UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook: Nemeth, Evi, Snyder, Garth, Hein, Trent, Whaley, Ben, Mackin, Dan: 9780134277554: Amazon.com: Books

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“As an author, editor, and publisher, I never paid much attention to the competition―except in a few cases. This is one of those cases. The UNIX System Administration Handbook is one of the few books we ever measured ourselves against.”

―Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media

“This edition is for those whose systems live in the cloud or in virtualized data centers; those whose administrative work largely takes the form of automation and configuration source code; those who collaborate closely with developers, network engineers, compliance officers, and all the other worker bees who inhabit the modern hive.”

―Paul Vixie, Internet Hall of Fame-recognized innovator and founder of ISC and Farsight Security

“This book is fun and functional as a desktop reference. If you use UNIX and Linux systems, you need this book in your short-reach library. It covers a bit of the systems’ history but doesn’t bloviate. It’s just straight-forward information delivered in a colorful and memorable fashion.”

―Jason A. Nunnelley

UNIX^® and Linux^® System Administration Handbook, Fifth Edition, is today’s definitive guide to installing, configuring, and maintaining any UNIX or Linux system, including systems that supply core Internet and cloud infrastructure.

Updated for new distributions and cloud environments, this comprehensive guide covers best practices for every facet of system administration, including storage management, network design and administration, security, web hosting, automation, configuration management, performance analysis, virtualization, DNS, security, and the management of IT service organizations. The authors―world-class, hands-on technologists―offer indispensable new coverage of cloud platforms, the DevOps philosophy, continuous deployment, containerization, monitoring, and many other essential topics.

Whatever your role in running systems and networks built on UNIX or Linux, this conversational, well-written ¿guide will improve your efficiency and help solve your knottiest problems.

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From the Publisher

The #1 recommended book on UNIX

“Must have book for system administrators, straightforward, full of facts and examples.” —Admin's Choice, The Tech Magazine

"Veteran system administrators will enjoy filling gaps in their knowledge. The casual user will gain a deeper understanding of their system with this light, engaging, fun read." —Vikram Aggarwal, eggwall.com

"IMO, this book is, perhaps, the best book on Linux system administration." —Blake McBride, Amazon customer review

"I'm currently a comp sci / software engineering student with a mild interest in Linux/UNIX. I read this over the summer and could not put it down. This is all the stuff they *don't* teach you in a CS degree!" —Eric T. Fricke, Amazon customer review

"Hands down, the best book on Linux administration I've ever read! Trust me, I know what I'm talking about -- I've been a Linux user and system administrator since 1997." —Dragan Simic, Amazon customer review

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Evi Nemeth pioneered the discipline of UNIX system administration. She taught and mentored computer science students at the University of Colorado Boulder, was visiting faculty member at Dartmouth College and UC San Diego, and helped bring Internet technology to the developing world through her work with the Internet Society and the United Nations.

Garth Snyder has worked at NeXT and Sun and holds a BS in Engineering from Swarthmore College and an MD and an MBA from the University of Rochester.

Trent R. Hein (@trenthein) is a serial entrepreneur who is passionate about practical cybersecurity and automation. Outside of technology, he loves hiking, skiing, fly fishing, camping, bluegrass, dogs, and the Oxford comma. Trent holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Colorado.

Ben Whaley is the founder of WhaleTech, an independent consultancy. He was honored by Amazon as one of the first AWS Community Heroes. He obtained a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Dan Mackin’s (@dan_mackin) long-standing passion for technology inspired him to get a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He applies Linux and other open source technologies not only in his day job, but also to automation, monitoring, and weather metrics collection projects at home. Dan loves spending time with his wife and dog, skiing, movies, sailing, and backcountry touring.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Addison-Wesley Professional
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 8, 2017
Edition ‏ : ‎ 5th
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 1232 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0134277554
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0134277554
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.28 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.9 x 6.9 x 9 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #304,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Unix Administration
- #36 in Linux Networking & System Administration
- #76 in Cloud Computing (Books)
Customer Reviews:
720 ratings

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Dan Mackin
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Trent R. Hein
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Trent R. Hein is co-founder and CEO of AppliedTrust, a Colorado-based provider IT security and network/systems infrastructure consulting services that helps clients maximize their IT investment in the areas of security, performance, and availability. Trent has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the USENIX Association for his work with the University of California at Berkeley’s Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG), and he was the third engineer hired at Berkeley Software Design Inc. (BSDI). He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder, which in 2004 awarded him the Kalpana Chawla Outstanding Recent Alumni Award, one of the most prestigious honors given by the University. Trent served on the Board of Directors of the Humane Society of Boulder Valley for seven years, and held the office of President for the 2004–2005 term.
Follow Trent on Twitter: @trenthein
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Ben Whaley
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Ben is a passionate engineer with a formidable security bent and a healthy skepticism of the status quo. His many years of experience as a technical consultant have instilled in him a strong sense of customer advocacy and service. Ben is a technical writer, a public speaker, and is active in the Amazon Web Services community. In his personal life, Ben enjoys the outdoors, instrumental music, playing guitar, reading, and spending time with his wife and dogs.
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Customers find the book comprehensive and easy to read, with one review noting how complex ideas are explained clearly. They appreciate its humor and consider it the best resource for UNIX/Linux system administration.

