Overview

"""Gagne is clearly an insider in the Linux community, familiar with both the technical details and the culture, which sets this book apart from others in the field."" --Joseph Sloan, Lead System Administrator, Mirai Consulting This comprehensive, hands-on guide to Linux system administration provides you with the deeper understanding of the inner workings of Linux and the pragmatic techniques you need to become an outstanding Linux system administrator--whether you are a career administrator in a corporate environment or simply administering your home system. Written both for those who are new to Linux and those who are already proficient and wish to hone their skills, Linux System Administration starts with the basics and builds up to more sophisticated material. You will find complete coverage of all major system administration topics: *Linux versus UNIX *Installation tips and tricks *Working effectively with the Linux command line *Organizing and working with system users *Disks, file systems, backup, and restore *The inner workings of X and the graphical desktop *Configuring and using scanners, CD-Recordables, and other devices *Internet connectivity *Finding, building, and installing software *Kernel building and renovation *Scripting and automation *Network administration, electronic mail, and Web services *Integrating Windows with Linux *System logs and accounting *Security and firewalls *Performance monitoring and tuning Using standard Linux tools (PostgreSQL, Apache, Perl, and more) this book will help you deploy a feature-rich corporate intranet featuring online discussion groups, bulletin boards, a company phone directory, and a document center. You will also learn everything you need to know to install a complete electronic mail and Internet gateway solution for your home or office on a single, shared connection. In addition, numerous anecdotes from the trenches, examples of techniques to try, and plenty of experience-based advice bring important concepts to life. Written with good humor and enthusiasm for the profession of system administration, as well as a deep appreciation for the power and flexibility of Linux, Linux System Administration will teach you the tricks of the trade, guide your efforts, and serve as a definitive and comprehensive reference. 0201719347B09242001"

Full Product Details

Author:   Marcel Gagné
Publisher:   Pearson Education (US)
Imprint:   Addison Wesley
Dimensions:   Width: 18.50cm , Height: 2.70cm , Length: 23.00cm
Weight:   0.928kg
ISBN:  

9780201719345

ISBN 10:   0201719347
Pages:   560
Publication Date:   02 October 2001
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print
Availability:   Out of stock  

