Rating: 
Summary: Solid Book
Review: Great book to get you started with Linux Admin. Covers many issues a sys admin is expected to know. However it doesn't cover ftp. It just mentions it. It has a pretty good chapter on sendmail. To get your server up and running I would recommend Kabir's RedHat book. Stanfield's book will help you mantain the server. Don't miss the all new Linux Administration Handbook ISBN 0-13-008466-2.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Linux book bar none
Review: I found this book to be a wealth of information. The authors were extremely knowledgeable and I especially liked the fact that they gave recommendations on what worked best for them(real life practice). They covered several topics which you won't find in almost any other general linux book. Such as; Security - what to look for and how to prevent the most common attacks. The file system - good practices to use and why it is set up the way it is. I have several linux books some of them I have never made it past the 2nd chapter because I found it to be a bunch of fluff. Similar to someone trying to write a book summarizing the man pages. This book goes well beyond your typical "cliff notes" books and opens your eyes to why linux is the way it is and how to make the most of everyday usage. There is no doubt in time I will be buying the complete set of this series. If you are looking for the best linux book on the market, look no further. I have learned much thus far and will surely be using it daily as my number 1 reference.
Rating:
Summary: Keep going Vicki and Roderick! More, more more!
Review: I like this book because it is filled clearly written, easy-to-read information that gives a Linux neophyte a solid grounding in all the most common types of sysadmin and end-user tasks. I just wish there was more of it. Given previous customer reviews I was hoping for something with greater depth. I wish the authors would just keep up their excellent style of writing and organization, but go ahead and dive into the nuts and bolts, and not seem so concerned with keeping the size of the book down to something the editors deem reasonable. I have long had problems finding documentation, either in print, or online, that really gets into the nitty-gritty details of how commands like mkinitrd or insmod do their work, or exactly what a System.map file does and how and why you might make a custom version of one. Linux System Administration usually stops just short of going into these topics, explaining that they are beyond the scope of the book, and that, in most cases, the distribution's default settings for them should be fine. Yes, I do realize that what I'm asking for would have to be a 30-pound, 4000-page tome in three fat volumes, but that's what I want and that's what I would buy if it only existed--... It seems to me that there is a sea of information on the web and in print to help you get started in Linux, and that's really great. But there is a huge gulf between the information an entry-level sysadmin needs to know to get started and the knowledge-level a wizard needs to do kernel-hacking or to create a custom distribution. There is very little information available, free or otherwise, to help an intermediate-level kernel-hacker-wanna-be traverse it. I'm just wondering how on earth the people who create the distributions and packages and hack the kernel attain their level of expertise, because I can't find the ladders they used to get up there. But back to the book at hand. If you are "playing with" Linux and would like to learn how to do a good job of administering it for the most common types of uses on the most common types of hardware, this is the best book I've seen so far for you. If you're already reasonably comfortable performing most sysadmin tasks and want a book that will give you the depth of understanding you need to nail down obscure problems you're having with older or unusual hardware, you'll need something else. I'm not quite sure what. ESP, perhaps? To be born with the knowledge a priori? If anyone else knows, please give me an email.
Rating:
Summary: Well Written and Current
Review: Linux System Administration does a great job of covering a vast amount of Linux topics with just the right amount of detail for most users. This book appeals to a wide variety of readers, it is written in way that doesn't scare off newbies, but manages to have enough meat for experienced Linux users. The great thing about this book is it spends a fair amount of time explaining how to do things on a variety of distros. Parts of the book that stand out in my mind are the chapters dealing with kernel recompilation, scripting and security. The kernel recompilation chapter is by far the best material I've seen on the subject to date, it almost makes kernel recompilation sound too easy. The security chapter is good starting point for sysadmins that are new to Linux. The book also provides a nice little introduction to scripting, although if your going to be a Linux sysadmin, the Orielly books on bash and perl are a must. There were very few things that I didn't like about this book. One thing that stands out in my mind is the author's insistence on using paper journal books for logging system changes. With the proper backup procedures in place, a web based system log is a much more efficient way of keeping tracking of changes. Overall, the book is must read for anyone new to Linux and is also a good pickup for seasoned Linux users. I've been recommending this book over Running Linux as of late, since the Oreilly offering is showing its age.
