UNIX System Administrator's Bible

Authors LePage and Iarrera begin with a quick overview of key system-administration commands, then get into some conceptual information about how various elements (hardware, kernel, etc.) combine to form a Unix system. They pay a lot of attention to networking and include intelligent documentation on the security risks involved in putting a Unix machine on a network.

This book really excels in its coverage of the "soft" (but hardly unimportant) aspects of administration. How do you plan a file system for an academic environment, as opposed to a transaction-intensive business environment? What kind of backup policy do you need? Clearly, much of the real-life information here derives from LePage's experiences as a system administrator at McGill University and Iarrera's experiences in his consulting business. For example, a story about tracking down and solving a POP server performance problem is not only informative, but as much of a page turner as any mystery novel.

The complete BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) 2.2.5, with source, appears on the companion CD-ROM. --David Wall