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The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition

Thomas A. Limoncelli, Christina J. Hogan, Strata R. Chalup · 8 HN comments
HN Books has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention "The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition" by Thomas A. Limoncelli, Christina J. Hogan, Strata R. Chalup.
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Amazon Summary
The first edition of The Practice of System and Network Administration introduced a generation of system and network administrators to a modern IT methodology. Whether you use Linux, Unix, or Windows, this newly revised edition describes the essential practices previously handed down only from mentor to protégé. This wonderfully lucid, often funny cornucopia of information introduces beginners to advanced frameworks valuable for their entire career, yet is structured to help even the most advanced experts through difficult projects. The book's four major sections build your knowledge with the foundational elements of system administration. These sections guide you through better techniques for upgrades and change management, catalog best practices for IT services, and explore various management topics. Chapters are divided into The Basics and The Icing. When you get the Basics right it makes every other aspect of the job easier--such as automating the right things first. The Icing sections contain all the powerful things that can be done on top of the basics to wow customers and managers. Inside, you'll find advice on topics such as The key elements your networks and systems need in order to make all other services run better Building and running reliable, scalable services, including web, storage, email, printing, and remote access Creating and enforcing security policies Upgrading multiple hosts at one time without creating havoc Planning for and performing flawless scheduled maintenance windows Managing superior helpdesks and customer care Avoiding the "temporary fix" trap Building data centers that improve server uptime Designing networks for speed and reliability Web scaling and security issues Why building a backup system isn't about backups Monitoring what you have and predicting what you will need How technically oriented workers can maintain their job's technical focus (and avoid an unwanted management role) Technical management issues, including morale, organization building, coaching, and maintaining positive visibility Personal skill techniques, including secrets for getting more done each day, ethical dilemmas, managing your boss, and loving your job System administration salary negotiation It's no wonder the first edition received Usenix SAGE's 2005 Outstanding Achievement Award! This eagerly anticipated second edition updates this time-proven classic: Chapters reordered for easier navigation Thousands of updates and clarifications based on reader feedback Plus three entirely new chapters: Web Services, Data Storage, and Documentation
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Hacker News Stories and Comments

All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.
https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administratio...
packetslave
co-authored by a former Google SRE :)
peterwwillis
Yeah I skimmed this book, it's basically a For Dummies version of what I would hope to find.
packetslave
There's also the follow-on book, The Practice of Cloud System Administration, which is focused more on distributed systems.

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Cloud-System-Administration-...

As a sysadmin, I recommend Tom Limoncelli's "Practice" books:

- https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administratio...

- https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Cloud-System-Administration-...

springogeek
Thanks, I'll give these a look!
atsaloli
Great, you are welcome! :) I have a complete program for training sysadmins at http://verticalsysadmin.com/blog/training-program-to-make-a-...
Having a great Ops staff also helps ;) Of note is Thomas Limoncelli who wrote "The Practice of System and Network Administration" [1] and "Time Management for System Administrators" [2] works for Stack Exchange (formerly at Google). The Practice of System and Network Administration is basically the bible for most sysadmins, myself included.

ps. I only singled Thomas Limoncelli out as an example just to highlight the caliber of their Ops staff.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thoma...

carsongross
Violently agree.
skeletonjelly
Vehemently? Or do you want to punch someone?
carsongross
Violently.

It's funnier.

I think Stack Exchange has a secret weapon which will likely greatly improve their backend systems. Tom Limoncelli, who used to work at Google as a Site reliability engineer (SRE), now works at Stack Exchange [1]. He pretty much wrote the bible for sysadmins entitle "The Practice of System and Network Administration" [2]. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing more posts like this!

[1] http://everythingsysadmin.com/2013/09/the-team-im-on-at-stac...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321492668/tomontime-20

Fuxy
Wow that's cool I would love to work with those guys wouldn't be much help though only have basic Linux administration skills.
gsands
Keep learning and soon you will be beyond basic.

If you have passion, you will have plenty to offer.

There isn't a coherent course. The closest I have found to a coherent set of ideas is http://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration...

There's a rather large number of books you would have to pick up, if you wanted to go that way.

What follows is a set of guidelines, not rules. You want to know at least one scripting language (Perl, Python, Ruby), the Unix shell, and SQL. On the Windows side, you need to know Powershell, or equivalent scripting language.

You also need to grok logging, operating systems, and hardware to some level. (At least to be able to know when to make tradeoffs between space and access speed).

Knowing various models of IPC is useful (processes, threads, evented models).

You need to know networking (configuring a Cisco or Junpier device is a good, but not required skill). Knowing the fundamentals of routing, BGP, OSPF, IP, TCP, UDP, etc are essential.

Amongst common technologies, you need to know DNS, email, webservers, proxies, file storage and access.

Since you mentioned Quora, here's my answer to a similar question from there: http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-good-college-courses-for-...

Jul 30, 2011 · eneveu on Happy Sysadmin Day
I'm a programmer, but believe it's important to be well-rounded. To balance my programming skills with sysadmin skills, I've started reading "The Practice of System and Network Administration":

http://everythingsysadmin.com/aboutbook.html

http://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration...

The book was praised by multiple HN commenters ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1665915 for example), and I'm glad I listened to their advice. I've only read a few chapters so far (it's a big book!), but I already like it. It contains a lot of good insights, and I like that it's not focusing on a specific OS / platform. Also, you don't have to read it in a linear fashion, you can pick and choose chapters depending on your current needs (moving into a new data center? implementing a security policy?). Thumbs up.

I'm amazed nobody has mentioned the "Practice of System and Network Administration" book by Limoncelli and Hogan.

Highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration...

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