Shell Scripting: Expert Recipes for Linux, Bash, and More

Chapter 14

Tools for Systems Administration

System administration is the most common task to which shell scripting is put. Many of the commands in Unix and Linux exist to configure the system itself, so it is not surprising that the majority of scripts are written for that purpose. This chapter aims to give some real-world examples of how these commands can be used and, particularly, how they can be used effectively within shell scripts to automate, extend, and simplify system administration tasks. It also discusses some of the pitfalls and gotchas associated with the tools, and how they are actually used in real life. This should give a solid foundation for the rest of the book, which consists of full, in-depth recipes, focusing more on what the recipes actually do than on the underlying tools themselves.