sabok.txt

= Reading List

== Intended audience

* Anyone who wants to be a http://sabok.org/field.html[System Administrator],
* http://verticalsysadmin.com/blog/training-program-to-make-a-novice-system-administrator/[Novice System Administrators] just getting into the field,
* Junior System Administrators who want to make sure their foundation is solid for advancement to more senior levels,
* Intermediate/Advanced/Senior System Administrators advancing to more senior levels,
* Trainers and Educators of Systems Administration


== Scope

This is a guide to the professional literature of the field of
System Administration.

This document does not include practice exercises.  However, practical
experience is essential to success in the field.  The student is encouraged
to practice.


== Acknowledgedments

Thanks for help in compiling this list to:
Jonah Sinowitz, Eric Sorenson, Mark Burgess, Shahab Shawn Sheikhzadeh, Willard Dennis, Kyrre Begnum, david t. klein, Avleen Vig, William van Hevelingen.



== Feedback

Comments welcome! Join us in the https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ops-education[ops-education group].


== How to use this guide

The materials should be studied and practiced in sequence.

*Core* contains essential reading - the fundamentals of the field.

*Normative literature* attempts an overview of normative
literature - publications that lay out the norms of the field,
or what is generally agreed upon (i.e. best practices). 
Norms and standards are essential for professionalization.

Advance your knowledge using the *Advanced Study* list.


== Core

=== Fundamentals

[cols="2*", frame="none", grid="none"]
|===
| image:http://media.wiley.com/product_data/coverImage300/74/04708680/0470868074.jpg[height=150,width=125,link="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470868074.html"] | Burgess, Mark. http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470868074.html[_Principles of Network and System Administration_, 2nd ed.]. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004. Print.

ISBN-13: 978-0-470-86807-2

http://markburgess.org/principlebook.html#errata[Errata]

This is a introductory college text, written by the creator of a well-known configuration management tool (CFEngine) while he was teaching Systems Administration at Oslo University College in Norway.

|  | Limoncelli, Thomas A., Christine Hogan, and Strata R. Chalup. _The Practice of System and Network Administration: Volume 1_, 3rd ed. Addison-Wesley, 2016. Print.

ISBN-13:  978-0-321-91916-8

A comprehensive overview of the practice of system administration. Written by system administrators for system administrators. (Volume 1 of 2.)

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165

|  | Limoncelli, Thomas A., Christine Hogan, and Strata R. Chalup. _The Practice of Cloud System Administration: Volume 2_. Addison-Wesley, 2014. Print.

ISBN-13: 978-0321943187

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Cloud-System-Administration-Practices/dp/032194318X

|===

=== UNIX/Linux track
==== User Basics
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|===
| image:http://media.wiley.com/product_data/coverImage300/92/11181067/1118106792.jpg[height=150,width=125,link="http://www.lpimarketplace.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=978-1-118-10679-2"] | Smith, Roderick W. _Linux Essentials_ Indianapolis, IN: Wiley, 2012. Print.

An introduction to Linux and Open Source.

http://www.lpimarketplace.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=978-1-118-10679-2

| image:images/Linux_Essentials.jpg[height=150,width=125,link="http://shop-download.linupfront.de/cc/lxes-en-manual-cc.pdf"] | Elsner, Tobias et al. _Linux Essentials: The LPI Introductory Programme_ Darmstadt, Germany: Linup Front, 2012.

An alternative introduction to Linux and Open Source. Courseware for LPI Linux Essentials program. Free for non-commercial use.

http://shop.linupfront.com/

http://shop-download.linupfront.de/cc/lxes-en-manual-cc.pdf

| image:https://www.nostarch.com/sites/default/files/styles/uc_product_full/public/linuxcommandline.png[height=150,width=125,link="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxcommand/files/TLCL/16.07/TLCL-16.07.pdf/download"] | Shotts, William. _The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction_ First Edition. San Francisco: No Starch, 2012. Print. (Electronic version, 2016.)

https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxcommand/files/TLCL/16.07/TLCL-16.07.pdf/download

Shotts, William. _The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction_ Second Edition, 2016.  http://linuxcommand.org

A complete introduction to the Linux Command Line.  We have started to recommend this book instead of the dated "The UNIX Programming Environment". Available in PDF and print versions.
|===


==== System Administration

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|===
| | Nemeth, Evi et al. _Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook_, 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2012. Print.

