The Practice of System and Network Administration

This book revolves around six key principles of site design and support practices: simplicity, clarity, generality, automation, communication, and basics first. It examines the major areas of responsibility for system administrators within the context of these principles. The book also discusses change management and revision control, server upgrades, maintenance windows, and service conversions. Chapters are divided into 'The Basics' and 'The Icing'. 'The Basics' discusses the essentials that sysadmins have to get right to avoid problems and added work down the road. 'The Icing' deals with the cool things that sysadmins can do to be spectacular, but should only attempt once they've mastered the basics. The chapter format has been updated for increased usability: chapter summaries, future speculations sections, and further reading sections have been added, and the end of chapters questions have been updated. A lively, witty style and the use of anecdotes and case studies taken from the authors' personal experience all contribute to make this book an effective, instructive, and yet entertaining read.