to develop a comprehensive system for reliably automating the tedious but important tasks that all system administrators face on a recurring basis.
Admittedly, it would be a fallacy for any book to claim complete and comprehensive coverage of all things related to system administration and Bauer does no such thing. When the author touches on topics that obviously require more depth than a single chapter can afford, he is certain to include at least one reference (and in many instances more) to alternate publications without bias to any particular publisher or author. Having said that, the book's scope and depth of topic coverage is impressive. Starting with an exhaustive examination of SSH and progressing through cfengine, NFS, LDAP, RPM and Tripwire (just to name a few) Bauer provides carefully detailed instruction on how to automate tasks ranging from simple network management and software packaging to security, monitoring and backups. The author even goes so far as to suggest methods for efficiently front-ending automation systems for the less technical of users.
Although not expressly stated in the text, the overall theme of the book is walk on the shoulders of giants. Starting with simple example scripts (in both Bash and Perl) and many single-line commands, Bauer builds on the content of each previous chapter as the book progresses. Examples shown in early chapters are incorporated into more complex systems one step at a time. Following along is easy, each script or command is detailed on a line-by-line basis, and because of Bauer's principle-based approach the reader is rarely left wondering why the author has chosen a particular tool or implementation. More often than not the elegance of how Bauer pieces together methods and procedures will excite you about the possibilities for automation of your own systems.
Although Bauer explicitly states that readers are presumed to have more than a modicum of experience in system administration, even the novice administrator, as well as those that are responsible for only a handful of machines, will find this book invaluable. Also included are three appendices which provide an easy introduction to basic shell tools, creating your own RedHat distribution and how to package software as RPMs. These portions of the book alone justify the less than $40 price tag, but for those who run clusters or data centers, this book stands to save you countless hours of repetitive headaches. Published by apress and boasting nearly 600 pages, this lively read has made itself a permanent addition to at least one reference library.
You can purchase Automating Unix and Linux Administration from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Have book reviews on slashdot become about who can get the earliest links to their amazon.com partner site?
This books looks interesting (to me) and I might actually take a trip to the book store to check it out. But the comments (so far) aren't about the book.
No more Micro$oft bashing from me. Its like bashing at the special olympics.
Perl for System Administration.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
You know that when you call for a boycott and then link to the silly rant on gnu.org you're just like a Jehova's Witness?
My question to you is: why are you so obsessed with Amazon? Is it really that hard for your GNU-soul to accept that companies make products fundamentally to make money - not to "serve the public" or whatever.
If you have a complaint, direct it at the USPTO - not to a company who's just using the legal loophole.
I couldn't have put it better myself.
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
1. Decide that automating takes too much time
2. Do everything by hand
3. Fuck up once too often
4. Decide that automating is necessary
Don't know about the rest of you.
- If this book obviously doesn't have any downsides (at least you didn't mention any) - why did it get only eight points? (assuming maximum would be 10, as usual. Or do you mean eight out of eight points?;)
- 547 pages - I'd say that's nearer 500 pages than 600 pages. Or simply around 550 pages. But certainly not nearly 600 pages.
At all - thanks for the review!Call me a cynic, but I am under the impression that without knowledged personnel (i.e. who don't need autowhatever) there will be, almost as sure as a natural law, a corrupt server or an autocrash. Don't do away yourself with knowledge - see what happened in the Windows world.
I own the book and have been using it for a couple of weeks now. All in all, I think it's a great resource if you already have a fair amount of linux knowledge. I purchased it primarily because of its coverage of cfengine but found it useful for other purposes as well.
Definitely not for the newbie system administrator (nor does it pretend to be). But it is a great resource if you're looking to administer more boxes with less bodies.
Gentoo Linux http://gentoo.org/
Simple question, that isn't really answered in the review. How much of this book is generic Unix/Unixlike information, how much is specific to a single vendor OS, and how much is specific to Linux?
/sbin/sh, for admin scripting)
I'd like to think that most of this stuff is fairly transportable, but when I hear about "bash scripts," I wonder if it's the reviewer or the book that's pushing Linux-centricisms. (and yes, I know that bash is available everywhere, blah blah blah. It still doesn't make it a valid replacement for
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
This is nothing new. Unix admins have been automating machines since before Linux was even a glimmer in Trovald's eye. The only difference I think, is that there are a great deal more admins today who don't know their craft very well. To many fuzzy GUI widgets (that invariably screw things up) getting in the way.(You hear me RedHat?!)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Goddamit, I'm just trying to make a buck here, since I automated our system administration and put myself outta a job!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
man cron
I have just about any task down to issuing one command:
"Brian, go overto server X and do such-and-such"
One of the problems we have, is when you have clusters with 100+ machines, and need to push configs, or gather stats off each box.
On solaris, we run a script called "shout" that does a for/next loop that ssh's into each box and runs a command for us. We also have one called "Scream" which does some root privilege ssh enabled commands.
Nortel has a nice program called CLIManager (use to be called CLImax), that allows you telnet into multiple passports and run commands. Same idea, but the program formats data to display. Say you wanted to display "ipconfig" on 50 machines, this would format it, so you have columns of data, easy to read and put in reports.
Also, has a "Watch" command that will repeat a command, and format the data. Say you want to display counters.
I have not seen an opensource program that does the same as "CliManager" but its has to be one of the best idea's that should be implemented in opensource. Basically, it logs into multiple machines, parses and displays data, and outputs all errors on another window to keep your main screen clean.
Think of logging into 10 machines, and doing a tail -f on an active log file. Then the program would parse the data, display it in a table, and all updates would be highlighted.
I havnt spoken to the author of CliManager, but I guess he also hated logging into multiple machines, and running the same command. This program has been updated over the years, and is now the standard interface to the nodes. It just uses telnet and a command line, but you can log into 100's of nodes at once.
Wish I could post pics and the tgz file, maybe someone from Nortel can comment. (Runs on Solaris, NT and linux)
Certainly I haven't read the book but it looks as if Kirk is offering examples of how to write scripts to handle everyday gruntwork. Good idea.
:) and it's amazing the amount of
admins that don't have the slightest idea how to write the simplest
loop. Or use ksh, bash, or csh's cmd history. Or vi.
But I say to those that call themselves sys.admins, Learn how to script!!!
I work at a large bankrupt telcom
Maybe this is just a corporate thing. They were raised, in a sense, in a setting where all they had to do was add users and replace disks. Maybe they never learned how to do anything else.
Back in '83 I took manuals home and poured over every page, every weekend for months. That didn't make me a good admin but it gave me a good foundation. From there I had to just halfway use my head (imagination?) and start writing scripts. Ugly? Sure. Did they get better? Of course!
Now I play admin on 110+ machines, and I stay bored. Why? Because I've written a response engine in Expect that handles most of my everyday problems. I call it AGE, Automated Gruntwork Eliminator.
There's no way I could have done this if I had just sat back and floated, not put in a bit of effort to learn new things.
T.
If you're thinking of this computer or that computer then you won't make an effective systems administrator. You have to see the network of all of the computers as a single whole and treat them as such.
Once you've got the mindset change sorted, 10, 100, 1000 systems it makes no difference, it's just as simple to manage. You aren't managing individual computers, you're managing an infrastructure.
Course, you actually have to be competent as well... Obviously.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
It is definately on my list of Expensive Books (50. Am I cheap?)to Buy.
=============
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.