Traditionally, system administrators have had to rely on expensive course training and personal mentorship to learn the skills required for their jobs. These days, self-learning through books, practice on home computers, and computer-based training programs on the Web are taking a larger role in sysadmin education. My recommendation for aspiring Unix/BSD/Linux sysadmins has always been to put BSD or Linux on a spare computer and learn to set up services on their own by reading manual pages, tutorials, guides, and comprehensive books on each service. I urge sysadmins-in-training not to rely on any one seminar, class, article, guide, or book to form a solid system administration foundation. After reading O'Reilly's Linux System Administration, my opinion on that matter is further solidified.

Writing analysis

The quality of the writing in Linux System Administration is substandard. There are a few English errors scattered throughout, and there are many superfluous phrases that distance the reader from the point the authors are trying to make. Third-person pronouns are all female -- an unnecessary distraction in a book written to instruct people entering an obviously male-dominated field. It is also technically incorrect according to traditional English style rules. This is a common problem in O'Reilly books, attributable to one particular copyeditor: Rachel Wheeler.

From a content standpoint, the language the authors use is frequently dumbed down, as though they feared that using proper technical terms would confuse people who are learning to do the most technical of computer usage tasks. It felt like the authors were afraid of their own words, or like a non-technical editor altered the original technical content to make it easier for him to understand.

In terms of layout and structure, Linux System Administration is difficult to navigate. Some topics are split into pieces and mentioned in different levels of detail in different chapters. The chapters themselves are well-organized and are almost books (or more realistically, long articles) unto themselves.

Putting the book to the test

I don't agree with Linux System Administration's fundamental approach to teaching its namesake subject. First of all, there is very little discussion of the differences between server-appropriate Linux distributions. This is the first major decision that prospective Linux sysadmins need to make. Is it worth it to buy Red Hat Enterprise Linux? Is it better to use Debian or Slackware when setting up a given service? Why are some people so crazy about using Gentoo on a server? These and other similar fundamental questions needed to be answered in the introductory chapters.

Secondly, there is no significant discussion of the differences between Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Most of the tools and techniques the book teaches are valid on other platforms, but this is not explained in sufficient detail. It is likely that a professional Linux sysadmin will come in contact with a Solaris, BSD, AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, or Tru64 machine in his career. What does he need to know when dealing with these operating systems, coming from a (Debian, which is the authors' distro of choice) Linux background? The authors state in the introduction that one of their target audiences is Unix admins who want to move to Linux. That being the case, there should have been an appendix dedicated to Unix-to-Linux command translation and service migration.

This book will be unsatisfying for the technically curious; the technological discussions are too brief, and some processes are dumbed down. For instance, the authors recommend installing ISPConfig as a method of rapidly establishing a multi-function server. This is good advice, but it should be the last option listed, to be introduced only after readers understand how to install all of the necessary software from the distribution's package manager, how to hack config files by hand, and how to adjust startup scripts to accommodate the new services. Once this information is established, then it is appropriate to introduce ISPConfig and other management tools as ways of speeding up deployment and management. If readers can't do these things manually, they will be ill-equipped to adjust to new or unusual Linux operating environments.

Most disappointing about Linux System Administration is the complete lack of information about maintenance and basic performance tuning. The authors recommend installing Webalizer, for instance, but fail to inform readers that Webalizer will perpetually silently collect visitor information until the hard drive partition is entirely filled. Basic installation information for PHP and MySQL are given, but the authors don't tell us that the default settings are entirely inappropriate for a production environment. Even a small amount of traffic will cause errors because of low settings in the php.ini and my.cnf files. These are things that you do not want to have to troubleshoot on your own while your company is losing time, money, and traffic because you were under-educated.

Patching and upgrading the operating environment is a reality, but it's not appropriately covered in this book. Forget about security and scalability testing too -- the authors did not think these things were important enough to write about.

The chapters that deal with configuring specific services are very good at providing a basic introduction to installation. You can get Apache and Postfix up and running on a slightly-more-than-basic level after having read Linux System Administration.

Conclusions

Despite my criticism of this book, I feel that Linux System Administration can serve as a self-learner's first text on the subject, but only if they have much more in-depth resources to consult concurrently. It is by no means comprehensive, and does not provide the depth of information necessary to prepare readers for professional system administration work, but this book does provide an acceptable foundation on which more advanced sysadmin skills can be built.

Like the servers it teaches you to configure, Linux System Administration barely works on a basic level. I don't think it has lived up to its potential, though, and I expected much more from it. Perhaps the next edition will be more recommendation-worthy.

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Copyright 2007 JEM Electronic Media, Inc. No reprints without written permission.