Essential System Administration, 3rd Edition
This book assumes that you are familiar with Unix user commands: that you know how to change the current directory, get directory listings, search files for strings, edit files, use I/O redirection and pipes, set environment variables, and so on.
Essential System Administration, 3rd Edition
Chapter 1. Introduction to System Administration
Section 1.1. Thinking About System Administration
Section 1.2. Becoming Superuser
Section 1.3. Communicating with Users
Section 1.4. About Menus and GUIs
Section 1.5. Where Does the Time Go?
Chapter 2. The Unix Way
Section 2.1. Files
Section 2.2. Processes
Section 2.3. Devices
Chapter 3. Essential AdministrativeTools and Techniques
Section 3.1. Getting the Most from Common Commands
Section 3.2. Essential Administrative Techniques
Chapter 4. Startup and Shutdown
Section 4.1. About the Unix Boot Process
Section 4.2. Initialization Files and Boot Scripts
Section 4.3. Shutting Down a Unix System
Section 4.4. Troubleshooting: Handling Crashes and Boot Failures
Chapter 5. TCP/IP Networking
Section 5.1. Understanding TCP/IP Networking
Section 5.2. Adding a New Network Host
Section 5.3. Network Testing and Troubleshooting
Chapter 6. Managing Users and Groups
Section 6.1. Unix Users and Groups
Section 6.2. Managing User Accounts
Section 6.3. Administrative Tools for Managing User Accounts
Section 6.4. Administering User Passwords
Section 6.5. User Authentication with PAM
Section 6.6. LDAP: Using a Directory Service for User Authentication
Chapter 7. Security
Section 7.1. Prelude: What's Wrong with This Picture?
Section 7.2. Thinking About Security
Section 7.3. User Authentication Revisited
Section 7.4. Protecting Files and the Filesystem
Section 7.5. Role-Based Access Control
Section 7.6. Network Security
Section 7.7. Hardening Unix Systems
Section 7.8. Detecting Problems
Chapter 8. Managing Network Services
Section 8.1. Managing DNS Servers
Section 8.2. Routing Daemons
Section 8.3. Configuring a DHCP Server
Section 8.4. Time Synchronization with NTP
Section 8.5. Managing Network Daemons under AIX
Section 8.6. Monitoring the Network
Chapter 9. Electronic Mail
Section 9.1. About Electronic Mail
Section 9.2. Configuring User Mail Programs
Section 9.3. Configuring Access Agents
Section 9.4. Configuring the Transport Agent
Section 9.5. Retrieving Mail Messages
Section 9.6. Mail Filtering with procmail
Section 9.7. A Few Final Tools
Chapter 10. Filesystems and Disks
Section 10.1. Filesystem Types
Section 10.2. Managing Filesystems
Section 10.3. From Disks to Filesystems
Section 10.4. Sharing Filesystems
Chapter 11. Backup and Restore
Section 11.1. Planning for Disasters and Everyday Needs
Section 11.2. Backup Media
Section 11.3. Backing Up Files and Filesystems
Section 11.4. Restoring Files from Backups
Section 11.5. Making Table of Contents Files
Section 11.6. Network Backup Systems
Section 11.7. Backing Up and Restoring the System Filesystems
Chapter 12. Serial Lines and Devices
Section 12.1. About Serial Lines
Section 12.2. Specifying Terminal Characteristics
Section 12.3. Adding a New Serial Device
Section 12.4. Troubleshooting Terminal Problems
Section 12.5. Controlling Access to Serial Lines
Section 12.6. HP-UX and Tru64 Terminal Line Attributes
Section 12.7. The HylaFAX Fax Service
Section 12.8. USB Devices
Chapter 13. Printers and the Spooling Subsystem
Section 13.1. The BSD Spooling Facility
Section 13.2. System V Printing
Section 13.3. The AIX Spooling Facility
Section 13.4. Troubleshooting Printers
Section 13.5. Sharing Printers with Windows Systems
Section 13.6. LPRng
Section 13.7. CUPS
Section 13.8. Font Management Under X
Chapter 14. Automating Administrative Tasks
Section 14.1. Creating Effective Shell Scripts
Section 14.2. Perl: An Alternate Administrative Language
Section 14.3. Expect: Automating Interactive Programs
Section 14.4. When Only C Will Do
Section 14.5. Automating Complex Configuration Tasks with Cfengine
Section 14.6. Stem: Simplified Creation of Client-Server Applications
Section 14.7. Adding Local man Pages
Chapter 15. Managing System Resources
Section 15.1. Thinking About System Performance
Section 15.2. Monitoring and Controlling Processes
Section 15.3. Managing CPU Resources
Section 15.4. Managing Memory
Section 15.5. Disk I/O Performance Issues
Section 15.6. Monitoring and Managing Disk Space Usage
Section 15.7. Network Performance
Chapter 16. Configuring and Building Kernels
Section 16.1. FreeBSD and Tru64
Section 16.2. HP-UX
Section 16.3. Linux
Section 16.4. Solaris
Section 16.5. AIX System Parameters
Chapter 17. Accounting
Section 17.1. Standard Accounting Files
Section 17.2. BSD-Style Accounting: FreeBSD, Linux, and AIX
Section 17.3. System V-Style Accounting: AIX, HP-UX, and Solaris
Section 17.4. Printing Accounting
Afterword The Profession of System Administration
- SAGE: The System Administrators Guild
- Administrative Virtues
Appendix A. Administrative Shell Programming
Section A.1. Basic Syntax
Section A.2. The if Statement
Section A.3. Other Control Structures
Section A.4. Getting Input: The read Command
Section A.5. Other Useful Commands
Section A.6. Shell Functions
Organization of the book
The first three chapters of the book provide some essential background material required by different types of readers. The remaining chapters generally focus on a single administrative area of concern and discuss various aspects of everyday system operation and configuration issues.
