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Books Media Programming Book Reviews Technology IT

Open Source Network Administration 139

Posted by timothy from the tools-to-do-stuff dept.
For a sysadmin, putting "MIT Network Operations" on a resume must feel pretty satisfying. James Kretchmar got the job, and now has written the book. ALecs writes with his review of Kretchmar'sOpen Source Network Administration, below.
Open Source Network Administration
author James M. Kretchmar
pages 220
publisher Prentice Hall (PTR)
rating 9
reviewer Joshua Malone
ISBN 0130462101
summary A brief tutotrial on using several open source packages to monitor and administer system networks
Open Source Network Administration covers a number of open source tools designed to aid in managing computers and TCP/IP networks. The tools discussed in this book are all free, and are all top-quality tools that have earned their place in any system administrator's arsenal of administration and debugging tools. Included in this book are:
  • SNMP (a protocol for managing network devices and hosts)
  • MRTG (the Multi Router Traffic Grapher - a bandwidth utilization meter)
  • Neo (a network device administration tool that speaks SNMP)
  • Oak (a syslog watcher and digester)
  • Nagios (an active network/host monitoring tool)
  • Flow Tools (tools for processing Cisco NetFlow data)

This book also discusses more basic debugging tools such as ping, traceroute, tcpdump and others. Finally, Kretchmar provides some pointers on building your own tools using bash, perl, sed and awk.

Kretchmar is a network engineer for MIT and has gotten a lot of practical experience in managing large networks and unruly hosts. In this book, he imparts a large amount of that experience in over 200 quick-reading, no-nonsense pages. He tells you what a tool can do, how to get it and build it and provides examples of some typical uses. While beginning network administrators will feel comforted that he takes enough time to explain the tools he talks about, experienced ones can safely jump right to his equally well-explained configuration examples without missing anything crucial.

This book read so quickly and was so straightforward that it really inspired me to fix up some areas of my network monitoring that I knew were lacking, but hadn't bothered to fix. In particular, his chapter on Oak motivated me to implement an instant messaging infrastructure (like one he mentions using at MIT) to receive event notices quickly and without dependence on e-mail. While it's no bible (my staple, the Unix System Administration Handbook, is over 800 pages), this book provides a great start on quite a few great tools - many of which I plan to investigate soon.

I was a bit puzzled at his inclusion of instructions for building each tool when most of them are simply ./configure; make; make install. Only one of the tools seemed to actually merit building instructions. At least you can't say he isn't thorough.

I give this book nine stars (out of ten) simply because it really made me realize how easy it is to configure a lot of automation that Ive been wanting. The cover price of U.S. $44.99 strikes me as a bit high in the market, but it is significantly discounted at most online book stores. I still have to recommend The Unix System Administration Handbook first, however. It is more expensive, but contains much more scope and detail than this book. Those who have digested USAH, though, should consider picking this book up from your favorite e-tailer.

You can purchase Open Source Network Administration from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page. Reviewer, Virginia Tech alum and CHUUG member Josh Malone has been a Unix Systems and Network Administrator in Charlottesville, VA for three years.
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Open Source Network Administration

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  • MIT so great why ? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why is it so great to put MIT on your resume? I can think of a 100 different place I would rather at before the MIT NOC. Seriously what does MIT do at their NOC that makes it so special. Hell I could use those tools at home on my linksys router, save the Cisco Netflow stuff.
    • Why is it so great to put MIT on your resume? I can think of a 100 different place I would rather at before the MIT NOC. Seriously what does MIT do at their NOC that makes it so special. Hell I could use those tools at home on my linksys router, save the Cisco Netflow stuff.

      Thousands of geeks *already* inside your network

    • Re:MIT so great why ? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <akaimbatman@gmaYEATSil.com minus poet> on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @01:08PM (#7338855) Homepage Journal
      Unfortunately, that's the exact attitude that many employers take. Apparently nothing impresses them about a candidate except:

      1. An ability to kiss ass.
      2. Knowing less than the employer.

      Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't the point to hire people smarter/more knowledgeable than yourself? Otherwise, you should be able to do the job yourself!

      • Re:MIT so great why ? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mikeee ( 137160 )
        First-rate people hire first-rate people.

        Second-rate people hire third-rate people.

