This chapter excerpt on Linux Administration (download PDF) is taken from the book The Accidental Administrator: Linux Server Step-by-Step Configuration Guide. Among the topics covered in this book ...

Older commands can still be faster—and more flexible, powerful, and accessible too!

GUIs are great—we wouldn’t want to live without them. But if you’re a Mac or Linux user and you want to get the most out of your operating system (and your keystrokes), you owe it to yourself to get ...

Shell scripts enable every level of system administration and user interaction on Unix and Linux systems. Several system administration tasks can be automated with shell scripts. Disaster recovery ...

Turns out ls is more memorable when there’s loot involved.

Simply put, environment variables are variables that are set up in your shell when you log in. They are called “environment variables” because most of them affect the way your Unix shell works for you ...

Ever wondered why programming in Bash is so difficult? Bash employs the same constructs as traditional programming languages; however, under the hood, the logic is rather different. The Bourne-Again ...

A customer account with an Internet service provider (ISP) that requires the user to enter Unix commands to send and receive mail and files. Prior to today's graphical interfaces, Internet access was ...