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The one single-best reference book on the topic of system administration is: UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook.
The Linux Bible, How Linux Works, The Debian System, Slackware Linux Essentials, and CompTIA Linux+ all deserve places on the bookshelf.
> had any tips for solidifying the foundations.
I strongly recommend the book How Linux Works by Brian Ward, at No Starch Press. 392 pages.
Update: Here's a sample chapter Disks and Filesystems
While published in 2015, most of it is still very relevant. Page for page, it's the best Linux book I've encountered. Topics range from simple to complex, and intuitively organized as well. I found it applicable, of course, to most of Arch.
Good luck.
This book is what I’ve recommended to friends of mine in the same boat. Very easy to read and reference for future use.
Lol what?
Dude, you don't need any fucking classes to start out in IT
You can buy textbooks and earn certs while spending minimum amounts of money
Do not sign up for some fucking ridiculous 23k course. That's insane.
This field is so beautiful because you can dive in without any student debt whatsoever, don't hamstring yourself by going into debt like that
If you want an entry level job, go buy the A+ cert book on amazon
Maybe do network+ too(that's the path i started out with so I'm biased I suppose).
You're talking like less than 50 bucks for the textbooks and then a couple hundred bucks for the tests(total), and with those 2 certs you can easily get an entry level help desk job and start working your way up.
It beats the fuck out of manual labor, that's for sure
I feel like C is most useful when you are programming directly to an OS and its resources, rather than through a framework or library. And you don't often need to use the most elegant data structures to accomplish a simple task.
The Linux Programming Interface is still one of the best introductions to Linux programming.
There sure are books!
My favorite authors are Mike Myers and Todd Lammle.
Here's a guide for the CompTIA A+ certification.
These books can be a bit pricey, but it's EVERYTHING you need to know for the certification. If you have this book and a computer to practice on, you have everything you need to pass. The book is nearly 1,500 pages long as well. If you struggle to afford the books, you can always search online for illegal copies of older versions and possibly even the latest version that I linked. I assume the copyright police aren't going to be breaking down your doors.
The A+ certification estimates 6-9 months of hands-on training to be able to pass, but it can definitely be done in a shorter amount of time. Don't get dissuaded if after a month you feel tired of studying. Even if you don't have the means to take the exam, the information you can learn will help you so much.
I've mentored several Junior linux team members and I always recommend : https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-System-Administration-Handbook/dp/0134277554
While not RH specific, it is has a wealth of information on Linux in general and serves as a good reference.
Seems like a good start if you want some Basic knowledge about the Linux Kernel and init system stuff. I myself ordered it just a week ago since I‘m on a similar journey as you are. Hope it helps. Btw I learnt most of my stuff from Reddit posts, Archwiki and experience.
man pages really are good enough once you got the basics down. They were 20 years ago, and I don’t think the quality has decreased. If you want truly great man pages, FreeBSD is the place to go.
To get the basics down, start with something like this
Once you understand that, follow up with something like this
Young people today.. they pick Arch to “learn something” (or just to be cool - I can’t decide), and when the learning part starts, they want the answers served without any effort. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn, just don’t expect to be finished in 4 hours.
I’ve spent 20 years as a Unix system administrator and/or developed systems running on Unix. Before I had kids I spent a few years working on Stampede Linux. My first Linux distribution was “Yggdrasil Plug&Play Linux fall ‘93”. I still learn new stuff frequently, and it usually starts with something I find on the internet, which then get tried on my own machine, and finally i use man pages for troubleshooting/fine tuning.
If that fails, I do what everybody else does, i ask google, and if I still can’t solve the issue, I will ask somewhere. Last issue I had was Debian <-> FreeBSD NFSv4 mounts with Kerberos that would freeze frequently. I spent a couple of weeks debugging that before asking, and learned a great deal in the process. After google started returning only purple links, I finally asked on a couple of forums.
2nd this.