Chapter 1 describes some general principles of system administration and the root account. By the end of this chapter, you'll be thinking like a system administrator.
Chapter 2 considers the ways that Unix structure and philosophy affect system administration. It opens with a description of the man online help facility and then goes on to discuss how Unix approaches various operating system functions, including file ownership, privilege, and protection; process creation and control; and device handling. This chapter closes with an overview of the Unix system directory structure and important configuration files.
Chapter 3 discusses the administrative uses of Unix commands and capabilities. It also provides approaches to several common administrative tasks. It concludes with a discussion of the cron and syslog facilities and package management systems.
Chapter 4 describes how to boot up and shut down Unix systems. It also considers Unix boot scripts in detail, including how to modify them for the needs of your system. It closes with information about how to troubleshoot booting problems.
Chapter 5 provides an overview of TCP/IP networking on Unix systems. It focuses on fundamental concepts and configuring TCP/IP client systems, including interface configuration, name resolution, routing, and automatic IP address assignment with DHCP. The chapter concludes with a discussion of network troubleshooting.
Chapter 6 details how to add new users to a Unix system. It also discusses Unix login initialization files and groups. It covers user authentication in detail, including both traditional passwords and newer authentication facilities like PAM. The chapter also contains information about using LDAP for user account data.
Chapter 7 provides an overview of Unix security issues and solutions to common problems, including how to use Unix groups to allow users to share files and other system resources while maintaining a secure environment. It also discusses optional security-related facilities such as dialup passwords and secondary authentication programs. The chapter also covers the more advanced security configuration available by using access control lists (ACLs) and role-based access control (RBAC). It also discusses the process of hardening Unix systems. In reality, though, security is something that is integral to every aspect of system administration, and a good administrator consciously considers the security implications of every action and decision. Thus, expecting to be able to isolate and abstract security into a separate chapter is unrealistic, and so you will find discussion of security-related issues and topics in every chapter of the book.
Chapter 8 returns to the topic of networking. It discusses configuring and managing various networking daemons, including those for DNS, DHCP, routing, and NTP. It also contains a discussion of network monitoring and management tools, including the SNMP protocol and tools, Netsaint, RRDTool, and Cricket.
Chapter 9 covers all aspects of managing the email subsystem. It covers user mail programs, configuring the POP3 and IMAP protocols, the sendmail and Postfix mail transport agents, and the procmail and fetchmail facilities.
Chapter 10 discusses how discrete disk partitions become part of a Unix filesystem. It begins by describing the disk mounting commands and filesystem configuration files. It also considers Unix disk partitioning schemes and describes how to add a new disk to a Unix system. In addition, advanced features such as logical volume managers and software striping and RAID are covered. It also discusses sharing files with remote Unix and Windows systems using NFS and Samba.
Chapter 11 begins by considering several possible backup strategies before going on to discuss the various backup and restore services that Unix provides. It also covers the open source Amanda backup facility.
Chapter 12 discusses Unix handling of serial lines, including how to add and configure new serial devices. It covers both traditional serial lines and USB devices. It also includes a discussion of the HylaFAX fax service.
Chapter 13 covers printing on Unix systems, including both day-to-day operations and configuration issues. Remote printing via a local area network is also discussed. Printing using open source spooling systems is also covered, via Samba, LPRng, and COPS.
Chapter 14 considers Unix shell scripts, scripts, and programs in other languages and environments such as Perl, C, Expect, and Stem. It provides advice about script design and discusses techniques for testing and debugging them. It also covers the Cfengine facility, which provides high level automation features to system administrators.
Chapter 15 provides an introduction to performance issues on Unix systems. It discusses monitoring and managing use of major system resources: CPU, memory, and disk. It covers controlling process execution, optimizing memory performance and managing system paging space, and tracking and apportioning disk usage. It concludes with a discussion of network performance monitoring and tuning.
Chapter 16 discusses when and how to create a customized kernel, as well as related system configuration issues. It also discusses how to view and modify tunable kernel parameters.
Chapter 17 describes the various Unix accounting services, including printer accounting.
Appendix A covers the most important Bourne shell and bash features.
Afterword contains some final thoughts on system administration and information about the System Administrator's Guild (SAGE).