BSD Hacks

BSD Hacks
Price: $24.95 USD
In the world of Unix operating systems, the various BSDs come with a long heritage of high-quality software and well-designed solutions, making them a favorite OS of a wide range of users. Among budget-minded users who adopted BSD early on to developers of some of today's largest Internet sites, the popularity of BSD systems continues to grow. If you use the BSD operating system, then you know that the secret of its success is not just in its price tag: practical, reliable, extraordinarily stable and flexible, BSD also offers plenty of fertile ground for creative, time-saving tweaks and tricks, and yes, even the chance to have some fun.

"Fun?" you ask. Perhaps "fun" wasn't covered in the manual that taught you to install BSD and administer it effectively. But BSD Hacks, the latest in O'Reilly's popular Hacks series, offers a unique set of practical tips, tricks, tools--and even fun--for administrators and power users of BSD systems.

BSD Hacks takes a creative approach to saving time and getting more done, with fewer resources. You'll take advantage of the tools and concepts that make the world's top Unix users more productive. Rather than spending hours with a dry technical document learning what switches go with a command, you'll learn concrete, practical uses for that command.

The book begins with hacks to customize the user environment. You'll learn how to be more productive in the command line, timesaving tips for setting user-defaults, how to automate long commands, and save long sessions for later review. Other hacks in the book are grouped in the following areas:

Customizing the User Environment

Dealing with Files and Filesystems

The Boot and Login Environments

Backing Up

Networking Hacks

Securing the System

Going Beyond the Basics

Keeping Up-to-Date

Grokking BSD

If you want more than your average BSD user--you want to explore and experiment, unearth shortcuts, create useful tools, and come up with fun things to try on your own--BSD Hacks is a must-have. This book will turn regular users into power users and system administrators into super system administrators.

Author: Dru Lavigne
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Customer Reviews
  • I'm torn with the BSD community structure... but this book ROCKS!
    Delving into BSD, I could not find the amount of print material I was hoping for... but instead found online (internet and CDROM) materiel of man pages, command listings, etc... I hate to push against the un*x mentality, but I work better with printed books... and Dru's book of BSD Hacks helped fill a big gap of knowledge I had. <br /> <br />I'd seen it in a Bookstore & Neighborhood coffee shop, but didn't want to pay full price. Amazon's listing of a used copy was snatched up by me very quickly, and has a prized place in my BSD network laboratory... <br /> <br />Until (if ever) an O'reilly "BSD in a Nutshell" book comes out, this one will fill in the gaps of "hidden" and "prized" knowledge. Get a copy soon...
  • Simple, Easy and Powerful
    Although the name is scary, the ideas inside are simple to understand and implement, yet very powerful. <br /> <br />I especially like their way configuring terminals and backup solutions.
  • Great complementary material
    Make this the FreeBSD book you buy after you've got a basic understanding of the operating system. In other words, this is a very useful "sidekick" BSD book. It's full of creative and practical hacks, and the price is right. Highly recommended.
  • The best BSD book on the shelves, PERIOD.
    Whether you are a beginner or an advanced user, you will find this book extremely practical. Dru's solutions make building a BSD server from start to finish a snap. Buy this book as a supplement at the very least. 5 stars!
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