Like most IT pros, in my career I have owned an ever-evolving library of technical books, a total surely numbering well into the hundreds by now. The selection of books I keep at hand is in constant flux as IT platforms and technologies are supplanted by newer (and hopefully better) options, or as my interests and job duties change.

You might even say that akin to the way a grocery store handles milk in the cooler, I rotate ‘fresh’ new books on contemporary topics into the handy shelf right behind my desk. As books grow stale and irrelevant, they are demoted to storage, and ultimately to the recycling bin.

Not infrequently, I’m nearly gleeful when disposing of passé books on disliked technologies, but the weeding process sometimes leaves me a bit wistful too, sad to see an old helpmate reach the end of its useful life.

One book that I long regarded as a dependable resource was also a longevity champ in my library: the Unix System Administration Handbook (USAH). The USAH was a reference mainstay of mine for years, entering my collection sometime around 1989 and staying a part of it for a good decade.

As Unix faded and Linux bloomed in the late ‘90s—and my duties followed suit— my USAH copy was replaced by the first edition of the Linux Administration Handbook (LAH), written by the same authors I had come to trust through my reliance upon the USAH. Now, it’s the LAH that’s on the way out, because it has been updated with a new, second edition, the subject of this month’s review.

Target Audience and Subject Overview

Most books I review are intended for a very specific audience; for those outside of that target group, the books are typically a waste of money and time. That’s not the case with the LAH, however—the book is appropriate for nearly anybody who works (or wants to work) with Linux.

The book should be useful to readers with skill-levels ranging from relative beginner to moderately advanced. A wide swath of the middle, if you will. Truly expert Linux users will certainly find it too elementary, and raw neophytes may find themselves in over their heads, but an otherwise enormous range of readers will find something of value in it.

It is worth noting though that the book is focused on server administration, and if you are primarily interested in desktop Linux, the book will miss the mark somewhat. For example, there is only the briefest discussion of KDE and GNOME, and a short look at the X-Windows system.

The author’s aim is to create a book that isn’t based on idealized Linux operations but the rough-and-tumble reality of using Linux in the real world. As such, there are frequent tips and comments that outline the ways in which various distros behave and misbehave, with all their quirks. In short, this is a book intended for active use ‘in the trenches.’

Authors

The authors collectively constitute something of a “Who’s Who” of the Linux world, right down to a brief forward by the man himself, Linus Torvalds.

The principal authors are Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, and Trent Hein.

Ms. Nemeth is a former professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado, Mr. Snyder an old *NIX hand with a background at Unix-flavored companies like NeXT(1) and Sun, and Mr. Hein a veteran IT admin, author, and lecturer—you might recall his name if you’ve been a USENIX attendee.

Other notable contributors include Tobi Oetiker, author of two of my favorite network diagnostics, MRTG and SmokePing (see sidebar for a link to these great tools)—and seasoned Unix and Linux admins Jeff Haemer and Lynda McGinley.

Simply put, the book is written by authors with broad and practical experience administering Linux.

The Book

The first thing you will notice about the book is that it is a thousand-page monster. Although I often find such massive books to be padded with useless or inaccurate information, that’s not the case here—the length is needed to do the subject justice considering that the book aims to be a canonical reference.

The book addresses topics and commands specific to the most common Linux Distros: RedHat Enterprise Linux 4.3, Fedora Core 5, SuSE Linux Enterprise 10.2, Debian/GNU 3.2, and Ubuntu 6.06.

I think this is an ideal selection of the distros most encountered in the Enterprise and SMB spaces. Regrettably, even though the book is just a few months old, the RedHat/Fedora family has jumped a major version step. Nonetheless, the guidance in the book is still completely applicable to these distributions.

The book is divided into three sections, as follows:

Section One covers basic Linux administration concepts, and opens with a look at the true fundamentals, such as a history of Linux and an overview of what it entails to be an admin. Later chapters in the section provide extensive discussions of the boot and shutdown processes, filesystem and attribute details, user management procedures, logging, backups, and software and configuration issues.

While this first section may at first glance appear painfully simple for experienced admins, I think it is necessary to make the book most useful to the widest readership, and I found it a fine refresher on basic commands and concepts. The authors don’t pull their punches; even if you think you know your stuff, you will find the detail in these chapters may well yield things you’ve forgotten, or maybe never even knew.

