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ADMINISTRATION Book Reviews

Unix to Linux Porting
The major issues with porting to Linux from other Unixes include compiler and library differences, differences in system calls, and entirely missing system calls. There's also the issue of code that never was right to start with, but that's outside of the scope of this book.
Saturday, 29th April 2006

Self-Service Linux : Mastering the Art of Problem Determination
This has to be the best book I've read in a long time. I've written articles on general troubleshooting, but this book takes the subject to a whole new level. It is Linux specific, though some of the knowledge is applicable to any system.
Wednesday, 19th October 2005



Mac OS X 10.3 Panther Little Black Book
Actually, there's nothing "little" about this. It's over 500 pages of very precise and specific Panther detail. Don't let the redundant title (OS Ten 10.3 ???) set you back: this is a good guide to Panther.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Wicked Cool Shell Scripts
I often take a dim view of books that use superlatives in their titles. I also don't think there is anything "wicked cool" about shell scripting in general: if you need anything complex at all, Perl or something else is probably a much better way to to it.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Postfix: The Definitive Guide
I have been wanting to take a peek at Postscript for some time now, especially since it has become the default for Mac OS X. The man page didn't look like a lot of fun, so I was happy to see this book come out.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

The Design of the Unix Operating System
This is another book that is getting old, but at least it's focus is System V Unix, so it still has a lot of value.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

SCO Companion
really don't want to say anything negative about this book. SCO Companion is a tremendously ambitious book, attempting to cover just about anything and everything you would ever want or need to know.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Sendmail Performance Tuning
When I first picked this up I really didn't expect much. I expected that this would be a rather ordinary rehash of typical performance tuning advice. How much could you possibly have to say about sendmail specifically?
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

TCP/IP Network Administration
The third edition of this O'Reilly classic has been extensively updated. Examples are now given for both Sun and Linux systems, and both Samba and Apache get good attention.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Windows Admin Scripting Little Black Book
This is a jumbled and disorganized pile of stuff. The "stuff" isn't necessarily bad stuff, but it's a mess of registry hacks, Kixstart and WSH scripts, shareware utiliies and DOS batch files all piled together with very little coherence.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Unix Unleashed
I'm probably going to be in the minority here, but I don't like this book very much. I don't have any technical gripes, and at over 1100 pages you really shouldn't complain about coverage- and yet that is exactly my gripe.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

AIX Survival Guide
Most reviewers have spoken very highly of this book. I hate to be the wet blanket, but I didn't think it was quite that good. It's not a bad book, at all.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Linux Cookbook by Michael Stutz
Another winner from No Starch Press, who's motto is "more stuff, less fluff". This is the most practical daily use Linux book I've seen so far- highly recommended for anyone getting started with Linux.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Linux Performance Tuning and Capacity Planning
Strangely, there's a review of this at Amazon that complains about the book being too general, not Linux specific. In fact, it is very Linux specific. Yes, of course there is general information here that could be applied to any Unix system.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Perl for System Administration
The subtitle of this is "Managing Multiplatform Environments with Perl". It is useful even if you happen to be among the fortunate few who don't have to deal with anything but Unix platforms.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Unix and Windows 2000 Integration
You are probably fortunate if you don't yet have to contend with Win2k, but you can't be too complacent: if NT is part of your OS mix, you know Windows 2000 is on the horizon.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Using Samba
This is the O'Reilly treatment of Samba, and it is also the book "Officially adopted by the Samba team". It includes a CDROM that has source and binaries for Samba 2.0.5a.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

(Sun) Resource Management
This is a Sun Solaris book; part of the Blueprints ® series. As such, the primary audience is, of course, Solaris users.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Samba, John D. Blair
I just checked Amazon: this is already out of stock. While that may be that the publisher screwed up and didn't print enough on the first run, I suspect it is more to do with the increasing popularity of Samba, particularly (of course) on Linux.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Sendmail Theory and Practice - Avolio and Vixie
Although some reviewers have seen this as an introductory book, and have advised reading it prior to the "Bat" book, I think most folks would find that really difficult.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Windows NT and Unix Integration
Philosophically, I'm with Scott McNealy of Sun- we should eat our own dog food and Windows is crap that we should have nothing to do with. Realistically, however, that won't put much bread on the table.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Unix for the Impatient
This is a no-nonsense, cut to the chase, I'm not an idiot how do I do this? book. Excellent for people otherwise comfortable with computers but new to Unix, and contains enough of the exotic and the arcane to be of value to anyone.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

The Unix Programming Environment
Although it is getting old and is incomplete (no reference to Perl, for example), this is still a valuable and useful book. More than just command listings, it really gets into the philosophy of why Unix is the way it is, and that understanding can help you tremendously.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Automating Unix and Linux Administration
I'd never heard of Apress publishing before, but they sent me this book to review and I'm very glad they did. When I first pick up any technical book, I flip to some random points to see first if I'll find something I didn't already know, and secondly whether whatever I do find is explained well. This book scored high on both tests.
Wednesday, 3rd August 2005

Essential System Administration (Unix)
This is a good book for those of us who are apt to find ourselves trying to make something work on somebody else's flavor of Unix.
Saturday, 3rd August 2002