Mike Banahan, et al

Linux books are starting to be a dime a dozen these days. I still remember the days before the 1998 Linux boom when all I could find as far as Linux literature is regarded was the Using Linux book published by Que and O’Reilly’s Running Linux, aside from the wonderful online documentation put together by the Linux Documentation Project (LDP). But things are quite different these days. It’s pretty much impossible to go to any major bookstore without seeing a few shelves in the computer section exclusively dedicated to Linux books. The only problem I see is that most of them are nothing but the proverbial different shades of gray, since many of those books seem to be aimed only at the new Linux user who has been using Windows all his life.

Professional Linux Deployment is a little bit different. It assumes that the reader already installed Linux, and it doesn’t bother to teach her how to move around the shell, create user accounts or even how to set up a printer for that matter. Instead, the goal of the book is to help you deploy Linux for any of the multiple functions where it excels at (file and printer serving, web and FTP, directory services with LDAP, groupware, database applications…), and when it comes to these issues the authors definitely take their time to provide detailed step-by-step directions on how to install and configure the different packages to the point that in some instances it becomes too repetitive to read the same tar -xzvf [packagename] or instructions on how to compile with make over and over again in different chapters of the book.

That this book is aimed at business types (or at least the technical people who work for their IT departments) becomes obvious already in chapter 1 (Linux in the Enterprise). Quite a few pages are dedicated to explain what is Linux, its origins, history, some short description of the philosophy behind the open source movement, and a really good discussion of which ones are Linux’ strengths and shortcomings. Now, I must say I have read many books, articles and postings on the advantages and disadvantages of open source and Linux in particular, but these pages are by far one of the most objective descriptions I have ever seen. No penguin dogmatism or FUD (fear, uncertainy and doubt) propaganda leaked into these common sensical section. I am pretty sure business reader will definitely like that chapter.

Once a succint introduction is out of the way, the authors get into the real meat. First of all, they start with the realistic assumption that Linux will most likely be deployed in an environment where the desktops are still running some version of Windows. Therefore, chapter 2 is dedicated to how to integrate Linux in such a network by using Samba. Once the authors are done explaining how to install the package and how to configure it (they actually take the time to explain the function of each one of the entries in the different stanzas of the smb.conf file), the reader can move onto chapter 3 and read a practical case where a Linux server is set up in an intranet to provide file, print and fax services. It was also a nice detail to add some paragraphs on how to install and use VNC in order to administer the Linux server remotely from a Windows system.

Before moving onto setting up web, FTP and database-driven web sites, the authors also spend sometime explaining how UNIX and Linux are so intertwined with the history of the Internet and its protocols. The chapter dedicated to that (chapter 4) is not unnecessary, especially taking into account that most readers may come from a “strictly business” background and may still wonder why investing in free software makes any sense. Chapters 5,6 and 7 are then dedicated to installing and configuring a web server running Apache, FTP using WU-FTP, and database-driven web sites built around MySQL (although there are also some short sections on PostgresSQL, Oracle and MSQL.

Chapter 8 (directory services and LDAP) was totally unexpected to me, although perhaps it makes sense to include it in a book like this if the target audience is the average midsize business. After explaining the basics about directory services and its more primitive equivalents in the UNIX world (NIS), the authors dive into the installation and configuration of the OpenLDAP package not without warning that it is still under heavy development and it lacks in certain areas. As an add-on, the chapter even includes a set of Perl scripts that can be used to interact with the LDAP directory service in order to create accounts, change passwords, etc. Quite interesting, I think. Nevertheless, too many questions are left unanswered with the excuse of referring to the LDAP book already published by Wrox. When Windows 2000 has already shipped with a directory service fully integrated with the operating system (Active Directory), this idea is perhaps not so good. The authors should be commended, nonetheless, for being about the only ones who even though about including this subject in a book of these characteristics.

Chapters 9 and 10 explain how to set up a Linux system as an Internet gateway, proxy or firewall. The chapters include a lot of great information on how to set up sendmail, bind, ipchains, etc. Quite useful, again, for those who are looking for some step-by-step information in order to fix a problem as soon as possible.

The last three chapters of the book did come as a total surprise, since to a large extent they can be considered extraneous to the main target audience for the book. Chapter 11 covers cryptography, including some basic theoretical concepts, explanations on how the dual-key encryption schemes work, and how to set up GnuPG and Apache SSL. On the other hand, chapters 12 and 13 cover distributed systems in the Linux environment, and chapter 14 introduces us to EntireX (an implementation of Microsoft’s DCOM to Linux that should interest developers mainly). I am not saying that I did not find these three chapters extremely interesting, but it certainly seemed strange to find them in this kind of book.

Finally, Professional Linux Deployment closes with a fantastic set of appendices including a short introduction to the Linux operating system that serves the purpose of refreshing a lot of important concepts, a list of Linux commands and utilities (tips on how to use find, grep, find, vi, etc.), some introductory concepts on system administration (short description of how to perform backups, TCP wrappers, etc.), and good description of how to obtain the latest errata online.

Summing up, Professional Linux Deployment is a great book that I would definitely recommend to all those who need a quick introduction/manual/reference on how to implement Linux solutions in the small and midsized business environment. As a matter of fact, it is the only book I know of that takes the implementation of practical cases so seriously that it even includes actual case studies. Can you run your business on Linux? Yes you can - this book shows you how.

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