Linux System Administration

Do You Need a Book?

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Whether you just want to learn or actually have to learn, you’ll likely need some

help climbing the Linux power user curve. That’s exactly what we’re here for: to

help you explore the Linux system landscape without all the hardships our fore-

fathers experienced.

Where Do You Start?

This book summarizes the steps you need to follow to build standalone servers. If

you need to build a mail server, create a web server and blogging system, or set up a

gateway for your LAN, you can jump right into the middle of the book. You don’t

have to read Linux System Administration from cover to cover.

We start you working right away, presenting a step-by-step guide to building a Linux

server in Chapter 2. You can choose whatever path works for you, whether it involves

creating a highly available cluster for web services, server consolidation through virtu-

alization using Xen or VMware, or setting up a server for local area networks.

Running a modern operating system is incredibly cheap. You can set up a sophisti-

cated learning center for yourself on hardware that many sites would consider obso-

lete and give away for free. We started with a used box powered by an Intel CPU two

generations older than current models, added older versions of hard drives and mem-

ory, and went with a no-frills, free version of Linux.

Do You Need a Book?

Technical books have waned in popularity as the Internet ...