Linux Bible, 2005 Edition

Administration

UNIX System Administrator's Bible

Format: Paperback
Author: Yves Lepage
ReleaseDate: July, 1998
Publisher: Wiley Publishing
Rating:

GoodResource for the Man Who Knows Nothing
One tends to think about "bibles" as definitive sources of information on a given subject (but now that I think of it, that can't be true. "The Unix Bible" might be overstating the case a little. Other wise, "The Holy Bible" would be the definitive source of all things Holy and people are still fighting over what should be included in it).

Nonetheless, this is an ideal resource for beginners who don't know one flavor of Unix from another. It's an easy read, a decent overview and will fill your head with enopugh Unix data to fake an interview.

So-So
It's not very good for applying to anything. This book was good for reviewing terms and concepts after leaving sysadm for a couple of years.

A very good book, slightly biased toward Solaris
And this book should not be you the first or the only Unix sysadmin book. It's impossible to cover everything about Unix in one book. I think that book devoted to a particular flavor of Unix (one that you are using) should be the first one. But this is a very good general book and it does contain information that other books often miss to cover. IMHO the book is slightly biased toward Solaris. A couple of chapters would be interesting for a professional of any level and that IMHO more than justify the cost of the book.

For example I especially like Ch. 5 (TCP/IP networking), Ch. 7 (Administration Roles and Strategies) and Ch 19 (Setting up DNS server). Your mileage may vary.

I think the biggest success of the book is Chapter 7: Administration Roles and Strategies. That chapter is a must for a novice sysadmin and is very useful for professionals too. Another interesting part of the book is a very educating case study (a non-trivial POP client troubleshooting case) in the chapter 13.

It's one of the best general books on Unix administration.