Review:Unix System Administration

Mike Hostetler has sent in a review of the "red book" Unix System Administration. Not so much a book for the home user, this book is for all of you out there with a network to contend with. If the armadillo book was one you enjoyed, then click below for more info.

Unix System Administration Handbook
author	Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Scott Seebass & Trent R. Hein
pages
publisher	Prentice Hall PTR
rating	9/10
reviewer	Mike Hostetler
ISBN	ISBN 0-14-151051-7
summary	Must have book for UNIX system administration

REVIEW: Unix System Administration Handbook (a.k.a. The Red Book) Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Scott Seebass & Trent R. Hein (Prentice Hall PTR, ISBN 0-14-151051-7) Nutshell Review: Must have book for UNIX system administration Rating: 9/10 Mike Hostetler (home)

NOTE: I'm not going to compare this book to ORA's Armadillo Book. I haven't used it, but have glanced through it. They are very much alike. I'll let the readers compare the two in the comments section.

The Scenario

Need a guide to help set up sendmail? Want some assistance in troubleshooting your DNS config? In essence, if you want a go-to book for administrating your UNIX-like machine, then this is the book for you.

What's Bad?

I can only see two things wrong with this book, both of which are small. First of all, I have the second edition (I'm sure the first one is way out of print) which is copyrighted 1995. Needless to say, things have changed a bit. Like there is no discussion about Linux-specific things, unlike their discussions when Solaris, SunOS, HP-UX, etc., are different then the norm. Also, some of the way things are done are different now. Like the book says that OSPF is a "new" TCP/IP protocal, though they do accurately predict that OSPF will become wide-spread, especially in large networks.

The second thing is even smaller. This book is written for people who administrate a large UNIX server or servers on networks. People who have their UNIX box at home will get less use out of this book then people who administrate a server in the work place. But, then again, people who aren't on a dedicated network doesn't have as many problems, or they don't have to be as careful about as many things.

What's Good?

As a quote on the back of the book says, "This is not a nice, neat book for a nice, clean world. It's a nasty book for a nasty world." The Red Book is complicated at times but it has to be - the problems it is trying to solve are complicated. This book is alway extremely practical, and no where else is practicality needed more then in system administration. They never say, "this should work" but "if that doesn't work, try this".

The authors definitely know their material, they know how to present it, and they know how to write about complex problems so Joe Admin knows how to fix them. The OS-specific sections, like, for example, when Solaris acts differently then the rest of the world, are especially good. And example config files are present when needed. And, as an added bonus, the cartoons at the beginning of each chapter are quite humorous.

So What's In It For Me?

If you want help administrating your UNIX computer, then don't hesitate - get this book.

Buy this book at Amazon and help Slashdot out.

Table of Contents

1. Basic Administration
2. Booting and Shutting Down
3. Rootly Powers
4. The Filesystem
5. Controlling Processes
6. Adding New Users
7. Devices and Drivers
8. Serial Devices
9. Adding A Disk
10. Periodic Processes
11. Backups
12. Syslog and Log Files
13. Configuring the Kernel
14. TCP/IP and Routing
15. Network Hardware
16. The Domain Name System
17. The Network File System
18. Sharing System Files
19. SLIP and PPP
20. The Internet
21. Electronic Mail
22. Network Management
23. Security
24. Usenet News
25. Printing and Imaging
26. Disk Space Management
27. Hardware Maintenance
28. Accounting
29. Performance Analysis
30. UUCP
31. Daemons
32. Policy and Politics