Section Two concentrates on the networking side of Linux. TCP/IP is covered in extraordinary depth, with solid discussions of routing, sharing, network management, debugging, and web hosting and serving.

Primary concepts and techniques of networking are delineated in this section as well, right down to elementary TCP/IP points like netmasks and subnetting. In my opinion, the authors should assume that readers understand the rudiments of networking, but nonetheless there is a plenty of good information specific to individual distros that make the section worthwhile, and as always, reviewing basics never hurts.

Chapter 15 is a terrific exposition of the wonderful world (ahem) of DNS. This is one of the strongest chapters in the book and one of the longest, too—even DNS gurus will pick up a thing or two here because of the remarkably realistic exposition of how DNS really works, as opposed to how it is supposed to work.

Chapter 18 covers email serving, and is genuinely exhaustive. Sendmail is relentlessly dissected, and I’m glad to see that Postfix is discussed as well, though not in as much detail.

Moving on, Section Three covers what could best be described as ‘everything else’, and is probably the section more experienced admins will turn to the most.

System maintenance and performance analysis are examined in-depth, and a (too) brief overview of daemons is offered. There is also a painstakingly complete chapter on printing management.

Some additional topics covered in this section are a bit unusual, such as the thermal and environmental problems encountered in server rooms. While that is not something I had anticipated to find in the book, it certainly lends credence to the author’s aim to cover every angle of system administration.

On that note, the final chapter (chapter 30) is a completely unexpected exploration of the role of Administrator and the politics surrounding the job, such as dealing with upper-management and keeping users happy. I suspect that if I had I read such a frank look—warts and all—at the challenges of life as an administrator when I was starting my career, I might have chosen another line of work! It’s a remarkably realistic look at the pitfalls and rewards of life in IT.

The closing chapter of the book, (Chapter 30) continues the theme of blunt realism by covering other important but non-technical themes such as the complexities of open-source licensing, legal issues for admins, and creating and implementing IT policies. It might be very interesting to use this chapter of the book as a basic test for new hires; I’d suggest that they read the end of the book first, and f they came back after reading it, I’d know they were serious about the job!

A few chapters in Section Three did leave me mildly disappointed: Chapter 26 (“Cooperating with Windows”) should be much longer, since I know few Linux administrators who have the luxury of living in a Linux-only environment. I also found the chapter on X-Windows too brief; even if the subject is more applicable to desktop Linux, I think it bears better explication.

I also initially found the chapter on Serial Devices utterly arcane; after all, who needs pin-out diagrams anymore? But on reflection I realized it’s one of those unsexy technologies that is still lurking absolutely everywhere. While the section may border on the unduly detailed, it is the kind of obscure information that just might save the day at a desperate moment.

Conclusion

Although I might have sliced-and-diced the material a bit differently (for example: more security, less email), overall I think the authors have done an exceptional job updating and expanding the original edition.

If you already own the first edition of the LAH, you may still find enough fresh material in the second edition to make it worth having. One thing’s certain though; if you don’t have a copy already and are looking for a general guide to Linux, the book is just about mandatory.

If there is such a thing as classics in the short-lived world of computing tomes, the Linux Administration Handbook is one. I know it will be on my reference shelf for a long time, or at least until the next edition comes out!

Publication Details:

Linux Administration Handbook, 2nd Edition
By E. Nemeth, G. Snyder, T. Hein, et al.
Published by Prentice-Hall, 2007
ISBN: 0-13-148004-9
1001 Pages
Cover Price $49.00, discounts available at publisher’s website.

Prentice-Hall Professional:
http://www.phptr.com/bookstore/index.asp

MRTG traffic Grapher and SmokePing:
http://tobi.oetiker.ch

[1] This is a gross simplification of the Unix family tree. I am conflating Linux, BSD, and various other terms but consider them all to have their genesis in Unix soil, hence ‘unix-flavored’.

Mr. Justen worked in broadcast engineering in the early 80’s and as the “electronics guy”, was assigned to support early PCs and embedded systems. Later, he became interested in graphics and publishing and became a full-time network administrator in the publishing field. Mr. Justen holds several computing industry certifications and specializes in support multi-platform environments.