Rating:
Summary: Finally I begin to understand Linux
Review: Microsoft's introduction of XP also introduced outrageous Microsoft user agreements I could never accept. Furthermore I was sick of Windows security issues, viruses, instability, and software conflicts. The GNU/Linux FREE as in freedom philosophy made sense to me, so I chose Linux FREEdom over Mac's wanna-be a monopoly world. A copy of Mandrake Linux sat on my shelf awaiting a Linux guru to help me install it, until late one night when Windows irrevocably crashed in the middle of a project I had to finish before bed. In a panic I installed Linux (along with a broad suite of apps) on an old hard drive I had, recovered my files from the Windows drive, and was working on my project again within 45 minutes. That was more than two years ago and I never looked back. I have a fast, stable, secure, virus free operating system with more and better apps than I could afford with Windows. However, until a month ago, when I bought a copy of Linux System Administration, I could only use Linux as if it was Windows or Mac. The full power of GNU/Linux is accessible through the shell command line, and this power was beyond my grasp. It wasn't that I hadn't tried. I bough half a dozen books about Linux in order to learn how to access and use this power. But the books I bought, though highly recommended, all required prerequisite knowledge I lacked, had no logical explanation, or they were too simplistic. Nor have I been able to find anyone to hold my hand through the process of learning the real power of Linux. Linux System Administration is exactly the book I needed. Linux System Administration is not in any way dumbed down. It is simply very good at introducing and explaining Linux. This is not a beginner's book inadequate to provide any real understanding. It is a solid book suitable for use by a Linux system administratior that a beginner can begin with. Linux System Administration is empowering me to be the system administrator of my computer and LAN (and more if I want to or need to). Linux System Administration is making available to me the FREEdom, control, and power that GNU/Linux is all about. I also recommend Linux In A Nutshell, and Linux Cookbook. Running Linux, recommended by "Linux Journal" (along with Linux System Administration and Linux In A Nutshell), had been beyond me, but maybe after I fully assimilate Linux System Administration I'll be able to make use of it.
Rating:
Summary: True Linux System Administration
Review: One of my Unix lab professors once said that Unix was so vast that one lifetime is not enough to really get to master all aspects of it. After reading several Unix/Linux books, this operating system still remained somewhat of a mystery. Thanks to the authors of this book, I can really say that I'm well on my way to a decent level of proficiency. No question, this book is of the highest quality. The material is presented and explained in such a way, you get a sense that the authors truly possess a profound understanding of the SA and Linux fields. The book tries to be distribution neutral by covering Redhat linux (vesion 6 to 7) and dishing out to other distributions (especially Debian) when things are done differently. Unlike other books that are recipe oriented or adaptations of technical documents, this is a true SA book because it helps you gain control of your Linux system.
Rating:
Summary: Brings the beginners to the next level...
Review: This book is perfect for the person who has been tinkering with Linux long enought to have started outgrowing the GUI based tools that the distros are spoon feeding users with. This book takes a reader who is ready to leave webmin or other "wizard" approaches behind and wants to take the bull (er... config files) by the horns and REALLY control their machines. The vendor/distro neutral coverage is fair and even handed, giving time to both Redhat based distros as well as Debian. If you are itching to stop having to point and click all over the place to change a line in a config file, and are ready to learn the faster, quicker, less error prone way... here you go! Become an SA :)
Rating: 
Summary: A dissapointement
Review: This book is way too basic for anyone wanting to do anything other than just run linux. It is missing a lot that should be present, for example, setting up local caching nameservers. Perhaps this is because there are other books in the series on these topics, but if this is intended to provide a good overview, it needs to have some coverage. I have found Advanced Linux Networking by Roderick Smith to be a better choice for information on managing linux systems.
Rating:
Summary: Linux Boot Process Clearly Explained
Review: This is the perfect book for someone who has a general understanding of Linux, but wants to know more about config files, the boot process and needs answers to questions that the sys-admin type of person has. This is definitely for someone who wants to know the core of Linux and how to do tasks in a more 'UNIX' kind of way. So when you boot up a company server, and discover that there's no X installed, you can accomplish what you need via the command-prompt. What I don't like about typical 'bible' or 'unlimited' types of Linux books is that they cover system configuration via the KDE or Gnome - which is totally useless if you're using one but not the other - or if you're not using either at all. This is an excellent book. It's well-written, so it's easy to follow for someone fairly new to Linux, but it's not patronizing. Best of all, it doesn't spend time on creating web pages, playing games or editing images - instead it focuses on what you'll really need, like compiling the kernel, troubleshooting a boot problem, user management, package installation and management, etc.
Rating: 
Summary: Is it worth the hype?
Review: Well, I picked up second edition of the book "Linux System Administration" soon after I read excellent "introductory" type of the book, "Linux for Windows Administrators" by Mark Minasi. It was a logical next step for Unix/Linux newbie like me to pick up more advanced guide for Linux SA. Now, I can only confirm that the book is worth the Linux Journal award in 2001 as being "One of the most indispensable Linux Books".
It's well written, thought technical dry and less fun to read than the book from Mr. Minasi!
The impression that I got is that book is geared more toward novices and beginners in the field of system administration (in general) than for some seasoned Unix sysadmin on her/his way to Linux. (If you're Windows admin that successfully installed Linux box or two, with solid general knowledge of the hardware than this book is for you!)
Book is organized in four parts (Basics, Managing Users and Processes, Networking and System Optimization) and as such covers most tasks and duties of Linux SA.
Layout of the book is nothing special, it's simple and with some unnecessary screenshots (like that of xrost and BRU screenshot, webmin) and lengthy scripts (such as sample netfilter startup file) - this kind of material belongs to appendix of the book.
Overall good book that you can use on a daily basis but not as a complete reference! I found book useful as a reminder of some basic principles and commands, which I later explore with the help of other books and online documentation. Have fun!
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