Chapter 7. Backup, Security, and Automation

Among all the tasks performed by system administrators, few are more important or more mundane than those pertaining to backup, security, and automation. Protecting data, both from catastrophic crashes and from unfriendly intruders, is more critical than ever. As storage capacities have increased, more data is stored on single drives, vulnerable to hardware failure. As more computer users maintain full-time network connections, more computers are vulnerable to attack. Implementing measures to prevent or mitigate the damage from these events is the task of every system administrator, whether administering a small home network or a massive corporate network.

Backup tasks can be created, thoroughly tested, and scheduled, requiring only minimal additional human intervention. Security measures can be implemented and monitored with little further effort. In other words, the ability to automate both backup and security tasks greatly improves the probability that these critical tasks will be successful.