2. Scripting and the Shell

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Good system administrators write scripts. Scripts standardize and automate the performance of administrative chores and free up admins’ time for more important and more interesting tasks. In a sense, scripts are also a kind of low-rent documentation in that they act as an authoritative outline of the steps needed to complete a particular task.

In terms of complexity, administrative scripts run the gamut from simple ones that encapsulate a few static commands to major software projects that manage host configurations and administrative data for an entire site. In this book we’re primarily interested in the smaller, day-to-day ...

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