Good book for a software developer doing part-time (Linux) system administration work [closed]
In many smaller organisations, developers often end up doing some system administration work (for obvious reasons). A lot of the time, they have great developer skills, but few system administration skills (perhaps all self-taught), and so have to learn as they go, which is fairly inefficient.
Are there canonical (or simply great) books that would help in this situation? More advanced than just using a shell (presumably a developer can do that), but not aimed at someone that hopes to spend many years doing this work.
Ideally, something fairly generic (although specific to a distribution would be OK), covering databases, networking, general maintenance, etc, not just one specific task.
For the most part, I'm interested in shell-based work (i.e. no GUI installed), although if there's something outstanding I'm missing, please point it out.
(As an analogy, replace "system administration" with C, and I'd want K&R, with C++ and I'd want Meyers' "Effective C++").
Solution 1:
limoncelli http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512gcuc0aWL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg
Practice of System and Network Administration is the only one you need in my opinion. You can find specific information about how to solve technical problems online. What this book gives you is a set of best practices and it makes it easier to adjust to the sysadmin point of view.
Solution 2:
Some books that helped me learn how to become a better system administrator over the years, in order that I'd recommend reading them today.
- The Practice of System and Network Administration
- Linux System Administration Handbook
- Time Management for System Administrators
You didn't say which language you develop in (though you allude to C/C++ with your analogy). A lot of system administrators focus their tool development on scripting languages like Ruby, Perl, Python or plain ol' Shell. Personally I like Ruby.
- Minimal Perl
- Programming Ruby
Solution 3:
Linux in a nutshell
Linux System Administration
There are some other good ones from O'Reilly too, but those two will cover most of the day to day Linux administrator things.
Solution 4:
I used to go to HowtoForge and Gentoo Wiki Tutorials for help on setting up some configurations - easy, concise, to the point.
Ubuntu server guide and Gentoo handbook however helped in getting a better grasp on how linux works.
At least these are the main resources I've used as a developer by day, sysadmin at night.