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Linux Sysops Handbook

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Re: Linux Sysops Handbook

#21

Post by throwaway984393 »

anonymousiam wrote: post #15
geocrasher wrote: post #5

This is definitely a quick reference, definitely short, and definitely missing a ton of things. And it's awesome. This is just the thing a new Linux user needs to start understanding the ecosystem.

My first impression as well. You could take some IT grad and give them this handbook and then they would be dangerous, but not very effective. Back in the day, when I was first exposed to Unix (on Sun3), one of the sysadmins pointed me to the 'man' feature. After a while I figured out that I could do a man -k - to get a list of all the man pages (because the summary for each page includes a '-'). So I did that and pr…

Ha, I never knew about man -k - until now, and I've been doing this for 20 years! Thanks for the tip! (whatis is also a synonym for man -f, and apropos a synonym for man -k, apparently)

Re: Linux Sysops Handbook

#22

Post by vigormortis »

asicsp wrote: post #18

There's also "UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook" ( https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/unix-and-linux/97801342... ) For more such resources, I have a list here: https://learnbyexample.github.io/curated_resources/linux_cli... I have also written CLI one-liner books for grep/sed/awk, currently free for Twosday: https://learnbyexample.gumroad.com/l/oneliners/Twosday

Evi Nemeth was Godmother to a couple generations of Unix Sysadmins. The UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook is practical, usefully opinionated, playful, and brilliant, much like its lead author/editor. I've used it as the core text for classes I have taught and it's a great interview study guide for systems folk.

If you really want a trip down memory lane, dig up some earlier editions and learn how to deal with the quirks of the SGI, DEC, SUN, IBM, & HP menagerie.

I'd definitely start with this one.

Re: Linux Sysops Handbook

#23

Post by tlamponi »

I really don't mind the brevity, but the quality and correctness from that guide seems rather lacking, a few examples:

`apt update` refreshes the package index, but does no upgrade; so `apt update ` just fails with a usage error. Use `apt upgrade` for upgrading, or to allow dependency resolution to remove installed packages, which is relevant for upgrades between major releases, use `apt full-upgrade`.

`apt list` lists all pacakages known to apt, not only local ones; if you want locally installed ones use `apt list --installed`, e.g.:

   $ apt list | wc -l
   59316
   $ apt list --installed | wc
   426
`ip show link` just isn't a thing and will only get you `Object "show" is unknown, try "ip help".`.

Rather I'd recommend adding `alias ip="ip -c"` to your `.bashrc` or `.zshrc` to always get color output, that makes things much easier to read and then either use `ip a` or for a brief output that's very easy to read quickly `ip -br a`. If you want all details and statistics about bytes send/received and packets accepted/dropped use `ip -s -s a` (`a` is short for `addr` or `address`).

Mixes rsyslog and journald.

The "Shell Tips and Tricks" section could really do with a short sentence or a few keywords besides the tools.

It seems to be an open book, so maybe I can contribute some fixes; but with that many errors in such a short text I'd not share that guide currently to anyone.

Re: Linux Sysops Handbook

#25

Post by alex_sf »

kodah wrote: post #11

It amazes me sometimes how much of a dying breed systems engineers are. When I was coming up as a SWE I worked for a series of systems engineers, so I learned software from a systems engineering perspective and it's been invaluable as distributed systems have gotten bigger and more OS-like. If you're wanting to dive a little deeper than this guide touches check out: - https://man7.org/tlpi/ - Really good for understa…

We're just calling ourselves SREs now. It pays better.

Re: Linux Sysops Handbook

#27

Post by kodah »

alex_sf wrote: post #25
kodah wrote: post #11

It amazes me sometimes how much of a dying breed systems engineers are. When I was coming up as a SWE I worked for a series of systems engineers, so I learned software from a systems engineering perspective and it's been invaluable as distributed systems have gotten bigger and more OS-like. If you're wanting to dive a little deeper than this guide touches check out: - https://man7.org/tlpi/ - Really good for understa…

We're just calling ourselves SREs now. It pays better.

I'm a bit conflicted with that title. I consider myself a SWE with an emphasis on systems, but more specifically Linux. From what I've seen a lot of the SRE market is (mostly) the same old Ops scene with new badges.

Re: Linux Sysops Handbook

#28

Post by GauntletWizard »

kodah wrote: post #27
alex_sf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're just calling ourselves SREs now. It pays better.

I'm a bit conflicted with that title. I consider myself a SWE with an emphasis on systems, but more specifically Linux. From what I've seen a lot of the SRE market is (mostly) the same old Ops scene with new badges.

There's a ton of that, just like Devops was a "hot market" for a while and then was diluted. We'll have a new name in a few years, or we'll find some other way of distinguising ourselves... I am not one to promote unions, but at some point we do need a systems Engineering, ENGINEERING, Iron Ring, because our tools are increasingly infrastructural in the same way bridges are.
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