Essential System Administration 3e

Its a second hand book yet the quality seems good

This is a really nice book for those who want to learn a lot of system administration, not only Unix/Linux concepts.

Good book for anyone who wants to learn and understand Linux

I think the only reason I ultimately had to give this book a 4 star rating instead of a 5 star rating is just the date of the last publishing which is pushing on 13 years now. Most of the core areas of *nix administration are covered and each section goes into quite a bit of detail, but I've already found tools being used that have been outmoded by new tools available to the modern Linux user.But outside of that, and that's kind of a nitpick it's always good to learn the history and fundamentals in software, this book hits on the areas that you are most likely to run into in a system administrator position, and since it's not JUST about Unix,or Linux, but rather about * nix systems in general, it seems like a well rounded book. I like the fact that the chapters are organized into TASK areas, and then get into the details about how to do that task effectively and what's important about that task. It really speed things up if you have already outgrown your "first" Linux book (for beginners).You could go into this as a beginner, but I'd recommend "How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know" if you just want to get a handle on what a modern Linux system is and you want to start from scratch.This books should probably be a second or third choice, but it's a solid buy and there is a TON of material here in those 1077 pages!Also, you may also want to check out 'Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook". I couldn't really say which is better, probably the latter, but I'm glad I have both because Linux is a HUGE subject and it's nice to have complementary material. I would say that this book really hits on the major areas of *nix administration in a logical easy to follow way. But on the other hand, the other title mentioned above goes into a ton of specific areas and covers a lot of newer tools and is more Linux focused.If I HAD to choose between this one or the "handbook" above, I'd go with the latter, but if you can afford it, get BOTH because they do approach different materials and in their own way.

Money well spent. I work in an environment where we actively support Solaris, AIX, Oracle Enterprise Linux, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems. When I took my current job, I was experienced with Linux and was very comfortable with the OS. I had some familiarity with AIX, but not near the comfort level that I had with RHEL. I had hardly any experience with Solaris.This book has enabled me to perform at a high level supporting the Solaris and the AIX operating systems. I have this book on my work laptop and I can access it as easily as I can access google from my laptop. Everything you need to know to support these operating systems as a systems admin/engineer is at the click of your mouse.Again, money well spent

As I first saw this book I was a little frustrated about the 1150 pages. ;-)But now a month later I can tell that it was more than worth the time reading it. Beyond the classical view of system administration You will gain a very deep understanding not only how thing work but also why they work the way they do.A lot of historical information help understand the techniques applied in daily admin-work and long term planing of larger systems and networks.What is covert:Networking (protocolls, Services (DNS, DHCP etc.) email, monitoring, etc. ),Security,Backup & Recovery,Serial devices,Printers,KernelconfigurationAccounting and user / groupmanagementScripting techniquesand all these for FreeBSD, Tru64, Linux, HP-UX, AIX and Solaris based systemsand the 7 administrative virtues => You have to read the book to find out more. It's worth the time !!The writing style is extremly convenient not only for the humorous look at the liaison of users & administrators and droughty technical aspects.