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments. 1. Introduction. What Is Linux? Why Linux? The System Administrator's Job. About This Book. The Command Line Rules! GUIs Rule! Flexibility. Is There Anything You Can't Do with Linux? Regrets, I've Had a Few.... Resources. 2. Linux versus Linux versus UNIX. The UNIX Question. The Windows Question A Question of Distribution. So Which Linux Distribution Should You Choose? Red Hat Linux. SuSE. Caldera. Mandrake. Slackware. Debian. Turbolinux. Getting Linux. Getting Others to Try Linux. Sharing Space with Windows. How about No Disk Space At All? A Changing Landscape. Resources. 3. Help (and the Truth) Is Out There. Documentation and Man Pages What If You Don't Know the Command Name? Show Me the PATH, man! Graphical Man Pages. info (the Command, That Is). HOWTOs and Distributed DOCs The Linux Documentation Project Linux User Groups. Usenet News. Resources. 4. Linux System Installation. Getting Ready for Your Installation. Hardware Considerations. Passing Boot Options Dual Booting. The 12 (13, 14, 15...) Steps to Any Installation. Step 1: Booting. Step 2: Selecting the Installation Type. Step 3: Selecting a Language (Parlez-vous Francais?). Step 4: Choosing a Keyboard Type. Step 5: Selecting Your Mouse. Step 6: Selecting a Time Zone. Step 7: Creating a Partition Step 8: Formatting the Partitions. Step 9: To LILO or Not to LILO. Step 10: Choosing and Installing Software Packages. Step 11: Configuring the Network. Step 12: Identifying Yourself. Step 13: The Dreaded X Window Configuration. Step 14: The Boot Disk Question. The (Emergency) Boot Disk. Starting Linux. Shutting Down Linux. Resources. 5. Taking Command of Linux. Linux Commands: Love at First Sight. Working with Files. File Naming Conventions. Listing Files with Emotion! File Permissions: A First Look Making Your Life Easier with alias Standard Input and Standard Output Piping tee: A Very Special Pipe. STDERR The Road to Nowhere Linux Commands: Working with Directories. There's No Place Like $HOME More on File Permissions User and Group Ownership. Who Can Do What? Who Was That Masked User? The setuid Bit File Attributes Finding Anything grep’ping for Dollars (or Anything Else for That Matter) and Piping. Processes. Forests and Trees. Interrupting, Suspending, and Restarting Processes. Killing Processes. “I Am vi, the Great and Powerful” :q, :w, :wq, and ZZ Recovering a VIM Session Power vi: Start-up Options. Pico: A kinder, gentler editor. Emacs Resources. 6. Daemons and Runlevels. Daemons and Other Not-So-Scary Things. The inittab File. The rc.local File and Runlevels. Switching between Runlevels The chkconfig Command. Runlevels the Graphical Way. The (Not) Last Word. Resources. 7. Users and Groups. Living in a Multiuser World. When Not to Use the root User. Managing Users Managing Groups Adding Groups. Modifying Groups. Removing Groups. Adding Users About Home Directories. Group Participation. E-mail-Only Accounts Yet More User-Creation Controls. Modifying a User Account. Deleting a User Account Checking the Password File User and Group Administration the GUI Way. Choosing Good Passwords How Crackers Crack Your Passwords. Choosing Better Passwords. What Next? I Logged In from Where? How Not to Be a “Sucker”. Resources. 8. Disks and File Systems. Everything Is a File. Understanding Your File Systems. The File System Tree. The Root File System (aka /, or Slash). The /usr File System. The /var File System The /tmp File System The /proc File System The /lost+found File System. fsck: The File System Check and Repair Tool. Bad Superblock? How Much Space Have I Got Again? What's This about Inodes? Mounting and Unmounting File Systems. Creating File Systems. Using the New File System. Working with Quotas Getting Ready for Quotas. Turning Quotas On and Off Setting Limits. Back to Grace Letting the Users Know. Resources. 9. X and the Graphical Desktop. It's Just Window Dressing, Right? Graphical Login Managers Working without a Graphical Login Manager. The World beneath the Surface. The xinitrc File. The .xserverrc File The Xresources File Specifying Resources on the Command Line. Look, Ma! I Can Run Multiple Desktops! Backing Up and Restoring the Desktop Running X Applications Remotely Choosing a Window Manager The Tab Window Manager (twm). Window Maker. KDE. GNOME. Qvwm. Tweaking X and Dealing with Problems. Key Mapping. Tuning Video Modes with xvidtune. The “Messed Up” X Session. Screen Captures Resources 10. Dialing Up to the Internet with PPP. The Basics. What You Need from Your ISP. Where the Information Goes The Graphical Alternative. Automagic PPP Connections. eznet. wvdial. Resources. 11. Finding, Building, and Installing Software. Finding Software and Software Review Sites. Freshmeat. TUCOWS Linux. SourceForge. Rpmfind Ibiblio.org. Installing and Building Software. Compiling from Source. Step 1: Unpacking the Archive. Step 2: Building Your Programs. Downloading and Installing Perl Modules. Package Managers. Updating or Installing Packages on a Debian System. Great, but Can You Tell Me What Is Already There? Finding Out a Package's Current Release Level What Is That Strange File? Using apt-get to Install or Update Software. Educating apt-get. Graphical Alternatives. Red Hat Package Manager. Installing an RPM Package. Upgrading an RPM Package. Uninstalling an RPM Package. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about an RPM Package, but Were Afraid to Ask. RPM: The Graphical Alternatives. installpkg: Slackware's Lonely Child. Resources. 12. Kernel Building and Renovation. What Is This Kernel, Anyhow? When Should I Rebuild My Kernel? Downloading and Building a New Kernel. Automatic Build and Install What about the 2.4 Kernel? Resources. 13. Printers and Printing. Selecting Printers for Linux (and a Note about “WinPrinters”) How Printing Works. Filters. HP JetDirect Adaptors. Printer Job Control. Printing Anything to Any Printer. Tying It Up: Advanced Filters with Ghostscript. Why PostScript? A Few PostScript Tricks. Alternative Print Systems. PDQ. CUPS. Miscellaneous Tips and Tricks. Resources. 14. Scripting and Scripting Languages. Shells As Far As the Eye Can See. It's Commands All the Way Down. Passing Parameters. A First Look at Variables. More on Variables Special Characters. Really Programming the Shell. Specifying the Shell. Perl. Perl in Action: A Script for Monitoring Disk Space. Other Languages Worthy of Consideration. Resources. 