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Content Writing style Symbio Humor

43 customers mention "Content"40 positive3 negative

Customers find the book comprehensive and well-researched, serving as a good reference material for IT professionals. One customer notes that the detailed knowledge is presented in an organized manner.

"...Great overview of the main Linux concepts with good examples for the more popular Linux OS's...." Read more

"Great reference." Read more

"...However, this is still the best system administration book. A summary of changes I noticed compared to the previous editions: -..." Read more

"As previous versions, this is an excellent book that is comprehensive and readable...." Read more

17 customers mention "Writing style"17 positive0 negative

Customers find the writing style of the book engaging, easy to read, and casual, with one customer noting that complex ideas are explained clearly.

"Believe the reviews - the casual and engaging writing style made this a breeze to follow...." Read more

"...and this does a good job of keeping highly technical information easy to read...." Read more

"...more than I, but their property file layout is clean, powerful, and simple. I have no problem with it...." Read more

"...a 9.7 inch (full size) iPad with the Kindle reader and it's very readable in this format!..." Read more

5 customers mention "Symbio"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book to be an excellent resource for UNIX and Linux system administration, with one customer describing it as the best guide in the field.

"Hands down the greatest Unix and Linux series (use term to refer to various revisions/editions) ever written...." Read more

"...Also there is a lot of stuff for more advanced Linux users. I read a lot of books on Linux and that book is still the best one." Read more

"Easily the best resource for a UNIX/Linux sysadmin." Read more

"THE Pratical Unix Gyide..." Read more

3 customers mention "Humor"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book humorous.

"Engaging and practical, with just enough humor to not be annoying...." Read more

"...The text is engaging and humorous. A great contrast from those usually bone-dry technical manuals...." Read more

"Extensive knowledge, written quality, strength of conviction and humor of authors..." Read more

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Blake McBride
Great book - could do without the personality
Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2022
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IMO, this book is, perhaps, the best book on Linux system administration. However, I could do without all the attitude (referring to comments about systemd). I am not connected with systemd or any other aspect of Linux system development. It appears systemd is becoming THE standard. Fine. Just tell me how to use it. I'm not interested in all of the personal attitudes.

systemd appears clean and powerful to me. No one dislikes Windows more than I, but their property file layout is clean, powerful, and simple. I have no problem with it. Please just stick to the facts and avoid the personalities.

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21 people found this helpful

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Strlli
Great book
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2024
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This will answer many questions, it's great for both learning and as a troubleshooting reference. If you don't find your answers here, chances are you'll at least be pointed in the right direction.

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One person found this helpful

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Claudio C.
Excelente!
Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2024
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El mejor libro de administración de sistemas tipo Unix que existe...

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J. Cogswell
great book!
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2017
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I purchased the Kindle edition of this book. I am reading it on a 9.7 inch (full size) iPad with the Kindle reader and it's very readable in this format! Like some of the other reviewers I also own earlier revisions of this book. I've never read one of them cover-to-cover, but when I need to understand a topic quickly these guys never disappoint! I test software running on Linux systems and as such I'm NOT a Linux system admin but I have root access to everything, so I need to understand a lot of UNIX and Linux system admin concepts. That's where this book helps me.and helps me to stay up to date.

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7 people found this helpful

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GearHead
THE Pratical Unix Gyide
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2021
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Indispensable reference for beginners and gurus alike. Covers everything you need to know about managing Unix systems. Useful and straightforward concepts, procedures and references.
Pros: Experienced authors writing about material they've been covering for years. Enormous amount of information, detailed instructions.
Cons: BIG! Takes a lot of pages to cover everything. Would love to have some of this material available online

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2 people found this helpful

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Grigory T.
this is still the best system administration book
Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2017
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I am a big fan of this book and I have all 5 editions of it.

The book covers RHEL 7.1, Ubuntu 17.04, Debian 9.0 and FreeBSD 11.0.
Ironically, the book has retained the "UNIX" word in the title, however all true Unix systems have been dropped (Solaris, AIX, HP-UX). Strictly speaking, there are no Unix systems described, as Linux and FreeBSD are Unix-like.