"This is a comprehensive guide to the care and feeding of UNIX and Linux systems. The authors present the facts along with seasoned advice and real-world examples." -- Pat Parseghian

Fifth edition coming August 2017: https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-System-Administration-Handbook/dp/0134277554

| | Frisch, Æleen. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596003432.do[_Essential System Administration_], 3rd ed. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2002. Print.

| image:http://www.freebsdmall.com/images/bp/bsdhandbk3.2.gif[height=150,width=125,link="http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html"] | The FreeBSD Documentation Project, http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html[_The FreeBSD Handbook_] Online: 2013.

| image:http://media.wiley.com/product_data/coverImage300/80/04703854/0470385480.jpg[height=150,width=125,link="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470385480.html"] | Solter, Nicholas A., Jerry Jelinek, David Miner. _OpenSolaris Bible_ Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2009.
|===


==== Supplemental reading

===== Additional Resources for Basic Training

* "An Introduction to the Unix Shell" by S. Bourne, author of the Bourne shell (sh)
http://steve-parker.org/sh/bourne.shtml

* Steve Parker's shell scripting tutorial
http://steve-parker.org/sh/sh.shtml

* Unix Programming Environment 
http://www.amazon.com/Unix-Programming-Environment-Prentice-Hall-Software/dp/013937681X

* Linux for Dummies
http://www.dummies.com/store/Computers-Internet/Operating-Systems/Linux.html

* Linux Pocket Guide
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006280/

* Learning the bash Shell
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596009656/

* Linux in a Nutshell (2009 edition)
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596154486/

[cols="2*", frame="none", grid="none"]
|===
| image:$$http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41QM4SPEAAL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg$$[height=150,width=125,link="http://www.amazon.com/Unix-Programming-Environment-Prentice-Hall-Software/dp/013937681X"] | Kernighan, Brian W., and Rob Pike. _The UNIX Programming Environment_. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984. Print.


http://www.amazon.com/Unix-Programming-Environment-Prentice-Hall-Software/dp/013937681X

Chapters 1 - 6 introduce a new user to UNIX.  If you want to make sure your fundamentals are fully established, go back to the source, the origin of UNIX.
|===

===== Text Editors
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|===
| | Robbins, Arnold, Elbert Hannah, Linda Lamb, and Linda Lamb. _Learning the vi and Vim Editors: Text processing at maximum speed and power_, 7th ed.  Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media, 2008. Print.

+vi+ is a standard UNIX text editor, and +vim+ is it's modern incarnation.

| | Stallman, Richard, et al. http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/pdf/emacs.pdf[GNU Emacs Manual]. Boston: Free Software Foundation, 2013. Online.

GNU Emacs is the "the extensible, customizable, self-documenting, real-time display editor."

|===


===== Configuration Management
[cols="2*", frame="none", grid="none"]
|===
| | Zamboni, Diego. _Learning CFEngine 3_. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2012.
| | Krum, Van Hevelingen, Kero, Turnbull, McCune. _Pro Puppet_. New York, NY: Apress, 2013.
|===


===== Databases
[cols="2*", frame="none", grid="none"]
|===
| |  _PostgreSQL: Up and Running_
| |  _High Performance MySQL_
| |  _PostgresSQL 9.0 High Performance_
|===

===== Programming Languages
[cols="2*", frame="none", grid="none"]
|===
| |  _Learning Perl_
| |  _Automating System Administration with Perl_
| |  _Learning Python_
| |  _Programming Python_
|===

===== Etc.
[cols="2*", frame="none", grid="none"]
|===
| |  _DNS and Bind_
| |  _Backup and Recovery_
| |  _Sendmail_
| |  _The Smallest Sendmail Book_
|===

=== Microsoft Windows track

==== Windows Server

[cols="2*", frame="none", grid="none"]
|===
| image:http://akamaicovers.oreilly.com/images/0790145369741/cat.gif[height=150,width=125,link="http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0790145369741.do"] | Tulloch, Mitch. _Training Guide: Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012_. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 2012.
| image:images/WinSvr2012PocketCons.jpg[height=150,width=125,link="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735666334"] | Stanek, William R. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735666334[_Windows Server 2012 Pocket Consultant_]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 2012.
|===

==== Active Directory

[cols="2*", frame="none", grid="none"]
|===
| | Desmond, Brian; Joe Richards, Robbie Allen, Alistair Lowe-Norris. _Active Directory, 5th Edition_,  Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2013. Print. 

Generally accepted as the best book on Microsoft Active Directory, which is Microsoft's implementation of LDAP + Kerberos.

| image:images/InsideAD2ndEd.jpg[height=150,width=125,link="http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Active-Directory-Administrators-Edition/dp/0321228480"] | Kouti, Sakari and Mika Seitsonen. _Inside Active Directory: A System Administrator's Guide_, (2nd Ed.) Boston: Addison-Wesley Professional, 2004. Print. 

