The Complete Systems Administrator
Cross-Platform Manual Aimed at Equipping IT Professionals With No-Nonsense Solutions to Everyday Challenges

By Curt Freeland
Dwight McKay

The Complete Systems Administrator is a cross-platform manual aimed at equipping IT professionals with no-nonsense solutions to everyday challenges involved in installing, configuring, and maintaining today’s heterogeneous networks.

Information on mission-critical tasks, tools, and required skills is drawn directly from the authors’ collective 40+ years of experience as IT professionals, consultants, and educators. Extraordinarily complete coverage includes detailed, technical explanations for tackling real-life system administration issues that frequently arise in Windows and UNIX operating environments.

A host of examples, diagrams, and screen shots from current versions of OpenBSD, Linux, IRIX, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and MacOS X are provided to accelerate learning. Similarly, insightful discussions of system security tools, best practices for maintaining and improving system reliability, and tips and techniques for integrating a diverse collection of systems into a single, cohesive network are offered to save time and enhance productivity.

Whether used as the foundation of a technical library, a "go-to" professional reference, or a core text for students, The Complete Systems Administrator is the ideal choice for anyone seeking a single volume that covers all core responsibilities of the highly skilled professional.

Benefits:

• similarities and differences among popular operating systems are identified, enabling readers to leverage their knowledge of one system to quickly master other systems
• integrated discussion of security issues makes this key area of responsibility a part of every task, enabling users to take a direct approach to managing machines in a secure fashion
• examples and screen shots from real systems and actual situations reinforce key concepts, offering concrete advice, practical tips and sample solutions to typical problems
• an Instructor's Guide (also available) minimizes preparation time by providing educators/trainers with lab exercises, homework and exam questions, and URLs for other system administration reference materials

Contents:

Section I: Background and Basic Training
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: OS Concepts and Terminology
Chapter 3: Fundamental System Administration Tools

Section II: System Installation and Configuration Tasks
Chapter 4: System Boot and Shutdown Procedures
Chapter 5: Installing the OS
Chapter 6: Managing System Software
Chapter 7: System Devices
Chapter 8: Disks and Filesystems
Chapter 9: Serial Devices

Section III: System Management Tasks
Chapter 10: User Accounts
Chapter 11: Managing System Security
Chapter 12: Disk and File System Maintenance
Chapter 13: System Backups and Disaster Recovery
Chapter 14: Managing Printers

Section IV: Network Configuration Tasks
Chapter 15: Overview of Networking
Chapter 16: Network Configuration and Management
Chapter 17: Network Security (40 pages, 20 illustrations)

Section V: Network Service Tasks
Chapter 18: Network File Sharing
Chapter 19: Automating File Sharing
Chapter 20: Network Name Services
Chapter 21: Web Services
Chapter 22: Electronic Mail

Section VI: Advanced System Management Tasks
Chapter 23: Automating Administrative Tasks
Chapter 24: Performance Tuning

Section VII: Teaching Tools for System Administration

880 Pages - 7-3/8 x 9-1/4 in.