Linux System Administration 74
Bob Uhl writes "I've just finished reading a review copy of O'Reilly's latest GNU/Linux title, Linux
System Administration. It's a handy introduction for the beginner
GNU/Linux sysadmin, and a useful addition to an experienced sysadmin's
bookshelf. The book is essentially a survey of various Linux system-administration
tasks: installing Debian; setting up LAMP; configuring a load-balancing,
high-availability environment; working with virtualization. None of the
chapters are in-depth examinations of their subjects; rather, they're
enough to get you started and familiar with the concepts involved, and
headed in the right direction." Read below for the rest of Bob's review.
| Linux System Administration | |
| author | Tom Adelstein & Bill Lubanovic |
| pages | 279 |
| publisher | O'Reilly |
| rating | 3 out of 4 stars |
| reviewer | Bob Uhl |
| ISBN | 0-596-00952-6 |
| summary | Good survey of various Linux software and technologies |
I like this approach, as it increases the likelihood that any particular admin will be able to use the material presented. I've been working with Apache for almost a decade now, but I've not done any virtualization; some other fellow may have played with Linux for supercomputing, but never done any web serving with it; we both can use the chapters which cover subjects new to us.
I really like some of the choices the authors made. A lot of GNU/Linux 'administration' books focus on GUI tools — I've seen some which don't even bother addressing the command line! I've long said that if one isn't intimately familiar with the shell — if one cannot get one's job done with it — then one isn't really a sysadmin. Linux System Administration approaches nearly everything from the CLI, right from the get-go.
The authors also deserve praise for showing, early on, how to replace Sendmail with Postfix. In 2007, there's very, very little reason to use Sendmail: unless you know why you need it, you almost certainly don't. Postfix is more stable and far more secure.
Another nice thing is how many alternatives are showcased: Xen & VMware; Debian, Fedora & Xandros; CIFS/SMB & NFS; shell, Perl, PHP & Python and so forth. One really great advantage of Unix in general and GNU/Linux in particular is choice — it's good to see a reference work which implicitly acknowledges that.
The authors are also pretty good about calling out common pitfalls — several got me, once upon a time. It'd have been nice to have had a book like this when I was cutting my teeth...
Lastly, I liked that the authors & their editor weren't afraid to refer readers to books from other publishers, in addition to O'Reilly's (uniformly excellent) offerings. Not all publishers would be so forthright; O'Reilly merits recognition for their openness.
The book's not quite perfect, though. I wish that PostgreSQL had at least been mentioned as a more powerful, more stable (and often faster in practice) alternative to MySQL, and one doesn't actually need to register a domain in order to set up static IP addressing. Still, these are pretty minor quibbles.
I'd say that the ideal audience for this book is a small-to-medium business admin who'd like to start using Linux, or who already is but doesn't really feel confident yet. It covers enough categories that at least a few are likely to be relevant. Even an experienced admin will probably find some useful stuff in here.
You can purchase Linux System Administration from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Re:sendmail vs postfix (Score:3, Funny)
Mail configuration it are hard (Score:2, Funny)
I remember when I set up my first LAMP stack. I thought I was the shit. I had my own fucking webserver, for fuck's sake! Who could possibly fuck with me now? I installed mediawiki and phpbb, and I was root and admin, and all was good.
Lately I have been playing with mail servers, and it is a whole different ball game. Imagine a series of croquet rings dotted around a field. Now imagine standing at the side of that field and sliding a rope across the grass, threading it perfectly through each ring, without moving from that spot. That is what configuring a mail server is like.
It's for your own good, mind. Your MTA should only be able to transport mail. But configuring the MTA to use the authentication daemon to allow users to connect and use it as a relay is a nightmare. And if you want spam filtering, you have to tell it to pass mail to a local delivery agent (usually procmail), and then you have to tell procmail to filter mail through spamassassin, and then you have to tell spamassassin how to filter the mail. And then to get at your mail, you'll also need a POP3 or IMAP server, which will also need to know how to use the authentication daemon. And don't even think about anti-virus or MySQL backends. Just don't.
Long story short, programmers are not automatically also sysadmins. At least now I know to appreciate my sysadmins.
Re:linux is unmanageable (Score:3, Funny)
Re:linux is unmanageable (Score:5, Funny)
Even worse, your server never have downtime...at least human babies take nap here and there.
I can see the Microsoft tow picture ad now, top picture harried sysadmin with the linux box, screen showing * WORK * WORK * WORK * in ugly green pixelated courier on black. In the next picture, the same (now) MS based admin is leaning back on his chair with a big smile with his feet propped up, on the screen - white on pretty blue - is "Server down, please reboot" in nice friendly Arial TTF letters.
And the quote, "Even sysadmins deserve a break from sever management, Microsoft will give it you."