        • Re:MIT so great why ? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by cduffy ( 652 )
          First-rate people hire first-rate people. Second-rate people hire third-rate people.

          Ahh, but it's *sooo* true.

          My workplace recently needed a new lead sysadmin. I reccomended one of the best sysadmin/system-level-programmer types I knew. Everyone who interviewed him agreed he was the best person we'd talked to -- except the VP of Engineering, who refused to hire him (but wouldn't say why).

          Well, a few weeks go by, we haven't found anyone else who's up to snuff, so the VP gives in and hires this guy. Then
      • Unless, of course, you are too busy managing other things and need someone to help you. I can edit, but I don't have time. I need to know how to edit in order to know the person I hired is competent and pays attention to detail.

        I would say the same holds true for IT managers. They could findout out why the connection is down, but if they are doing their jobs, they don't have time to and rely on their employees.

        • > Unless, of course, you are too busy managing other things and need someone to help you.

          That is a secretarial or junior level position. And in that case, the IT manager himself probably wouldn't be the final say. When a employer doesn't want to hire anyone too smart, you'll note that the IT manager (or perhaps HR rep) is the only person you talk to.

      • Re:MIT so great why ? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kfg ( 145172 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @01:40PM (#7339142)
        Charlie Daniels was accused, during an interview, of not being that great a musician and simply hiring people better than himself to back him, making him just look good.

        To which Charlie replied, roughly," I'm just a front man. Of course they're better than me. If they weren't I wouldn't have hired them.

        Charlie knows something.

        You'll never see a job ad that says "Wanted: Really Smart Guy."

        No boss really wants that guy around the place. Despite some of your other respondents this fairly common knowledge with lots of anecdotal evidence.

        Robert Townsend, author of "Up the Orininization" and former President of both Avis and American Express wrote that every company should have a Bullshit guy. This is a guy whose only job is to wander around and yell "Bullshit!" any time he sees any in a company practice. It' would take a reasonably smart guy to fill this position.

        And what boss would have him, wandering around yelling "Bullshit!" at all the policies he implemented?

        I take the idea a bit further though. Every company of any size should have a position that's called "The Smart Guy." Officially. That's what it would say on his cards and everything.

        No official duties other than being smart, curious, informed and the interest to keep himself informed, on nearly anything.

        Anybody in the company could talk to "The Smart Guy." Network's down and you can't figure it out? Go talk to The Smart Guy. Maybe he doesn't know the answer, in fact he probably doesn't, but talking to someone smart might helf you think about the problem in a way that allows its solution.

        Extrapolate.

        You'll never, ever see this position advertised. Not because it's not a good idea, but because every boss thinks that he's The Smart Guy. He wouldn't be "boss" otherwise. Right?

        KFG
        • Will someone please mod parent up? Geez, the mods seem to be slacking these days.
        • ...Thank you. :-)

          BTW, a comment to the original poster: A wise manager gets the best of both worlds by hiring smart people, then talking to them before implementing policies. Thus the need for someone who cries "bullshit!" is diminished and the manager looks like a hero for always doing things right. I think Solomon said it best when he wrote, "A wise man surrounds himself with advisors."

          • Yes, even the boss would be allowed to talk to The Smart Guy.

            In fact, he should be The Smart Guy's best "customer."

            KFG
          • The best officers I served with were the ones that let the Sergeants do their job.

            The Sergeant's job is to accomplish the mission, take care of the troops and keep the Captain looking good. When a captain learned that, the unit functioned like a well oiled machine, and esprit de corps was at a peak.

            The Sergeants may not have the Master's degrees, but they have just as high IQs as their "superior officers" and the experience that the Officer will never be able to obtain. The Smart Officer leads these men a

        • You'll never, ever see this position advertised. Not because it's not a good idea, but because every boss thinks that he's The Smart Guy. He wouldn't be "boss" otherwise. Right?

          This is almost right - I think a more accurate portrayal is that every boss expects to be the smart guy, but is afraid to find out ... Turns out I'm the 'Smart Girl' at my company - talk about fun ... but then one of my oh-so-smart ideas was turned into a product, and suddenly, I was 'the boss' and 'the smart girl'. BOOM - the fac

          • Errmm... That's pretty round-about logic, but I agree with your basic sentiment. Even the smartest person needs someone to tell them when they're missing the big picture. "Trees through the forest" and all that.

