New Administrator Recommendations

hello,

I was recently hired by an ISP to maintain, support and manage their
internet services network. I am being trained, however I want to try and
get a leg up and do the best I can.

All of the servers are running on debian servers and routers and we provide
all of the standard services:

- POP, IMAP via qmail
- DNS - bind
- Web hosting
- Offsite backup for companies - rsync
- Spam filtering - spamassassin
- Internet popup blocking - squid
- etc

You get that idea. I have played and used all of the software and I have a
formal CS background. However, the network is a bit intimedating for me :)
I was wondering if anyone knew any good books that cover some of the
techniques that I'll be using for maintaining this monster (the network has
been hacked together in every crazy way possible. That's why they hired
someone who would take over it). Kind of System Administrator fundamentals
and practically applicable to real problems. I've went through a lot of
HOWTO's and spent countless hours in man pages, but I'm looking for
something a little more coarse-grained and real-world applicable to
complicated systems.

I've scoured amazon a good bit and I've come up with:

- Automating Unix and Linux Administration -- by Kirk Bauer
- Building Internet Firewalls (2nd Edition) by Elizabeth D. Zwicky
- LINUX TCP/IP Network Administration by Scott Mann
- Linux Administration Books (Craig Hunt Linux Library)
- Linux Network Administrator's Guide (2nd Edition) by Terry Dawson

What books are real bibles on you folks desk? (besides the real bible of
course ;)

Jeremy S Lowery

Wow. I have experience and I can't even land a job as a volunteer.
Where is this ISP located, Bangalor?

Anyway. As a "Bible" I'm quite fond of "The Linux Administration
Handbook" by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, and Trent Hein.

Jeff

Jeremy S Lowery wrote:
> hello,
>
> I was recently hired by an ISP to maintain, support and manage their
> internet services network. I am being trained, however I want to try and
> get a leg up and do the best I can.
>
> All of the servers are running on debian servers and routers and we provide
> all of the standard services:
>
> - POP, IMAP via qmail
> - DNS - bind
> - Web hosting
> - Offsite backup for companies - rsync
> - Spam filtering - spamassassin
> - Internet popup blocking - squid
> - etc
>
> You get that idea. I have played and used all of the software and I have a
> formal CS background. However, the network is a bit intimedating for me :)
> I was wondering if anyone knew any good books that cover some of the
> techniques that I'll be using for maintaining this monster (the network has
> been hacked together in every crazy way possible. That's why they hired
> someone who would take over it). Kind of System Administrator fundamentals
> and practically applicable to real problems. I've went through a lot of
> HOWTO's and spent countless hours in man pages, but I'm looking for
> something a little more coarse-grained and real-world applicable to
> complicated systems.
>
> I've scoured amazon a good bit and I've come up with:
>
> - Automating Unix and Linux Administration -- by Kirk Bauer
> - Building Internet Firewalls (2nd Edition) by Elizabeth D. Zwicky
> - LINUX TCP/IP Network Administration by Scott Mann
> - Linux Administration Books (Craig Hunt Linux Library)
> - Linux Network Administrator's Guide (2nd Edition) by Terry Dawson
>
> What books are real bibles on you folks desk? (besides the real bible of
> course ;)
>
> Jeremy S Lowery

"horsager(at)comcast(dot)net" <"horsager(at)comcast(dot)net"> wrote:

> Wow. I have experience and I can't even land a job as a volunteer.
> Where is this ISP located, Bangalor?

Not quite, but close..the deep south. Where I'm from (a small town), setting
up Outlook for POP3 requires technical godliness. There's knowledgable
people around but they've already got jobs :)

Jeremy

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 21:35:00 -0600, Jeremy S Lowery
<jlowery@internetpro.net> wrote:

>I was wondering if anyone knew any good books that cover some of the
>techniques that I'll be using for maintaining this monster (the network has
>been hacked together in every crazy way possible. That's why they hired
>someone who would take over it). Kind of System Administrator fundamentals
>and practically applicable to real problems.

>- Automating Unix and Linux Administration -- by Kirk Bauer

Sounds like a good book. Get cfengine and use it (it's covered in
this book).

>- Building Internet Firewalls (2nd Edition) by Elizabeth D. Zwicky

Recommended!

Other books I would recommend:

- Practical UNIX and Internet Security by Garfinkel and Spafford.
- UNIX in a Nutshell by Arnold Robbins.
- Linux in a Nutshell by Siever, Figgins, & Weber.
- Essential System Administration, by AEleen Frisch

Then there are the specific handbooks for various different items.
There are books on everything, and a ghastly number of the best of the
best are at O'Reilly. Go to http://www.oreilly.com and check it out,
or go to http://www.safaribooksonline.com/ and read any of them online
for a decent price per year.

>What books are real bibles on you folks desk? (besides the real bible of
>course ;)

Nothing compares to the real thing.

David Douthitt (david@douthitt.net)
UNIX System Administrator
HP-UX, Unixware, Linux
Linux+, LPIC-1