Solaris Solutions for System Administrators

by Sandra Henry-Stocker and Evan R. Marks

Make the most of your Solaris environment with these proven strategies, tips and techniques Unix is the champion among operating systems for enterprise computing, and hundreds of thousands of companies depend on its most popular version--Solaris. But this big, complicated OS has its share of imperfections and vagaries, and even seasoned Solaris systems administrators need pointers on how to work around them. Written by two long time Sun sysadmins,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471348104
• ISBN13: 9780471348108
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Review fromJune 2000 SysAdmin Magazine

This review says it all!"A systems administrator's position typically encompasses two major areas: system installation and maintenance. Installation may only be required (depending on the specific situation) when a system is changed or upgraded. Maintenance includes everything else from daily routine tasks such as monitoring disk space, through shell programming and documentation, to backup and recovery. Additionally, today's systems administrators may also become network administrators, Webmasters, and security experts. Each operating system employs a unique set of procedures and most administrators utilize their own mixture of techniques and shortcuts for similar tasks. In Solaris Solutions for System Administrators, authors Sandra Henry-Stocker and Evan R. Marks provide essential information about the tasks, concepts, and corresponding implementations required for a Solaris system administrator. The topics are separated into four major parts: Setting Up Your Solaris Infrastructure, Managing Your Systems, Looking After Your Hardware, and Surviving in the Real World. The first section is also the most comprehensive, as the authors illustrate how to customize a manageable network. They define what a manageable network is in the introduction:"A manageable network is not one that runs flawlessly, but one in which there is time and capacity enough to resolve each problem without major disruption." [Page 1]Beginning with that realistic goal, Henry-Stocker and Marks detail the Solaris infrastructure through the following eight chapters: Making Smart Decisions about File Systems, Planning Backups and Restores, Booting and Hardware Diagnostics, Configuring Run States, Installing and Patching Your Solaris System, Exploiting JumpStart, Setting Up Name Services, and Network Information Services: NIS+ and NIS. These chapters not only discuss the elementary Solaris configuration, but also describe the basic tenets of networking design.The second section, Managing Your Systems, features: Monitoring Your Environment, Understanding File Systems - So That's What Those Are!, Automating Everything...Well, Almost!, Keeping Your Solaris Systems Secure, and Implementing High Availability: Eliminating Single Points of Failure. This section reviews the factors that affect system performance and demonstrates how to customize the data for your individual setup, whether through a commercial package or Solaris utilities. The authors document the locations of log files and other pertinent information, discuss scripting choices, security alternatives, and high-availability theory and practices. The following section, Looking After Your Hardware, analyzes Maintaining Your Sun Hardware, Peripheral Vision: Understanding and Configuring Other Hardware, and the E10000 (Starfire) - Not Just A Big UNIX Box! Henry-Stocker and Marks discuss problems that can interrupt service, how to configure printers and modems, and procedures for Sun's E10000 computer.The concluding section, Survi

A COPY OF THE INDEX--CHECK IT OUT!

Understand Unix and want to dig deeper into Solaris Admin? Then this is the book for you. I love this book--it is my new bible and I study it every chance I get. Well written. I had been using Unix for a long time but was weak in Sys Admin. Partly because I didn't have a good reference. Without a knowledge of the boot process, diaganostic tools, I felt I had a major weakness in this area. I looked around for a book that would fill this need and was very happy to find this book. I especially liked the chapter on setting up an Internet site. I listed the index below, since it's one thing I like to read before purchasing a book. Hope this helps you make your decision. The Index:1. Making Smart Decisions About File Systems2. Planning Backups and Restores3. Booting and Hardward Diagnotics4. Configuring Run States5. Installing and Patching your Solaris System6. Exloring Jumpstart7. Setting up Name Services8. Network Information Services NIS+ and NIS9. Monitoring your Environment10. Understanding File Systems--So that's what those are!11. Automate everything..Well almost!12. Keeping your Solaris Systems Secure13. Implementing High Availability: Eliminating Single Points of Failure14. Maintaining your Sun Hardware15. Peripheral Vision: Understanding and Configuring Other Hardware16. The E10000 (Starfire)--Not Just a Big Unix Box17. Running an Internet Site18. Coexisiting with the Evil Empire (Windows)

Fascinating book

I thoroughly recommend this book! It is perfect for anyone who works with Solaris, Unix, or Sun hardware. There are tidbits for everyone. For me, I found the chapter on the E10K the most interesting. Since I only work with the lower enterprise machines, I was fascinated by the descriptions of what administering and working with 10K's were like. As for technical details, I'd probably look through other books. (Manuals from Sun would work.) This book gives a lot of general guidance on how systems should be run and what administrators should concern themselves with (i.e. security issues- tcp wrappers, tripwire, etc.). They definitely know what they are talking about. As for who should read it... Well, I think most System Admins should read it for learning what path they should take to make life easier. As for other people, it's a good reference on what professional admins should be doing.

First sattisfying Solaris admin book

Finally they made a propper Solaris admin book, but of course not from Sun. It deals with nearly every topic (even shortly with NIS+, which all other authors avoid,), has a practical approach and realy talks about real life problems and there solutions. Lately I had some printer problems which the book helped me to solve, and this is unusal. I cannot propperly explain why the book is good, but from admin to admin I'd just say, it's the best book so far about this topic.

Excellent book for rookies to the most experienced.

As a mid-level member (6 yrs. experience)of a team that combines over 45 yrs. experience we found this book to be unique in that it's informative for both the rookies on the team and the senior members. Chapters 6 and 11, on JumpStart and Automation were awesome. The Diagnostic, and Backup and restore stuff as well... This book is useful to push the boundries of what we're doing and also as a reference book, and a get-acquinted book. Very well rounded.