If you do systems administration work of any kind, you have to deal with the growing complexity of your environment and increasing demands on your time. Automating System Administration with Perl, Second Edition, not only offers you the right tools for your job, but also suggests the best way to approach specific problems and to securely automate recurring tasks.

Updated and expanded to cover the latest operating systems, technologies, and Perl modules, this edition of the "Otter Book" will help you:

• Manage user accounts

• Monitor filesystems and processes

• Work with configuration files in important formats such as XML and YAML

• Administer databases, including MySQL, MS-SQL, and Oracle with DBI

• Work with directory services like LDAP and Active Directory

• Script email protocols and spam control

• Effectively create, handle, and analyze log files

• Administer network name and configuration services, including NIS, DNS and DHCP

• Maintain, monitor, and map network services, using technologies and tools such as SNMP, nmap, libpcap, GraphViz and RRDtool

• Improve filesystem, process, and network security

This edition includes additional appendixes to get you up to speed on technologies such as XML/XPath, LDAP, SNMP, and SQL. With this book in hand and Perl in your toolbox, you can do more with less -- fewer resources, less effort, and far less hassle.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 8 Ratings

The Otter Book never leaves my side - 2009-10-21
Reviewer Rating:
Perl occupies the sweet spot between shell scripting and C programming, with the ability to lean as far as you'd like in either direction. As a sysadmin, Perl is better than a tool -- its the perfect tool for building tools, and this book is at the top of a very short list of texts which help bring to bear the full power of the best language for cutting down complex tasks down to size.

I've read a lot of Perl books and I own most of the O'Reilly books on the topic. The Otter Book, however, is the one which I cart around with me in my laptop bag wherever I go and is the first place I look for hints on how to attack problems that I face at work or home. It's chocked full of working examples and hints and tips on how to customize them, as well as plenty of context as to why these suggestions work the way they do.

The book is very well written and I highly recommend it to anyone, whether they are a professional admin or just want to cut out some of the repetitive tasks of managing their own workstation.

Useful, inspiring - and fun! - 2009-11-02
Reviewer Rating:
As one of the reviewers for Automating System Administration with Perl,
I can only rabidly recommend the work as some of the best I have seen
lately on both subjects (Perl and System Administration).

Wish for More... - 2009-10-30
Reviewer Rating:
I rely on a substantial collection of O'Reilly references on a day-to-day basis. Therefore I am sad to say this book has collected quite a bit of dust on my bookshelf.

I like the concept of the book (I bought it, after all), but it seems to try to do too much.

To be sure, the topics included are worthwhile, and essential to any sysadmin arsenal. Unfortunately, I do not believe the author fully covers them in depth. IMHO the book would be greatly improved by focusing on a particular O/S (and I'm not advocating one......just pick ONE), rather than trying to be a go-to reference for [U]nix and Windows admins alike.

Topic coverage in this book leaves something to be desired. It seems like the author said, "Here is how to do an LDAP search with Perl. Moving on to AD, here's how you do an LDAP search. Here's how to manage users in [U]nix; now here's how to do it in Windows."

Save your money, instead invest in Automating Linux and Unix System Administration, Second Edition (Expert's Voice in Linux) for an engaging, useful book (barring the CFengine portion).

Excellent update to a classic - 2009-09-25
Reviewer Rating:
The original Otter book was published in 2000, and had a place on just about every sysadmin's shelf as well as most anyone who regularly used Perl. I expect this new 2009 edition will likewise be a "must have" for anyone serious about System Administration and Perl (and any Perl coder, really, given the wide range of topics). While it will likely serve as an excellent reference, I'd also recommend this edition to newcomers to Perl (up there with Llama, Camel and Perl Cookbook) due to the "real world" nature of the tasks covered and the author's obvious depth of knowledge and wealth of experience.

This edition is much updated from the 2000 original, with four new chapters ("Working with Configuration Files" and "Experiential Learning" being two favorites of mine) and two new appendices (including the "10 minute XPath tutorial). Some of what I like best about the book is the exploration of "best of breed" CPAN modules and "Pros and Cons" sections that compare modules for particular tasks. All-in-all very highly recommended!

Topics include spam control, analyzing log files, working with different configuration file formats, and more - 2009-09-17
Reviewer Rating:
AUTOMATING SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION WITH PERL by David N. Blank-Edelman appears in its second updated edition for any systems administrator working with Perl. It's been updated and expanded to include the latest operating systems and technologies and replaces an outdated version, so is key for any serious Perl computing collection. Topics include spam control, analyzing log files, working with different configuration file formats, and more.

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