The Linux Command Line. Author offers free PDF for download or you can support and buy from amazon.
http://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php
https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Command-Line-Complete-Introduction/dp/1593273894/r
Yes. I have an ebook copy that I got from a Humble Bundle a few months ago (the whole bundle was $15). It's very in depth and easy to understand. If you want to learn systems programming then Linux Programming Interface is the way to go.
To be clear, this is the book I'm talking about: https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Handbook/dp/1593272200
https://www.amazon.com/How-Linux-Works-Brian-Ward/dp/1718500408
I’ve not read it myself but it seems popular, I do own it but I bought it after having used Linux for 20+ years so it’s been sitting on my shelf ever since. Another tip is to just use Linux every day.
Hey no worries! Often times when you're new to something it seems like a firehose rather than a fountain (something formal education does a good job moderating).
Square one? I'd say start with the Unix and Linux Systems Administration Handbook 5th ed. I suggest this one because it offers a really comprehensive view of most essential concepts one must know as a sysadmin.
You'll start by learning essential duties of a sysadmin (access control, adding hardware/software, automation, backups, monitoring, troubleshooting, documenting, security, performance tuning, working with vendors, putting out fires, etc.) From there, it's basic administration, networking, storage, and finally operations.
What I like so much about this layout is it demonstrates the cumulative nature of computing concepts. The authors also do an excellent job tying concepts back to practice--which should hopefully demonstrate the value of theory!
Because this is a general primer on systems administration, most of the concepts will apply to Windows even though tooling and execution will differ. At the end of the day directory services are directory services, access control is access control, and it's never DNS--unless you or someone you work with has misconfigured DNS.
There is an all in one A+ book on amazon (https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X) This book is a good read through for general concepts - read it quickly, don't go super hardcore study mode on this book, its quite long. This along with professor messer (free, google it)after quickly reading through was all I used to get my A+.
If you have some knowledge of computers and perhaps built your own you could be ready for a helpdesk role already. I know all I had was "customer service" and some basic technical knowledge before I got my first job. Just be sure to word your customer service skills as if you were on the phone doing customer service - since this may be a large portion of the job. Asides from that - google common helpdesk interview questions, their answers, and then google the specific terms like dhcp and dns to understand how they work.
For me the biggest help was the All in One book by Mike Meyers people complain that he is long winded in the book. But I think the stories that he tells give insite and the full context needed to pass the 1002 exam. I'll add a link below.
What are you using to study right now?
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I have my second test today, but I've used Mike Meyer's book as well as his Udemy course. Then I used Jason Dion's practice exams. Those are all very popular resources to get started.
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Another popular (and free) resource is professor Messer on Youtube.
You can't do it this way. Linux is too big to learn everything sequentially in small steps. And it's not very practical. If you want to learn in a way that is practical and sequential, check out this book for Red Hat certification: https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=red+hat+certification&qid=1594663391&sr=8-3
I would suggest the following:
1) Know how to install your favorite Linux distro. Do it several times so you are very familiar with it.
2) Learn how to boot into Linux manually with Grub.
3) Set up a firewall using firewalld, iptables, or nftables. Script it.
4) Learn how to start, stop, enable, and disable system services with systemd.
5) Add users and groups. Add user to wheel group.
6) Gain system access with su or sudo.
7) Learn the command line. It is your friend.
8) Learn the basics of Vi since it's on every Linux system.
9) Find your distro's documentation and get an idea of what's there. Pick out something that interests you and do it.
10) Figure out something you want and will use a lot. Do it in Linux.
Mike Meyers book is what I used. Here is the the link to Amazon.
Read a book on system administration, I would say. Don’t skim it, READ it.
The book that got me where I am today: https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-System-Administration-Handbook/dp/0134277554/ref=nodl_
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for self hosting behind the safety of ones own (fire)walls.
But take it from someone with 20+ years of experience as a sysadm, network administrator, security consultant, developer, cloud architect and more, that you do NOT want to expose services to the internet unless you know what you’re doing.
