Automating System Administration with Perl: Tools to Make You More Efficient

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.

David N. Blank-Edelman is the Director of Technology at the Northeastern University College of Computer and Information Science. He has spent the last 25 years as a system/network administrator in large multi- platform environments, including Brandeis University, Cambridge Technology Group, and the MIT Media Laboratory. He was also the program chair of the LISA 2005 conference and one of the LISA 2006 Invited Talks co-chairs.