Linux Admin book recommendation

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For those of you, like me, just starting out in Linux I'd like to recommend a good book to you. My copy, which I've had for about 4 months or so, is already getting dogeared as I find it very useful. It's titled, "Linux Administration Handbook" and the authors are Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, and Trent R. Hein with Adam Boggs, Matt Crosby, and Ned McClain.

It was published in 2002 so it is starting to become dated in some areas, but the basic system admin stuff is all relevant and I've learned a lot from this book. The authors are all experienced Linux system admins and speak from experience so the book speaks from a position of authority. They cover a lot of ground, from basic commands to the how's and why's of many common administrator tasks. They cover bind, email, routing, policies and politics, etc.... They cover a lot but it's all valuable. Even the subjects they don't cover in depth is stuff that doesn't go out of style or usage. It's good basic information.

Also, and this is where things can get a little dated although I haven't found very many things that Debian has changed, they will show how Redhat, SuSe, and Debian vary in how they handle different things. It's very useful.

 

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Thought I'd add a little linkage so people could find it at amazon.co.uk:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...95242/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_2_3/202-3069656-1408641

 

Thanks Freddy,

Although I'm not a linux admin I do keep trying to learn it, but something else usually gets in the way and I have to put it on hold. Do you know if the book has been updated recently? and does it go into huge amounts of depth? All I want in a book on linux would be something very simple that would teach me the basics, i.e. how to set it up to function as say a DHCP server.

 

Question 1: Not that I know of.

Question 2: Well, that depends on what you mean by "huge amounts of depth". I'm not sure of what you mean by this.

 

Perhaps I should rephrase my question: is it the kind of book that takes you through setting things up step by step, i.e. like a Lab Manual. Or is it more of a resource book for finding key points and features out?

 

Answer to both questions: Yes.

It depends on the subject. Some things they walk you through. Other things they teach the basics and tell you about optional ways of doing things. DHCP in particular they explain how it works, and give examples of DHCP configuration files.

With some pre-existing knowledge of DHCP a person should be able to configure a DHCP server from this. I haven't actually set up a Linux DHCP server as yet as I use all static IP addresses due to the fact that my machines all have some type of server on them, except for my Win2K Pro box, and I can't see consuming resources with a DHCP server when it's only going to serve 1 machine. I set one up and worked with it quite a bit when I worked through my MCSE, but that was Windows, not Linux.

 

Nice find mate

as for setting up a DHCP server its as simple as pie
once you have installed it in whatever guise you wish (i use 'emerge dhcpd'

you then just edit a single config file!

Code:

#/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
# DHCP Config for pheo.org

### Global Options ###
allow booting;
allow bootp;
authoritative;
ddns-update-style interim; # This was for dynamic DNS updates. doesnt work though.

subnet 172.17.27.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
  range 172.17.27.200 172.17.27.250;
  option domain-name-servers 172.17.27.25;
  option domain-name "pheo.org";
  option routers 172.17.27.1;
  option broadcast-address 172.17.27.255;
  default-lease-time 3600;
  max-lease-time 7200;
}


host enterprise { # Used for reserved hosts so they always get the same address
        hardware ethernet [color="red"]M:A:C:A:D:D:Y[/color];
        fixed-address [color="red"]my.ip.goes.here[/color];
        option host-name "enterprise";
}

I think you will admit that its pretty obvious which bits need changing for your environment!
simple as pie really
installing it may end up being harder! lol (unless you use gentoo or debian)

sorry to hijack this book thread, but thought answering the question would be of use
any Sen mod that wants to split this off into its own thread is welcome to!

 

Which DHCP server are you using, and which Bind version? I know the book said ddns didn't work real well back then, but I figured this problem would have been worked out by now as the book mentioned Bind 9 as working at least partially with dynamic updates back in 2002.

 

it could be i missed something, that config was piecemealed together bit by bit so it could well be i need another tag in there somewheer


bind 9.2.5
dhcp 3.01

pretty upto date, i only did an 'emerge -uDpv world' the other week

 

Do you know what dhcp server Gentoo uses? The authors recommended the ICS dhcp server and said that it's what Debian used at that time. I'll find out more on that but I'm really just curious as to if ddns doesn't work yet in Linux. It is a security risk and the book goes talks about a way to minimize the risk of using ddns by creating a subdomain in dns just for dhcp clients.

 

its whatever dhcp server i want, and yes its the ICS one, same as bind

 

OK. Thanks. That will narrow down my search parameters a lot.