If you need more arguments, look no further than haveibeenpwned. While some of the companies might not have hired the brightest of the bunch, I refuse to believe that all of them were incompetent, and they still got hacked.
Services on the internet needs near constant monitoring, at least if you have a lot of traffic. I doubt your little nextcloud (or whatever) instance will attract much traffic except from automated vulnerability scanning scripts.
You say you want to learn Unix, and that’s (probably) a good choice. I know it has kept bread on my table for 3 decades, and I can recommend Linux and Unix system administration handbook as a great guide that takes you around almost everything, including security.
Also know that your “SLA” gets a lot more complicated once your user base grows from 1 to “more”, and you will find yourself sitting in the small hours of the night debugging why somebody cannot connect from the laptop when their phone connects just fine. And god forbid your hardware fails and your backup doesn’t work :-)
Anyway, I’m a grumpy old dinosaur,and there’s lots of learning to be had from experimenting, so keep at it, and you’ll get great at it in no time :-)
https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X
Basically the A+ bible right there. Mike Meyers cert books are pretty much the go to. For CCNA, they publish their own stuff.
There is alot of great information on this post. I was actually in the same boat as the description you gave. Wanted to get into programming but did not understand how to actually apply the knowledge after going through some lynda/youtube courses.
I have purchased a study guide for the Comp TIA A+ certification after christmas to broaden my understanding on hardware, networks, and security. Hopefully it helps, but if there are any other suggestions please let me know! https://www.amazon.com/dp/1260454037/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_HNm-FbDR5BR2K
While not as sexy as Google's SRE handbook, the UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook 5th Ed remains a classic. Not only does it cover basically everything you'd want to know about *nix and operations in sometimes excruciating detail (looking at you Chapter 18 on email) it's also a great pointer for other books on topics of frequent confusion like networking.
I bought this book to study. It's a bit thiccc at 1,318 pages of study content, but it helped me pass. I watched some YouTube videos because I was having a hard time conceptualizing how printers work; and made flashcards for things like port numbers and IP address classes (although the address classes wasn't on the exam at all). I'm sure there's probably shorter books to help cram the important information in; or if you prefer videos, Professor Messer has an A+ Certification series on YouTube.
if all you plan on doing is music, videos and surfing the web then you have nothing to loose. Install Mint or Ubuntu on that baby!
Edit: Also, This is a pdf of the textbook I used in my Intro to Linux class that helped me to get to know the basics. It is a great book. You can also get it on amazon if you would rather have a physical copy.
Awesome! I'm feeling more and more confident about this now! I'll most likely attempt a networking certification through CompTIA as well, but later on. I believe you're referring to the book that I saw on Amazon:
CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Ninth Edition (Exams 220-901 & 220-902)
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/125958951X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_nTIlybCJWQ4J1
It's the one I was considering buying, but I saw 2015 somewhere on the page and didn't know if it was still applicable.
I'm not sure of any websites but if you look up Professor Messer on youtube he streams a study group that you could follow along with. His channel is here:https://www.youtube.com/user/professormesser . You can buy the book from amazon for like 30 bucks I think. Good luck!
Yes everyone gets the cup, it comes with your webcam. How much IT experience do you have? Are you bringing any certs in with you(A+ maybe?). If not I'd suggest beginning to study for them now because they can eat a lot of time. There's a lot of resources for A+ out there that are free or close to it. I really liked Mike Meyers A+ book. It's $24 on Amazon but well worth it. Same for his Network+ book.
I used Mike Myers’ All-In-One guide and the Sybex A+ when I took mine a few years back. Both were good resources. I would highly recommend doing the included activities they mention in the chapters and take the chapter quizzes while reading through to enforce the concepts and hone in on what you need to work on.
Here’s an Amazon link to the newest AIO book:
Here’s a link to the newest Sybex book: