Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Network Administration
- SNMP (a protocol for managing network devices and hosts)
- MRTG (the Multi Router Traffic Grapher - a bandwidth utilization meter)
- Neo (a network device administration tool that speaks SNMP)
- Oak (a syslog watcher and digester)
- Nagios (an active network/host monitoring tool)
- Flow Tools (tools for processing Cisco NetFlow data)
This book also discusses more basic debugging tools such as ping, traceroute, tcpdump and others. Finally, Kretchmar provides some pointers on building your own tools using bash, perl, sed and awk.
Kretchmar is a network engineer for MIT and has gotten a lot of practical experience in managing large networks and unruly hosts. In this book, he imparts a large amount of that experience in over 200 quick-reading, no-nonsense pages. He tells you what a tool can do, how to get it and build it and provides examples of some typical uses. While beginning network administrators will feel comforted that he takes enough time to explain the tools he talks about, experienced ones can safely jump right to his equally well-explained configuration examples without missing anything crucial.
This book read so quickly and was so straightforward that it really inspired me to fix up some areas of my network monitoring that I knew were lacking, but hadn't bothered to fix. In particular, his chapter on Oak motivated me to implement an instant messaging infrastructure (like one he mentions using at MIT) to receive event notices quickly and without dependence on e-mail. While it's no bible (my staple, the Unix System Administration Handbook, is over 800 pages), this book provides a great start on quite a few great tools - many of which I plan to investigate soon.
I was a bit puzzled at his inclusion of instructions for building each tool when most of them are simply ./configure; make; make install. Only one of the tools seemed to actually merit building instructions. At least you can't say he isn't thorough.
I give this book nine stars (out of ten) simply because it really made me realize how easy it is to configure a lot of automation that Ive been wanting. The cover price of U.S. $44.99 strikes me as a bit high in the market, but it is significantly discounted at most online book stores. I still have to recommend The Unix System Administration Handbook first, however. It is more expensive, but contains much more scope and detail than this book. Those who have digested USAH, though, should consider picking this book up from your favorite e-tailer.
You can purchase Open Source Network 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. Reviewer, Virginia Tech alum and CHUUG member Josh Malone has been a Unix Systems and Network Administrator in Charlottesville, VA for three years.
I'd say, we all know how MIT loves its pranks/hacks. This has to be one intersting and challenging job. Someone should publish a book (or just a website) on the pranks/hacks that happens on their network. For the most part the other pranks are all well documented, bu I'd love to see what these kids cook up for the New Admin.
Last book review, 9/10
Book before that, rated Excellent
Before that, two thumbs up
Oh, MY GOD, an 8!
What gives? Can we get an unbiased review, please?
Thousands of geeks *already* inside your network
Unfortunately, that's the exact attitude that many employers take. Apparently nothing impresses them about a candidate except:
1. An ability to kiss ass.
2. Knowing less than the employer.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't the point to hire people smarter/more knowledgeable than yourself? Otherwise, you should be able to do the job yourself!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I usually pull up bestbookbuys.com to see about the best prices. This book shows up for $23.90 at half.com...
Check your link again. The first book on your list is not the book we're talking about. The book we're talking about is the fourth down the page you linked to.
Here is another list of all its prices. Barnes and Noble seems to be the better deal if you want it new and Half.com seems to be the better deal if you're willing to get it used.
First-rate people hire first-rate people.
Second-rate people hire third-rate people.
rating 6 - Serious flaws in structure in an otherwise excellent book
0 .s html
http://books.slashdot.org/books/03/10/02/155121
and if it doesn't score about a 7 (or whatever the chosen scale) how do you expect anyone to finish reading it to do a review of it? no one (as far as i know) is getting paid to do it, so if it isn't worth reading, they probably won't read it (and therefore not review it)
Actually, it is MORE important to read a negative review. With every publisher, magazine, website out there giving biased "good" reviews, an unbiased negative review says more than all of the others combined...
Unlike traditional media, which has a staff responsible for reviewing new books, Slashdot's book reviews are submitted by users. There is little, if any, incentive, to read the books that are worthless or of little value.
I don't really have a problem with high ratings in book reviews on Slashdot these days, it seems likely that the reviewer really does think that the book deserves 9/10. I think that the lack of low reviews means that people aren't willing to invest resources in buying, reading and reviewing a book that they don't like. I personally will never finish a book that strikes me as low quality. I would also never review a book that I haven't finished.
:)
Judging books before really reading the entire thing is much easier than it sounds. It's very easy to go down to Narnes and Boble and flip through a book and assess it's value within a couple of minutes.
To me, book reviews like this present book reviews to me that I might be interested in. If you really have that much of a problem with the reviews, go find a crappy book yourself and review it.
My blog
Still haven't gotten over that rejection letter from the MIT Undergrad Admissions Office, eh?
-Shane
I love teh int4rw3b!!!!!111one1
Okay, I dug around a bit and couldn't find any references to an Oak syslog watcher outside of info about this book. Does anyone have any info about this utility?
Or, better yet, a good recommendation for something to cull through a couple 100k or so syslog entries a day?
http://perl-oak.sourceforge.net/downloads/Oak-1.8. tar.gz
Here is a link to the files referenced in the book: http://web.mit.edu/ktools/
Regards,
Timothy Boyden
Systems Administrator
MIT Department of Facilities
Charlie Daniels was accused, during an interview, of not being that great a musician and simply hiring people better than himself to back him, making him just look good.
To which Charlie replied, roughly," I'm just a front man. Of course they're better than me. If they weren't I wouldn't have hired them.
Charlie knows something.
You'll never see a job ad that says "Wanted: Really Smart Guy."
No boss really wants that guy around the place. Despite some of your other respondents this fairly common knowledge with lots of anecdotal evidence.
Robert Townsend, author of "Up the Orininization" and former President of both Avis and American Express wrote that every company should have a Bullshit guy. This is a guy whose only job is to wander around and yell "Bullshit!" any time he sees any in a company practice. It' would take a reasonably smart guy to fill this position.
And what boss would have him, wandering around yelling "Bullshit!" at all the policies he implemented?
I take the idea a bit further though. Every company of any size should have a position that's called "The Smart Guy." Officially. That's what it would say on his cards and everything.
No official duties other than being smart, curious, informed and the interest to keep himself informed, on nearly anything.
Anybody in the company could talk to "The Smart Guy." Network's down and you can't figure it out? Go talk to The Smart Guy. Maybe he doesn't know the answer, in fact he probably doesn't, but talking to someone smart might helf you think about the problem in a way that allows its solution.
Extrapolate.
You'll never, ever see this position advertised. Not because it's not a good idea, but because every boss thinks that he's The Smart Guy. He wouldn't be "boss" otherwise. Right?
KFG
Is there a chapter on hair length, beard trimming and pizza ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Without putting too fine a point on it, I dare you to find something even rougly equivelent to the content of the Armadillo Book in the man pages and/or online.
Documentation has information. The good books expand this information with experience and wisdom.
Not to mention the fact that you can read them in the park.
KFG
Consider:
OSS developers should recognize Longhorn for what it is: Microsoft trying to be competetive for the first time in years. Don't expect another crap OS from them.
> Unless, of course, you are too busy managing other things and need someone to help you.
That is a secretarial or junior level position. And in that case, the IT manager himself probably wouldn't be the final say. When a employer doesn't want to hire anyone too smart, you'll note that the IT manager (or perhaps HR rep) is the only person you talk to.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
If you want to take a looksie at the tools, head over to the ktools software page @ http://web.mit.edu/ktools/ Looks like he wrote these himself.
Would you bother to buy, read, and review a book that sucked ass, and could the average
I can see it now:
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
First-rate people hire first-rate people. Second-rate people hire third-rate people.
Ahh, but it's *sooo* true.
My workplace recently needed a new lead sysadmin. I reccomended one of the best sysadmin/system-level-programmer types I knew. Everyone who interviewed him agreed he was the best person we'd talked to -- except the VP of Engineering, who refused to hire him (but wouldn't say why).
Well, a few weeks go by, we haven't found anyone else who's up to snuff, so the VP gives in and hires this guy. Then the VP finds out that when he tries to micromanage system administration (and do things in order of visibility rather than dependency order) that the IT team actually starts *pushing back*, telling him exactly why his plans will take more time in the long run, require extra work, result in poorer service overall, etc etc.
The VP of Engineering no longer talks to the IT lead, or anyone else on IT if he can avoid it -- yet IT is dramatically more productive and provides better service to the engineering staff than was previously the case. Funny how that works, eh?
(And the other funny thing is that I don't really have a problem posting this here -- even if our dear VP of Engineering *does* find it. Frankly, I think I'd rather enjoy the outcome if he tried to fire me over this).
It seems as if this oak tool was written by Kretchmar himself: check it out at his page http://web.mit.edu/ktools/www/oak.html
This is almost right - I think a more accurate portrayal is that every boss expects to be the smart guy, but is afraid to find out ... Turns out I'm the 'Smart Girl' at my company - talk about fun ... but then one of my oh-so-smart ideas was turned into a product, and suddenly, I was 'the boss' and 'the smart girl'. BOOM - the fact that I was the go-to person was overshadowed by the fact that I was a lousy, lousy project manager (unix geeks and microsoft project are a bad, bad combo, blech)... and yet, a group of undeniably intelligent professionals were unwilling to TELL me how much I sucked, so if I hadn't had the wits to figure it out myself, I'd still be inflicting my sad management skills upon their poor heads.
It's easy to be delusional, if you have no-one to help - I think that no boss can also be the smart guy - it's a contradiction in terms (-:... actually, what you REALLY need is for all of your employees to possess that little bit of wit and vision that lets them look outside of normal operating parameters, and see what could be...
Heh, yeah, I'll put that on our next job posting, and see what kind of resumes come in (-:
Pixie
don't mess with those geekgrrls
Smart Guy Wanted: Self-reliant thinker with excellent trouble-shooting skills and the ability to creatively add value in ways no one else has ever thought of. Must have the social skills to effectively communicate the complete and utter stupidity of a planned action to the originator of that action, while simultaneously conceiving of and evangelizing a viable alternative, and doing so without appearing to be threatening in any way.
Must also be able to leap small buildings - this requirement is mandatory, there's quite a distance between the data center and the offices...
*grin*
Pixie
don't mess with those geekgrrls