An older classic on AD, goes into the internals.
|===

==== PowerShell (modern Windows command line)

[cols="2*", frame="none", grid="none"]
|===
| image:http://www.manning.com/jones3/jones3_cover150.jpg[height=150,width=125,link="http://www.manning.com/jones3/"] | Jones, Don and Jeffery Hicks. _Learn Windows PowerShell 3 in a Month of Lunches_,  Greenwich, CT: Manning, 2013. Print.

"This book is a tutorial designed for busy administrators. Just set aside one hour a day for a month and you'll learn all the practical techniques you need to make your job easier and your day shorter. This totally revised second edition covers new PowerShell 3 features designed for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. Experience with Windows administration is helpful. No programming experience is assumed."
The first edition (_Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches_) covers PowerShell v2.0.

|===

==== Websites with good Windows admin content

http://www.opsschool.org/en/latest/windows_101.html

=== Soft Skills

Soft skills are increasingly recognized as essential to success in system administration.

Hard skills:: Working with technology.

Soft skills:: Working with people. This includes communication (including writing RFPs, presenting, etc.), project management, time management, persuasion, leadership, cooperation, business alignment, learning how to learn (and teach), etc.

* _Time Management for System Administrators_ by Tom Limoncelli
* _A Sysadmin's Guide to Navigating the Business World_ by Burgess and Rowland, USENIX Short Topics on Systems Administration, 2010 (ISBN 978-1-931971-81-2)
* http://www.opsschool.org/en/latest/soft_skills_101.html[OpsSchool "Soft Skills" page]


== Normative literature (a.k.a. Best Practices)

Literature describing norms or standards

* http://www.opsreportcard.com/[_Ops Report Card_ by Tom Limoncelli and Peter Grace.]

* http://sabok.org/sa-bok/[_The Systems Administration Site Assessment Checklist_ by Geoff Halprin]

* http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1178.html[_RFC 1178: Choosing a Name for Your Computer_]

* http://www.usenix.org/event/lisa07/tech/full_papers/hamilton/hamilton_html/[_On Designing and Deploying Internet-Scale Services_ by James Hamilton, LISA 1997 paper] This paper summarizes a set of best practices for designing and developing operations-friendly services.

* https://www.usenix.org/lisa/books[USENIX LISA Short Topics in System Administration]

[cols="2*", frame="none", grid="none"]
|===

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/login/covers/26cfe3.jpg[link="https://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/modern-infrastructure-engineering-cfengine-3"] | https://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/modern-infrastructure-engineering-cfengine-3[_#26 Modern Infrastructure Engineering with CFEngine 3_]  +
Mark Burgess and Diego Zamboni

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/login/covers/25cover.png[link="http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/enterprise-ipv6-deployment-experience-report-google"] | http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/enterprise-ipv6-deployment-experience-report-google[_#25 Enterprise IPv6 Deployment: Experience Report from Google_]  +
Haythum Babiker, Irena Nikolova, and Kiran Kumar Chittimaneni

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/login/covers/cloudcover.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/cloud-computing-vmware-vcloud-director[_#24 Cloud Computing with VMware vCloud Director_] John Y. Arrasjid, Ben Lin, Raman Veeramraju, Steve Kaplan, Duncan Epping, and Michael Haines

