Essential System Administration, 3rd Edition

Acknowledgments

Many people have helped this book at various points in its successive incarnations. In writing this third edition, I’m afraid I fell at times into the omnipresent trap of writing a different book rather than revising the one at hand; although this made the book take longer to finish, I hope that readers will benefit from my rethinking many topics and issues.

I am certain that few writers have been as fortunate as I have in the truly first-rate set of technical reviewers who read and critiqued the manuscript of the third edition. They were, without doubt, the most meticulous group I have ever encountered:

• Jon Forrest

• Peter Jeremy

• Jay Kreibich

• David Malone

• Eric Melander

• Jay Migliaccio

• Jay Nelson

• Christian Pruett

• Eric Stahl

Luke Boyett, Peter Norton and Nate Williams also commented on significant amounts of the present edition.

My thanks go also to the technical reviews of the first two editions. The second edition reviewers were Nora Chuang, Clem Cole, Walt Daniels, Drew Eckhardt, Zenon Fortuna, Russell Heise, Tanya Herlick, Karen Kerschen, Tom Madell, Hanna Nelson, Barry Saad, Pamela Sogard, Jaime Vazquez, and Dave Williams; first edition reviewers were Jim Binkley, Tan Bronson, Clem Cole, Dick Dunn, Laura Hook, Mike Loukides, and Tim O’Reilly. This book still benefits from their comments.

Many other people helped this edition along by pointing out bugs and providing important information at key points: Jeff Andersen, John Andrea, Jay Ashworth, Christoph Badura, Jiten Bardwaj, Clive Blackledge, Mark Burgess, Trevor Chandler, Douglas Clark, Joseph C. Davidson, Jim Davis, Steven Dick, Matt Eakle, Doug Edwards, Ed Flinn, Patrice Fournier, Rich Fuchs, Brian Gallagher, Michael Gerth, Adam Goodman, Charles Gordon, Uri Guttman, Enhua He, Matthias Heidbrink, Matthew A. Hennessy, Derek Hilliker, John Hobson, Lee Howard, Colin Douglas Howell, Hugh Kennedy, Jonathan C. Knowles, Ki Hwan Lee, Tom Madell, Sean Maguire, Steven Matheson, Jim McKinstry, Barnabus Misanik, John Montgomery, Robert L. Montgomery, Dervi Morgan, John Mulshine, John Mulshine, Darren Nickerson, Jeff Okimoto, Guilio Orsero, Jerry Peek, Chad Pelander, David B. Perry, Tim Rice, Mark Ritchie, Michael Saunby, Carl Schelin, Mark Summerfield, Tetsuji Tanigawa, Chuck Toporek, Gary Trucks, Sean Wang, Brian Whitehead, Bill Wisniewski, Simon Wright, and Michael Zehe.

Any errors that remain are mine alone.

I am also grateful to companies who loaned me or provided access to hardware and/or software:

• Gaussian, Inc. gave me access to several computer systems. Thanks to Mike Frisch, Jim Cheeseman, Jim Hess, John Montgomery, Thom Vreven and Gary Trucks.

• Christopher Mahmood and Jay Migliaccio of SuSE, Inc. gave me advance access to SuSE 8.

• Lorien Golarski of Red Hat gave me access to their beta program.

• Chris Molnar provided me with an advance copy of KDE version 3.

• Angela Loh of Compaq arranged for an equipment loan of an Alpha Linux system.

• Steve Behling, Tony Perraglia and Carlos Sosa of IBM expedited AIX releases for me and also provided useful information.

• Adam Goodman and the staff of Linux Magazine provided feedback on early versions of some sections of this book. Thanks also for their long suffering patience with my habitual lateness.

I’d also like to thank my stellar assistant Cat Dubail for all of her help on this third edition. Felicia Bear also provided important editorial help. Thanks also to Laura Lasala, my copy editor for the second edition.

At O’Reilly & Associates, my deepest gratitude goes to my amazing editor Mike Loukides, whose support and guidance brought this edition to completion. Bob Woodbury and Besty Waliszewski provided advice and help at key points. Darren Kelly helped with some technical issues regarding the index. Finally, my enthusiastic thanks go to the excellent production group at O’Reilly & Associates for putting the finishing touches on all three editions of this book.

Finally, no one finishes a task of this size without a lot of support and encouragement from their friends. I’d like to especially thank Mike and Mo for being there for me throughout this project. Thanks also to the furry Frischs: Daphne, Susan, Lyta, and Talia.

—ÆF; Day 200 of 2002; North Haven, CT, USA