            > Heh, yeah, I'll put that on our next job posting, and see what kind of resumes come in (-:

            Where are you located? I'm sure we could find a few candidates. :-)

            • Smart Guy Wanted: Self-reliant thinker with excellent trouble-shooting skills and the ability to creatively add value in ways no one else has ever thought of. Must have the social skills to effectively communicate the complete and utter stupidity of a planned action to the originator of that action, while simultaneously conceiving of and evangelizing a viable alternative, and doing so without appearing to be threatening in any way.

              Must also be able to leap small buildings - this requirement is mandatory

        • You'll never, ever see this position advertised. Not because it's not a good idea, but because every boss thinks that he's The Smart Guy. He wouldn't be "boss" otherwise. Right?

          Of course that position won't ever be implemented in any company, but I disagree about the reason.

          In my experience, people who've been at a company for a longish time (like most bosses) are mainly interested in keeping the power they have and grabbing a bit more when they see the chance. Doing a good work is just worthy of atte

          • Perhaps you misunderstand The Smart Guy concept. He would have absolutely no decision making power. He is not part of "managment" at all, except as managment sees fit to access his "smarts."

            His thoughts may have influence, as do the thoughts of everyone in an organization, to one extent or another, but they do not decide, any more than an encyclopedia "decides."

            But yes, he would be perceived as usurping power just by the virtue of the appearance of his being smarter than the "boss."

            On the whole, one of t
            • On the whole, one of the problems with management is that they aren't, typically, smart enough to understand what their job is, nor is the social structure built by such managers conducive to those that do actually understand the function of managment.

              That rolls up pretty easily:

              "Individuals get promoted to their level of incompetence."


        • Hiring smart guys is what you want. You want a team of smart guys who them compete against each other....

          And you look miles better while doing less work as the smart guys are competing to do your work as well. Then you can focus on the more important things like golf and sailing.

          Smart BTW implies they can also communicate well.
    • Still haven't gotten over that rejection letter from the MIT Undergrad Admissions Office, eh?

      -Shane
      • Never applied, I went to RIT (www.rit.edu.) Great school, great fellow geek population and great professors and classes. I don't need to have a school name behind me cause I put my reputation there.

    • I guess it has something to do with the fact that MIT is considered one of the U.S.'s best engineering schools and by implication is attended and staffed by some of the best technical minds in the country.
      • I guess it has something to do with the fact that MIT is considered one of the U.S.'s best engineering schools and by implication is attended and staffed by some of the best technical minds in the country. actually MIT is considered the best U.S. engineering school and quite possibly the best world wide. Which is precisely why I will not get in with a 3.4 GPA, 26 ACT, and 1180 SAT scores :(

  • Understatement. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Chris_Stankowitz ( 612232 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @01:02PM (#7338804)
    Kretchmar is a network engineer for MIT and has gotten a lot of practical experience in managing large networks and unruly hosts.

    I'd say, we all know how MIT loves its pranks/hacks. This has to be one intersting and challenging job. Someone should publish a book (or just a website) on the pranks/hacks that happens on their network. For the most part the other pranks are all well documented, bu I'd love to see what these kids cook up for the New Admin.

    • Re:Understatement. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      http://hacks.mit.edu/ [mit.edu]
    • Well, here's one prank that managed to make it's way onto the webpage for an artificial intelligence course that I'm taking. Note that the Head TA's picture has been replaced by Chuck Vest's (MIT president) and the professor's (Patrick Winston) has been replaced by Winston Churchill:

      http://www.ai.mit.edu/courses/6.034f/

    • Re:Understatement. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by frenetic3 ( 166950 ) <houstonNO@SPAMalum.mit.edu> on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @02:33PM (#7339738) Homepage Journal
      Not really that I've seen. Honestly since coming here (I'm a junior, undergrad, comp sci dept.) I've been kind of disappointed -- there are plenty of intelligent (book smart) people, but there aren't really that many truly talented and passionate hacker types (well, at least not that I've met in like the software engineering class [6.170] or other course 6 [comp sci] classes.) Well, there are a couple, but they are REALLY, uh, eccentric or arrogant. The most "innovative" hacks I've seen are like the freaking bathroom [mit.edu]/laundry [mit.edu] monitors, and those aren't really that impressive (who gives a shit anyway.)