15. Simplified Administration through Automation. Constructive Laziness. cron: Punching Linux's Clock. Testing Your Job. Editing the crontab. Could I See an Example? Running Jobs with at A Question of Permissions. Other Tools for Automation. Automatic Downloads: ncftp. Automatic Web Fetch: wget. Scripting for Interactive Sessions: expect. Automating Interactive Automation. Resources. 16. Devices, Devices, and More Devices. Creating Device Definitions. Major Minor SCSI versus IDE Why Choose One over the Other? CD-ROMs and CD-RWs The Graphical Way to Burn Scanners Back Ends. Front Ends. XSane Tape Drives. Other Tape Formats. Miscellaneous Devices. Resources. 17. Backups and Restores. The Need for Backups Basic Tools in Every Linux System. Using cpio. Working with tar Backing Up Windows Workstations. Selecting a Backup Medium. Backing Up with dump Restoring with (You Guessed It) restore. Identity Backups. Backing Up to a CD-RW Backups the Graphical Way. Taper: A Text-Based Backup Utility. Kdat: Graphical and Free Commercial Solutions. BRU Arkeia Other Considerations. Final Words Resources. 18. Network Administration. The Light-Speed Introduction to TCP/IP (Act 18, Scene 1). Protocols and Suites. Services and Ports IP Addresses, Networks, and Subnets, Oh My! What Are Domains? IP Addresses and Networks Subnets, Netmasks, and Broadcast Addresses. Intermezzo Setting Up Your PC Network (Act 18, Scene 2). Drivers Setting the IP Address. Routing Using netstat Domain Name Services (Act 18, Scene 3). The /etc/hosts File Will the Real DNS Please Stand Up. Setting Up Your Own Name Server. Defining Your Domain The /etc/named.conf File. Listing of /etc/named.conf. Zones Your Own Zone File And Now the Reverse DNS Zone. Does It Work? What's All This about “Lame Servers”? Who Gets to See the Information? DNS Wrap-up File Sharing Under Linux (Act 18, Scene 4). Network File System. How Does NFS Work? Making a Remote File System Available. Mounting an NFS Partition Specifying Mounts with /etc/fstab Simplifying Network Mounts with Linux autofs. Network Information Service (Act 18, Scene 5). Configuring the NIS Master Server. Configuring the NIS Client. The /etc/nsswitch.conf File. Miscellaneous Network Tricks: Time Synchronization. rdate. NTP. Wait! What about the GUIs? Resources. 19. Tools, Tools, and More Tools. The Web Browser Angle. Linuxconf. Webmin Graphical Administration Tools. Tiny but Powerful Tools. Go-Anywhere Linux tomsrtbt. Trinux. The Tiny Conclusion. There's No Control Like Remote Control. Resources. 20. Proof of Concept, Part 1. Of Web Servers and Intranets Building Your Own Corporate Portal. Building Apache from Source. Basic Apache Configuration. Common Changes The Basics of Web-Connected Databases. An Introduction to PostgreSQL. Perl DBI and DBD for Database Access. Downloading and Installing the Modules. The CGI Back End The Face of the Intranet Protecting Certain Pages. Resources 21. Proof of Concept, Part 2. The Connected Office, Linux Style What to Look for in an ISP. Setting Up Your ISP Dial-up Connection with diald. Automatic Remote Mail Pickup with fetchmail IP Forwarding and Masquerading. DNS Revisited. Putting It All Together. Basic Firewall Services. Setting Up the Mail Server with Linux. Defining the Network. The Components Setting Up the POP3 Server. Setting Up sendmail. Stopping and Restarting sendmail. Your DNS Setup. Setting Up Users and Aliases. Setting Up Your Client MUAs. Let’s Send Some Mail Not-So-Stupid sendmail Tricks The Multiple Domain, Similar Address Dilemma. The Multidrop Domain. Stop the Spam! Resources. 22. Integrating Windows with Linux. An Introduction to Samba. Getting and Building Samba. A Note on Passwords. Configuring the Server. The PC Side Printing with Samba Printing from the Windows Client. The GUI Way to Administer Samba. Backing Up Windows Workstations. Running Windows on Linux. Wine VMware Win4Lin. Resources. 23. System Logs and Accounting. Your System Logs. Looking at Your Log Files. What the Names Mean Cleaning Up and What the Numbers Mean. syslogd: The Master Logger. Back to the logger Program. Automating the Log-Checking Process. Logcheck. Web Site Log Analysis. Analog The Webalizer. Resources. 24. Secure Computing. A Brief History of Encryption. Personal Encryption An Introduction to the Secure Shell. What Are Your Options? OpenSSH. Secure Sockets Layer. OpenSSH (Right Back Where You Started). Secure File Transfers. PGP and GnuPG. Graphical Front Ends to GnuPG. Building Trust Relationships. Encrypting Electronic Mail. Building a Secure Web Server. Building the SSL-Enabled Apache Server. Resources. 25. Security: The Battle for Your System. What Is a “Script Kiddie”? The Basics: Your TCP Wrappers. What Your TCP Wrapper Is Telling You. “Hey, My Logs Have Nothing in Them!” Detecting the Cracker. The Cracker's Not-So-Invisible Footsteps. More Thoughts If You Have Been Cracked. Port Scanners, Sniffers, and the Cracker's Tools. Sniffers. PortSentry: Active Intrusion Detection and Response. ipchains and Firewalls. Quick and Easy Firewall Solutions. Locating the Cracker and Reporting Him or Her. Keeping Up-to-Date. Resources. 26. Performance Monitoring and Tuning. The Search for the Holy Grail. Monitoring and Analyzing Performance. The uptime Command. The top Command Graphical tops. The free Command Working with vmstat What about Good Ol' ps? Performance Enhancing Tweaks. /proc Revisited. File System Tweaks. Improving Disk Drive Performance. Do-It-Yourself Benchmarks. Resources. Appendix A: The All-Linux Office? Appendix B: The GNU General Public License. Index. 0201719347T09242001

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Author Information

"Marcel Gagné is best known as author of the Linux Journal's ""Cooking with Linux"" series, which has earned the magazine's Readers' Choice award for favorite column four years in a row, and as the regular ""Linux Guy"" on G4/TechTV Canada. His books include Moving to the Linux Business Desktop and Linux Administration: A User's Guide (both from Addison-Wesley.) He is one of the Linux world's most familiar and respected voices."

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