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/login/covers/23_shorttopics_cover_0.png[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/sysadmins-guide-navigating-business-world[_#23 A Sysadmin's Guide to Navigating the Business World_] Mark Burgess and Carolyn Rowland          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/login/covers/22_jobs3rd_cover_0.png[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/job-descriptions-system-administrators-3d-edition[_#22 Job Descriptions for System Administrators, 3d Edition Revised_] Tina Darmohray          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/21vsp.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/foundation-cloud-computing-vmware-vsphere-4[_#21 Foundation for Cloud Computing with VMware vSphere 4_] John Arrasjid, Duncan Epping, and Steve Kaplan          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/20mon.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/running-numbers-system-network-and-environmental-monitoring[_#20 Running the Numbers: System, Network, and Environmental Monitoring_] Daniel V. Klein and John Sellens          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/19bcf.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/configuration-management-bcfg2[_#19 Configuration Management with Bcfg2_] Narayan Desai and Cory Lueninghoener          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/18vmw.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/deploying-vmware-infrastructure-second-printing[_#18 Deploying the VMware Infrastructure, Second Printing_] John Arrasjid, Karthik Balachandran, Daniel Conde, Gary Lamb, and Steve Kaplan          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/17lcf.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/lcfg-practical-tool-system-configuration[_#17 LCFG: A Practical Tool for System Configuration_] Paul Anderson          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/16cfe.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/system-engineers-guide-host-configuration-and-maintenance-using-cfengine[_#16 A System Engineer's Guide to Host Configuration and Maintenance Using Cfengine_] Mark Burgess and Æleen Frisch          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/15pos.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/internet-postmaster-duties-and-responsibilities[_#15 Internet Postmaster: Duties and Responsibilities_] Nick Christenson and Brad Knowles          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/14con.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/system-configuration[_#14 System Configuration_] Paul Anderson          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/13ora.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/sysadmins-guide-oracle[_#13 The Sysadmin's Guide to Oracle_] Ben Rockwood          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/12log.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/building-logging-infrastructure[_#12 Building a Logging Infrastructure_] Abe Singer and Tina Bird          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/11doc.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/documentation-writing-system-administrators[_#11 Documentation Writing for System Administrators_] Mark C. Langston          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/10bud.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/budgeting-sysadmins[_#10 Budgeting for SysAdmins_] Adam Moskowitz          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/9bac.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/backups-and-recovery[_#9 Backups and Recovery_] W. Curtis Preston and Hal Skelly          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/7rel.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/system-and-network-administration-higher-reliability[_#7 System and Network Administration for Higher Reliability_] John Sellens          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/6aud.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/system-administrators-guide-auditing[_#6 A System Administrator's Guide to Auditing_] Geoff Halprin          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/5hir.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/hiring-system-administrators[_#5 Hiring System Administrators_] Gretchen Phillips          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/lisa/books-covers/4edu.jpg[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/educating-and-training-system-administrators-survey[_#4 Educating and Training System Administrators: A Survey_] David Kuncicky and Bruce Alan Wynn          

| image:https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_thumbnail/public/login/covers/2_shorttopicscover.png[] | 
            http://www.usenix.org/lisa/books/guide-developing-computing-policy-documents[_#2 A Guide to Developing Computing Policy Documents_] Edited by Barbara L. Dijker          

|===


== Advanced Study

* Burgess, Mark. _Computer Immunology_  http://static.usenix.org/event/lisa98/full_papers/burgess/burgess.pdf (1998)

* Burgess, Mark. _On the Theory of System Administration_  http://markburgess.org/papers/sysadmtheory3.pdf (2003)

* http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/713461/descrip["Handbook of Network and System Administration", Edited by Jan Bergstra and Mark Burgess. November 2007.]

* Burgess, Mark. http://www.amazon.com/In-Search-Certainty-Information-Infrastructure-ebook/dp/B00ENEEWYO[_In Search of Certainty_] 

* Burgess, Mark. _Analytical Network and System Administration_. This is a very advanced text.

* Burgess, Mark. https://github.com/markburgess/ANSA[_Exercises for Analytical Network and System Administration_]. 

* Slawek, Ligus. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025986.do[_Effective Monitoring and Alerting: For Web Operations_] Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly

* Schlossnagle, Theo. http://omniti.com/writes/scalable-internet-architectures[_Scalable Internet Architectures_] Sams Publishing, 2006. Print.

* Allspaw, John and Jesse Robbins. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920000136.do[_Web Operations: Keeping the Data On Time_] Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2010. Print.

* Moskowitz, Adam. http://www.usenix.org/multimedia/lisa10moskowitz/["The Path to Senior Sysadmin"] talk. USENIX LISA Conference, 2010.

* Gregg, Brendan. http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Performance-Enterprise-Brendan-Gregg/dp/0133390098[_Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud_]

* http://brendangregg.com/books.html[Brendan Gregg's Recommended Reading list]

* Kim, Gene, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford. http://itrevolution.com/books/phoenix-project-devops-book/[_The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win_]. Portland, OR: IT Revolution, 2013. Print.

* Kim, Gene, Paul Love and George Spafford. http://www.itpi.org/visible-ops-security-review.html[_Visible Ops Security_] IT Process Institute, 2008. Print.

* Behr, Kevin, Gene Kim, and George Spafford. http://itpi.3dcartstores.com/Electronic-Download-The-Visible-Ops-Handbook_p_25.html[_Visible Ops Handbook_] IT Process Institute, 2005. Print.

* Kurose, James F. and Keith W. Ross. http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/academic/product/0,3110,0136079679,00.html[_Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach_] 5th Ed. Pearson, 2010. Print.

* Topping.  _Errors of Observation and their Treatment_

* Yourdon, Ed. http://yourdon.com/strucanalysis/[_Just Enough Structured Analysis_] - a basic systems engineering text

* ?? Need something for troubleshooting ??