Automating UNIX And Linux Administration (2003)

Chapter Summary

• Chapter 1: Introducing the Basics of Automation This chapter covers the methodology behind system administration automation.
• Chapter 2: Using SSH to Securely Automate System Administration Covers the basics of using SSH, security concerns, setting up passwordless SSH, and other topics.
• Chapter 3: Creating Login Scripts and Shell Scripts Discusses some more advanced features of bash and how you can use them to customize your prompt, create command aliases, enhance tab completion, and otherwise enhance your shell experience. Also provides scripts that allow commands to be run across multiple systems.
• Chapter 4: Pre-Installation: Network Preparation and Management Discusses the tasks necessary to add a new system to your network and provides a custom, modular shell script to automate these tasks.
• Chapter 5: Automating and Customizing Installation Discusses the options available to you when you want to automatically perform operating system installations. Also discusses your options for the customization of your operating systems. Provides scripts that allows a new system (even without a custom operating system) to quickly and easily join your automation system.
• Chapter 6: Automating System Configuration This is where the really good stuff begins. This chapter talks about automatically configuring all of the systems on your network, regardless of the operating systems they run or the tasks they perform. Provides both a custom solution and a comprehensive discussion of GNU cfengine.
• Chapter 7: Sharing Data Between Systems Discusses many methods you can use to share data among your various systems. Talks about network filesystems (such as NFS), NIS/NIS+, GNU cfengine, rsync, CVS, and the HTTP and FTP protocols.
• Chapter 8: Packages and Patches Discusses the issues involved with the updating of many systems. Talks about Solaris patches and custom patches. Talks about the RPM and Debian package formats as well as a custom package solution. Talks about automatic package installation with AutoRPM. Introduces the OpenPKG system which provides packages that can be installed on many different operating systems.
• Chapter 9: System Maintenance and Changes Covers the various maintenance tasks inherent with most modern operating systems. This includes time synchronization, account management, log file rotation, and general system cleanup.
• Chapter 10: System Monitoring Introduces systems for monitoring your systems. Presents Logwatch and swatch for log monitoring and NetSaint for network monitoring.
• Chapter 11: Improving System Security Discusses tools that can enhance your system's security with minimal maintenance on your part. Shows how to use and configure Tripwire, create automatic firewall configurations, and use GNU cfengine to increase your system and network security.
• Chapter 12: Backing up and Restoring Data Presents simple and inexpensive solutions for the automatic backup of your systems' data.
• Chapter 13: User Interfaces Shows you how to create both console- and web-based user interfaces for your automation system using bash, Perl, and Mason.
• Appendix A: Introduction to Basic Tools Covers several tools that will be used throughout this book such as bash, Perl, grep, sed, and awk.
• Appendix B: Customizing and Automating Red Hat Linux Installation Shows you how to automate the installation of Red Hat Linux. Also shows you how to create your own custom Linux distribution derived from Red Hat Linux.
• Appendix C: Building Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) Packages Comprehensive instructions on building your own RPMs.