Unix System Administration Handbook

“As an author, editor, and publisher, I never paid much attention to the competition—except in a few cases. This is one of those cases. The UNIX System Administration Handbook is one of the few books we ever measured ourselves against.” —Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media “This edition is for those whose systems live in the cloud or in virtualized data centers; those whose administrative work largely takes the form of automation and configuration source code; those who collaborate closely with developers, network engineers, compliance officers, and all the other worker bees who inhabit the modern hive.” —Paul Vixie, Internet Hall of Fame-recognized innovator and founder of ISC and Farsight Security “This book is fun and functional as a desktop reference. If you use UNIX and Linux systems, you need this book in your short-reach library. It covers a bit of the systems’ history but doesn’t bloviate. It’s just straight-forward information delivered in a colorful and memorable fashion.” —Jason A. Nunnelley UNIX® and Linux® System Administration Handbook, Fifth Edition, is today’s definitive guide to installing, configuring, and maintaining any UNIX or Linux system, including systems that supply core Internet and cloud infrastructure. Updated for new distributions and cloud environments, this comprehensive guide covers best practices for every facet of system administration, including storage management, network design and administration, security, web hosting, automation, configuration management, performance analysis, virtualization, DNS, security, and the management of IT service organizations. The authors—world-class, hands-on technologists—offer indispensable new coverage of cloud platforms, the DevOps philosophy, continuous deployment, containerization, monitoring, and many other essential topics. Whatever your role in running systems and networks built on UNIX or Linux, this conversational, well-written ¿guide will improve your efficiency and help solve your knottiest problems.

Now covers Red Hat Linux! Written by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Scott Seebass, and Trent R. Hein with Adam Boggs, Rob Braun, Ned McClain, Dan Crawl, Lynda McGinley, and Todd Miller "This is not a nice, neat book for a nice, clean world. It's a nasty book for a nasty world. This is a book for the rest of us." -Eric Allman and Marshall Kirk McKusick"I am pleased to welcome Linux to the UNIX System Administration Handbook!" -Linus Torvalds, Transmeta"This book is most welcome!" -Dennis Ritchie, AT&T Bell Laboratories This new edition of the world's most comprehensive guide to UNIX system administration is an ideal tutorial for those new to administration and an invaluable reference for experienced professionals. The third edition has been expanded to include "direct from the frontlines" coverage of Red Hat Linux. UNIX System Administration Handbook describes every aspect of system administration-from basic topics to UNIX esoterica-and provides explicit coverage of four popular UNIX systems: This book stresses a practical approach to system administration. It's packed with war stories and pragmatic advice, not just theory and watered-down restatements of the manuals. Difficult subjects such as sendmail, kernel building, and DNS configuration are tackled head-on. Examples are provided for all four versions of UNIX and are drawn from real-life systems-warts and all. "This book is where I turn first when I have system administration questions. It is truly a wonderful resource and always within reach of my terminal." -W. Richard Stevens, author of numerous books on UNIX and TCP/IP"This is a comprehensive guide to the care and feeding of UNIX systems. The authors present the facts along with seasoned advice and numerous real-world examples. Their perspective on the variations among systems is valuable for anyone who runs a heterogeneous computing facility." -Pat Parseghian, Transmeta"We noticed your book on the staff recommendations shelf at our local bookstore: 'Very clear, a masterful interpretation of the subject.' We were most impressed, until we noticed that the same staff member had also recommended Aunt Bea's Mayberry Cookbook." -Shannon Bloomstran, history teacher

“As this book shows, Linux systems are just as functional, secure, and reliable as their proprietary counterparts. Thanks to the ongoing efforts of thousands of Linux developers, Linux is more ready than ever for deployment at the frontlines of the real world. The authors of this book know that terrain well, and I am happy to leave you in their most capable hands.” –Linus Torvalds “The most successful sysadmin book of all time–because it works!” –Rik Farrow, editor of ;login: “This book clearly explains current technology with the perspective of decades of experience in large-scale system administration. Unique and highly recommended.” –Jonathan Corbet, cofounder, LWN.net “Nemeth et al. is the overall winner for Linux administration: it’s intelligent, full of insights, and looks at the implementation of concepts.” –Peter Salus, editorial director, Matrix.net Since 2001, Linux Administration Handbook has been the definitive resource for every Linux® system administrator who must efficiently solve technical problems and maximize the reliability and performance of a production environment. Now, the authors have systematically updated this classic guide to address today’s most important Linux distributions and most powerful new administrative tools. The authors spell out detailed best practices for every facet of system administration, including storage management, network design and administration, web hosting, software configuration management, performance analysis, Windows interoperability, and much more. Sysadmins will especially appreciate the thorough and up-to-date discussions of such difficult topics such as DNS, LDAP, security, and the management of IT service organizations. Linux® Administration Handbook, Second Edition, reflects the current versions of these leading distributions: Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® FedoraTM Core SUSE® Linux Enterprise Debian® GNU/Linux Ubuntu® Linux Sharing their war stories and hard-won insights, the authors capture the behavior of Linux systems in the real world, not just in ideal environments. They explain complex tasks in detail and illustrate these tasks with examples drawn from their extensive hands-on experience.

System administrators and technical professionals will be able to understand and master the most critical part of Tru64 UNIX by using this easy-to-understand guide written by a file systems expert. This book also explains how to deploy Compaq's TruCluster clustering technology.

Now covers Red Hat Linux! Written by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Scott Seebass, and Trent R. Hein with Adam Boggs, Rob Braun, Ned McClain, Dan Crawl, Lynda McGinley, and Todd Miller "This is not a nice, neat book for a nice, clean world. It's a nasty book for a nasty world. This is a book for the rest of us." –Eric Allman and Marshall Kirk McKusick "I am pleased to welcome Linux to the UNIX System Administration Handbook!" –Linus Torvalds, Transmeta "This book is most welcome!" –Dennis Ritchie, AT&T Bell Laboratories This new edition of the world's most comprehensive guide to UNIX system administration is an ideal tutorial for those new to administration and an invaluable reference for experienced professionals. The third edition has been expanded to include "direct from the frontlines" coverage of Red Hat Linux. UNIX System Administration Handbook describes every aspect of system administration–from basic topics to UNIX esoterica–and provides explicit coverage of four popular UNIX systems: This book stresses a practical approach to system administration. It's packed with war stories and pragmatic advice, not just theory and watered-down restatements of the manuals. Difficult subjects such as sendmail, kernel building, and DNS configuration are tackled head-on. Examples are provided for all four versions of UNIX and are drawn from real-life systems–warts and all. "This book is where I turn first when I have system administration questions. It is truly a wonderful resource and always within reach of my terminal." –W. Richard Stevens, author of numerous books on UNIX and TCP/IP "This is a comprehensive guide to the care and feeding of UNIX systems. The authors present the facts along with seasoned advice and numerous real-world examples. Their perspective on the variations among systems is valuable for anyone who runs a heterogeneous computing facility." –Pat Parseghian, Transmeta "We noticed your book on the staff recommendations shelf at our local bookstore: 'Very clear, a masterful interpretation of the subject.' We were most impressed, until we noticed that the same staff member had also recommended Aunt Bea's Mayberry Cookbook." –Shannon Bloomstran, history teacher

Attempts to condense everything that a system administrator shoud know about UNIX into a single, easy-to-use volume.

Surveys the best practices for all aspects of system administration, covering such topics as storage management, email, Web hosting, performance analysis, virtualization, DNS, security, and configuration management.