Open Source Network Administration (Prentice Hall Series in Computer Networking and Distributed Systems)

By James M. Kretchmar

& Collects the standard practice tools, shows where to obtain them (all available for free) and how to configure them all in one book! & & Useful for small and large networks, and to administrators... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0130462101
• ISBN13: 9780130462107
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Prentice Hall Ptr
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Another great book on open source tools

Open source is the wave of the future, and James Kretchmar's "Open Source Network Administration" (OSNA) catches that wave in fine form. Although the book is only 238 pages, it contains several gems. I read the book specifically for its coverage of the Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG), OSU's Flow Tools, and Sysmon. By following Kretchmar's instructions, I easily installed these three applications.I was able to accomplish these tasks because OSNA is a "cross platform" book. The author doesn't limit himself to discussing how to run the tool. He gives guidance on how to configure Cisco routers to export NetFlow records or enable SNMP reporting. Sometimes these simple steps are buried in Cisco's Web site, so I appreciated getting straight to business. I literally had these tools running in a matter of minutes thanks to Kretchmar's instructions and the FreeBSD package system (e.g. "pkg_add -r ").On the down side I thought coverage of old stand-bys like tcpdump, traceroute, and netstat was unnecessary. I would have liked reading about more "niche" tools like MTR. If you like this book, keep an eye out for my "Tao of Network Security Monitoring" in the summer. I'll take a similar approach in several chapters by discussing security-related network monitoring tools.

Good material, but too brief.

James Kretchmar's book, Open Source Network Administration, published by Prentice Hall, offers upcoming and new Network Administrators a down and dirty overview of common Open Source Network Administration utilities.I've found the book to be well organized, and driven straight to the point. Kretchmar is efficient with his usage of words which makes for a nice light book, that tends to be a bit of dry reading. Not to say that the material covered isn't valuable, but the author wastes no ink nor paper on extra words for the sake of color or interest. While the first chapter goes into a down to basics approach that any beginner or management type could fathom, including one of the best descriptions of, and arguments for Open Source that I have come accross in a book, he quickly dives into the meat of the matter in Chapter 2. To put it shortly, his descriptions, and examples were, well, too short in many areas, and just right in many more.Kretchmar's use of first hand experience examples in a mission critical environment, and occasional discussions of real world applications are the gold nuggets that this book has to offer. Prescious and useful. I would ask for the next book on Open Source subjects that the author writes, that he include more real world examples to illustrate how an administrator might make use of, or protect from the subject matter at hand.If I had to rate this book on a 1 - 10 scale, I would give it a 7, only for the brevity. I would highly reccomend that users working with Open Source Network Administration tools get this book, and use it in conjunction with more detailed texts on the specific software or protocols you are interested in. Then take some time and do the reading, this isn't exactly light stuff to read on a Sunday afternoon.David B. HostetlerPresident. Coastal Area of Texas Linux Users Group.

Works for me

This book explains in detail, various open source programs used fornetwork administration.The author uses Solaris syntax for the majority of the examples ofinstallation, configuration and use of the programs.The book is arranged in 10 chapters covering the following subjects:1. Intro to Network Administration2. SNMP3. MRTG4. NEO5. Netflow6. OAK7. Service Monitoring8. TCPDUMP9. Basic Tools10. Custom ToolsI really liked the way the author methodically described all of the major"W's". Who What When Why and Where. He gives a brief background on eachprogram, and tells you what is typically used for. The When/Why/Where isanswered as well, and the amount of detail is more than just a beginnermay need but not too much as to bore or confuse the reader.In each section, similar, alternative tools to the main one described arelisted at the end of each chapter to compare and contrast the strengthsand weaknesses of the tools.The author does a great job of referencing specific websites and RFC's toobtain all the tools listed. Regular expressions, shell scripting andPerl is touched on as well.If you're looking for an introduction to network administration tools,this is the book to get.A suggestion I'd have for a 2nd edition edit would be:Flesh out the section on the uses for MRTG(other than tracking bandwidth)as well as database options such as RRD, and do the same for the NAGIOSdescription.

Well organized book.

I'm not a Network Administrator, but I'm not completely green on the subject of networking either. Given my experience, I found this book to be fairly helpful. All of the utilities it covers are, as the name suggests, open source and can be obtained for free. On first blush, you might be tempted to look past such a book since you can learn how to use these utilities by reading the man pages or various FAQs and tutorials on the web. However, this won't help you if you don't know what tools are available to help you solve various problems.Open Source Network Administration covers SNMP, MRTG, NEO, Netflow, Oak, Service Monitoring with Sysmon and Nagios, TCPDump and basic services such as Ping and Traceroute. Each chapter has a section on what the utility can help you do, how to install it, how to use it and how to maintain it. This organization makes the book straightforward and helpful.If you're an experienced netadmin, this book is not for you. If you're completely new to networking, some sections might be a little dry and hard to get through, like SNMP, but nothing that is insurmountable. If you're somewhere in between like I am, I think you'll find this book useful.My only real beef with this book is the price. Suggested retail of $44.99 is way overpriced but I have heard of finding it at discount book sellers for $20 or $25, which seems quite reasonable.