Linux Administration A Beginners Guide 5ed.pdf

WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK A part of the title of this book reads “A Beginner’s Guide”; this is mostly apt. But what the title should say is “A Beginner’s to Linux Administration Guide,” because we do make a few assumptions about you, the reader. (And we jolly well couldn’t use that title because it was such a mouthful and not sexy enough.) But seriously, we assume that you are already familiar with Microsoft Windows servers at a “power user” level or better. We assume that you are familiar with the terms (and some concepts) nece ssary to run a small- to medium-sized Windows network. Any experience with bigger networks or advanced Windows technologies, such as Active Directory, will allow you to get more from the book but is not required. We make this assumption because we did not want to write a guide for dummies. There are already enough books on the market that tell you what to click without telling you why; this book is not meant to be among those ranks. Furthermore, we did not want to waste time writing about information that we believe is common knowledge for power users of Windows. Other people have already done an excellent job of conveying that information, and there is no reason to repeat that work here. In addition to your Windows background, we assume that you’re interested in having more information about the topics here than the material we have written alone. After all, we’ve only spent 30 to 35 pages on topics that have entire books devoted to them! For this reason, we have scattered references to other books throughout the chapters. We urge you to take advantage of these recommendations. No matter how advanced you are, there is always something new to learn. We feel that seasoned Linux system administrators can also benefit from this book because it can serve as a quick how-to cookbook on various topics that may not be the seasoned reader’s strong points. We understand that system administrators generally have aspects of system administration that they like or loath. For example, backups is not one of the author’s favorite aspects of system administration, and this is reflected in the half a page we’ve dedicated to backups—just kidding, we’ve actually dedicated an entire chapter to backups.