A Beginners Guide
ISBN: 0072262591
Pages: 620
Publisher: McGraw Hill
Topic: Linux
Rating: 
– (3 out of 5)
‘Linux Administration’ covers setting up and using Linux as a server rather than using Linux as a desktop operating system, it covers Red Hat and Suse Linux releases.
‘Linux Administration’ begins with how to install Linux in a server configuration and emphasises is placed on the Fedora Core release for this, after this the book describes how to install extra packages and software.
The book continues by introducing you to the command line by covering many different command line functions, and how to manage users and accounts on Linux. Shutting down and booting up the server is also given its own chapter as well as core system services and how to compile the linux kernel itself are also included.
The next sections of the book include more of the networking side, by covering TCP/IP, configuring the linux firewall and other topics on security.
Part IV of the book covers Internet Services, and details how to set up and understand DNS and how to set up FTP from your Linux server. There is a brief overview of setting up Apache with Linux, but this is quite a small chapter and could have been a bit larger. The final section in this part covers email, and how to set up a POP server and SMTP (Postfix) as well as SSH.
The final section is all about using your Linux server as an intranet. The chapters are split into the Network File System, Samba, LDAP, Printing, DHCP and Backups.
‘Linux Administration’ is subtitled ‘A Beginner’s Guide’ and I think that the content is about right for a beginner using Linux. The only problem is that some topics don’t go into enough depth, so the beginner reader will have to go to other books in order to learn more.
Overall though ‘Linux Administration’ is a good book which manages to cram in a wide range of topics which all Linux beginners need to now especially if they are setting up a machine to run Linux as a server.