Whether you use Linux, Unix, or Windows, this newly revised edition describes the essential practices previously handed down only from mentor to protégé. This wonderfully lucid, often funny cornucopia of information introduces beginners to advanced frameworks valuable for their entire career, yet is structured to help even the most advanced experts through difficult projects. The book's four major sections build your knowledge with the foundational elements of system administration. These sections guide you through better techniques for upgrades and change management, catalog best practices for IT services, and explore various management topics. Chapters are divided into The Basics and The Icing. When you get the Basics right it makes every other aspect of the job easier--such as automating the right things first. The Icing sections contain all the powerful things that can be done on top of the basics to wow customers and managers. - Publisher.

Part I: Getting Started -- What to Do When -- Climb Out of the Hole. Part II: Foundation Elements -- Workstations -- Servers -- Services -- Data Centers -- Networks -- Namespaces -- Documentation -- Disaster Recovery and Data Integrity -- Security Policy -- Ethics -- Help Desks -- Customer Care. Part III: Change Processes -- Debugging -- Fixing Things Once -- Change Management -- Server Upgrades -- Service Conversions -- Maintenance Windows -- Centralization and Decentralization. Part IV: Providing Services -- Service Monitoring -- Email Service -- Print Service -- Data Storage -- Back Up and Restore -- Remote Access Service -- Software Depot Service -- Web Services. Part V: Management Practices -- Organizational Structures -- Perception and Visibility -- Being Happy -- A guide for technical Managers -- A guide for nontechnical managers -- Hiring System administrators -- Firing system administrators -- Epilogue -- Appendix A: The many roles of a system administrator -- Appendix B: Acronyms -- Appendix C: Bibliography.