Linux, Unix, /etc

Danger Will Robinson! You are now entering a condescending Unix user zone!

Review of Red Hat Linux 6 in Small Business

Well, of the books I've reviewed for Linux Journal, this is the one with which I was least satisfied. As a writer myself, I take no great pleasure in having to criticise another's work, but in this instance, I must.

This is not a fat book — and there's nothing wrong with that, too many computer books are padded-out — but unfortunately in this instance the lean has been cut away with the fat. Let me step through the chapters, and explain what's wrong.

Part I.

After the first chapter, on installing Red Hat, we move to ch.2, "Navigating Linux", a straightforward, although somewhat brief, introduction to the shell. It is brief at least partly because, to quote the authors, "this book relies heavily on the use of the graphical X interface". This is an unwise dependence. The command line is not an optional alternative; there is not unified graphical interface to administering a Linux box; it's command line or bust. Sugaring the pill in the way our authors attempt simply doesn't work.

ch3, editing files, is a decent if short introduction to joe and vi. It would be greatly improved by the printing of a command summary for each editor considered.

ch4, configuring the X window system, is in my view out of place in the book; but even so, it is inadequate. it is far too short, and does little more than tell the user to run Xconfigurator.

ch5, getting help, is a concise guide to sources for further Linux information.

Now comes Part II, Managing Your Linux Network, and here our troubles really begin.

We start at the sixth chapter, on system administration. This is wholely inadequete. It attempts to paper over the complexity of this job by introducing the user to some graphical tools bundled with RedHat. As I've said above, this approach is fundamentally misguided.

ch7, Managing Your Network, is better, but suffers again from the fault of simply directing the reader elsewhere when it comes to the hard stuff. For example: "The experienced network administrator can modify any of thes configuration files by hand [...] Just be aware that the scripts and files are often interrelated with each other and modifying one can change another's behaviour. You can view the man pages of these to gain more understanding of the services". Well, quite! What would have been particularly helpful here would have been an explanation of the comlex structure of RedHat's System V style rc file layout. Simply referring the reader to the man pages is a cop-out.

There follows a chapter on samba, and one on printers. In the latter, there is no explanation of /etc/printcap, the basic printer config file on every Linux system. We are shown some GUI tool to make changes. We leave the chapter much as we entered it, with no understanding of how printers work under Linux, or how to configure them.

ch10, backups, is basically an explanation of the Arkeia backup software bundled on the companiion CDRom. I found it a good guide to using the software.

Part III, Connectiong Your Nework to the Internet.

ch11 connecting to the internet

Off we go again — "Using the network configuration" but no explanation of what this program is actually doing. "Configuring a DNS server from scratch can be a very complex task" — a task which the authors duck by pointing the reader to a few example files on the CD. it would hafe been better to leave the topic out altoghet than deal with it so half-heartedly.

As a side note, dip has been obsolete for years. Why no mention of pppd? To there credit, the authors do give a introduction to using diald.

ch12 creating a simple firewall

Although short, this chapter is good. it doesn't avoid explaining the command necessary to set up a Linux packet-fitlering firewall; but, again, no explanation of why the firewall rules listed are used is given.

ch13 configuring a linux e-mail server

This is very bad. One and a half pages on sendmail! They take more space to explain how to use the Netscape e-mail client. Simply put, this chapter will not tell you how to configure a Linux e-mail server.

Part IV starts with a complete change of focus, looking at "office productivity" tools and then back to Networking with installing apache. This latter chapter is again ridiculously short, and just omits any detailed explanation of exactly how apache is configured. As for the former, well, given the size of the book, they can either make a good job of explaining how to use Linux as the main server for a small business, or they can look at it as a desktop platform. There isn't space for both. This perhaps partially explains why the book ends up doing neither.

We finish with a curious docuemnt, the IDG Books Worldwide Inc. End-User License Agreement.

This contains the following gems:

"1. License Grant. IDGB grants to you (either an individual or entity) a nonexclusive license to use one copy of the enclosed software program(s) (collectively, "the Software") solely for your own personal or business purposes on a single computer (wither a standard computer or a workstation component of a multiuser network). [...]"

Whoah! You *what*?

"2. Ownership. IDGB is the owner of all right

Seems reasonable. Copyright on the *compilation*, not on the Software itself.

"3. Restrictions on Use and Transfer. (a) You may only (i) make one copy of the Software for backup or archival purposes [...] You may not (i) rent or lease the Software

This is just plain wrong, it seems to me.

"4. Restrictions on Use of Individual Programs. [...] None of the material on this Software Media or listed in this book may ever be redistributed

Hey? I can do what I want with RedHat, including burning and selling my own CDs.

The book also includes the GPL (right after this license), and a note to the effect that the Red Hat distro may be used "in accordance with the GNU General Public License". In which case, surely, the IDG license does *not* apply to the Software? So why are the bothering to print it in the book?

Insofar as this license agreement purports to apply to the Linux components of the CDs bundled with the book, then it is plain wrong. For instance, we read "You may only (i) make one copy of the Software for backup or archival purposes". The only copyright IDGB has here is to the bundle itself, that is to say, to the collection. I can make as many copies of RedHat as I like, and IDGB can do nothing to stop me. This license is out of place in a book about Open Source.

Conclusions

In conclusion, this book is unsatisfactory. It is too sketchy, tries to cover too much ground, and is short on detailed, hands-on demonstrations of what to do. There is no clear focus, and as a result the book fails to be either a detailed technical resource for systems administrators, or a decent introduction for the less-experienced to Linux as a server OS.

It is true that some parts are better than others, the firewall chapter for instance is a decent albeit brief introduction to this important subject. But, in contrast, and this is unhappily the more common case, the chapter entitled "Configuring a Linux E-mail server", simply doesn't deliver what it promises.

At the very least, the book needs supplementing with on-line resources. In which case, why buy a book? Of course, given the speed with which Linux changes, and the inevitable lag in publication times, any book will need supplementing by on-line resources to a degree; but here, I'm afraid, the book is so heavily dependent on them as to render it superfluous.

Title: Red Hat Linux 6 in Small Business
Author(s): Paul G. Sery & Eric Harper
Publisher: M&T Books (An IDG imprint)
ISBN: 0-7645-3335-5
Price: $29.99
Pages: 392
Date: October 1999

Paul Dunne

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