This book has always been known for a broad coverage of Unix-systems and a practical approach to system administration. For example, if you wanted to perform a typical administration task, such as adding a new disk in Solaris/AIX/HP-UX/IRIX, you needed only one book instead of tons of vendor documentation.
Even that HP-UX and Solaris are dying, these systems are still in use in large enterprises, and are likely to remain there for years. After dropping all systems except for Linux and FreeBSD, and shifting approach from practical administration this book is risking to turn into a just another Linux book that we have many around.
However, this is still the best system administration book.

A summary of changes I noticed compared to the previous editions:

- Boot chapter describes systemd
- Scripting chapter dropped Perl and added Ruby and GIT
- Much more on sudo (for example, explains how to configure sudo without password)
- Syslog chapter now includes rsyslog
- Web hosting chapter added Nginx and HAProxy

Completely new chapters:
- Configuration Management (Ansible and Salt)
- Containers (Docker)
- Continuous Integration and Delivery (DevOps, Jenkins)
- Cloud Computing (AWS)

DNS, E-mail, Networking and NFS chapters didn't change.

No more "Serial devices and terminals" chapter.
Quite strange to remove this traditional stuff from a UNIX book, keeping in mind that some server models still have only a serial port and no graphics card, so a terminal and a serial port is the only way to manage them.

Backups chapter has gone away! Hey, what's going on?
Tapes as transportable media and tape libraries are not going to die and will always be in use.
System administration without backups? It's a nonsense!
Looks like this book is not targeted at enterprise admins anymore.
Please return the backup chapter, it must be in the system administration book, and there is a space for it, keeping in mind that this edition is thinner than a previous one by 100-pages.

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174 people found this helpful

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Michael Jackson
Likely the best technical writing ever.
Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2021
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Engaging and practical, with just enough humor to not be annoying. It really is the gold standard, you will learn and understand linux so much better after reading.

Not a book for beginners! For people who are already familiar with the command line or develop on linux. It will take your sysadmin skills to that 2nd level where the neckbeards might accept you(probably not).

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10 people found this helpful

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Matthew Kalnins
Excellent resource for the current Linux computing environment.
Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2018
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As a few other people have pointed out, this book has dropped the Unix operating systems from previous editions - but in my opinion they've double downed on the more modern computing concepts for Linux operating systems, namely; Monitoring, Virtualization, Containerization, Configuration Management, Cloud Computing and Continuous Integration. Great overview of the main Linux concepts with good examples for the more popular Linux OS's.

This book really is a great resource if you work with Linux computers/servers at any capacity, but a must read for any future system administrators or Linux/DevOps engineers!

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D. Newton
Excellent general Linux reference
Reviewed in Australia on July 4, 2023
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This book is bound well, the print is clear, and the paper quality good: it should last well with use.
It is a very good general reference for Linux users. It is an updated book with many competent
contributors and I recommended it. If you only get one book about Linux you could not go wrong
buying this one.

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Paolo Nervi
Ottimo libro per avere una idea complessiva e generale su Linux
Reviewed in Italy on August 25, 2021
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Pro: utile, chiaro dettagliato in molti argomenti.
Contro: forse avrei approfondito un poco di più alcuni aspetti (docker, kubernetes).
Sintesi: lo ricomprerei.

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Geovani Teca
Fast delivery and in good condition
Reviewed in Poland on July 16, 2024
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Very fast delivery; the book arrived in good condition. Content-wise, the book might not be for beginners, but for those who have proficiency in Linux, that book is the bible. It covers not only Linux but adjacent concepts involving Linux, such as virtualization, CI/CD, and cloud. I highly recommend the book and the vendor.

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Geovani Teca

Fast delivery and in good condition

Reviewed in Poland on July 16, 2024
Very fast delivery; the book arrived in good condition. Content-wise, the book might not be for beginners, but for those who have proficiency in Linux, that book is the bible. It covers not only Linux but adjacent concepts involving Linux, such as virtualization, CI/CD, and cloud. I highly recommend the book and the vendor.

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RICARDO IBARRA
Información actualizada
Reviewed in Mexico on May 6, 2025
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UNIX and Linux System Administration

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Mohamed
It's great book l. Easy to read and use.
Reviewed in Germany on May 13, 2022
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The media could not be loaded.

It's great reference. It gives a practical guide to most of the commom problem, Also specific information for popular Linux destro like Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL.

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The #1 recommended book on UNIX

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Excellent and complete book for newbies to experienced Linux users

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5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent general Linux reference

5.0 out of 5 stars Ottimo libro per avere una idea complessiva e generale su Linux

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast delivery and in good condition

Fast delivery and in good condition

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5.0 out of 5 stars Información actualizada

5.0 out of 5 stars It's great book l. Easy to read and use.

Excellent general Linux reference

Ottimo libro per avere una idea complessiva e generale su Linux

Fast delivery and in good condition

Información actualizada

It's great book l. Easy to read and use.