      It's too bad. Mostly everyone is so damn busy with the workload that they rarely have time to pursue cool independent projects in their spare time. Which sucks because one would expect that revolutionary new sociological/technological inventions like Napster (northeastern) or Friendster or even cool hacks like BuddyZoo (caltech) etc would be coming out of MIT but from what I've seen that's sadly not the case because everyone is so stressed and maxed out with work.

      -fren
      • And I quoth:

        It's too bad. Mostly everyone is so damn busy with the workload that they rarely have time to pursue cool independent projects in their spare time.

        Seems to be the way now. I work for a comp. science university department in the UK - one that has previously turned out the odd significant unix project that was widely used for a time. All I know is that I (and my colleagues) are bogged down solid with providing basic services. I will spend a lot of time to implement well where I can and avoid b

      • The most "innovative" hacks I've seen are like the freaking bathroom/laundry monitors, and those aren't really that impressive

        (who gives a shit anyway.)

        And thus the utility of the bathroom monitor.
        Stall, user, duration, TP used...
        logging all this (huhuh, I said 'log'), would tell you who gave various shits with all the ease of your favorite rdbms

  • Why is EVERY book reviewed as great on slashdot??? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by adambehnke ( 719862 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @01:04PM (#7338818)
    Honestly, Im not being an idiot. There is no way every book out there is a 9/10, excellent, or whatever. Let's take a look:

    Last book review, 9/10 [slashdot.org]

    Book before that, rated Excellent [slashdot.org]

    Before that, two thumbs up [slashdot.org]

    Oh, MY GOD, an 8! [slashdot.org]

    What gives? Can we get an unbiased review, please?

    • Maybe they don't post the bad reviews. Who cares about the book you don't wanna read right?

    • Re:Why is EVERY book reviewed as great on slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      rating 6 - Serious flaws in structure in an otherwise excellent book

      http://books.slashdot.org/books/03/10/02/1551210 .s html

      and if it doesn't score about a 7 (or whatever the chosen scale) how do you expect anyone to finish reading it to do a review of it? no one (as far as i know) is getting paid to do it, so if it isn't worth reading, they probably won't read it (and therefore not review it)

    • Re:Why is EVERY book reviewed as great on slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)

      by prostoalex ( 308614 ) * on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @01:14PM (#7338916) Homepage Journal
      Unlike traditional media, which has a staff responsible for reviewing new books, Slashdot's book reviews are submitted by users. There is little, if any, incentive, to read the books that are worthless or of little value.

    • Re:Why is EVERY book reviewed as great on slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jmt9581 ( 554192 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @01:15PM (#7338922) Homepage
      I don't really have a problem with high ratings in book reviews on Slashdot these days, it seems likely that the reviewer really does think that the book deserves 9/10. I think that the lack of low reviews means that people aren't willing to invest resources in buying, reading and reviewing a book that they don't like. I personally will never finish a book that strikes me as low quality. I would also never review a book that I haven't finished.

      Judging books before really reading the entire thing is much easier than it sounds. It's very easy to go down to Narnes and Boble and flip through a book and assess it's value within a couple of minutes.

      To me, book reviews like this present book reviews to me that I might be interested in. If you really have that much of a problem with the reviews, go find a crappy book yourself and review it. :)
    • Maybe /. doesn't review bad books... but it would be nice to have someone say, 'Hey this book blows, don't get it...' but then the publishing co. wouldn't send in the free books...
    • Easy answer: people tend to want to share information about the things that they like. Unless someone feels very strongly against something, they're unlikely to spend the time and effort it would take to write a thourough review about it.

    • Would you bother to buy, read, and review a book that sucked ass, and could the average /.'er post the article in such a way as to get it submitted?

      I can see it now:

      New Book Sucks Ass

      2/10

      goatseman writes: OMFG this book is teh sux0rs. I opened the first chapter and almost puked, it's all confusing and crap. This guy rambles on about irrelevant subjects and you never learn much except stupid factoids. Never buy this book, or anythign from this author. It's way to MS-centric and it violated the DMCA, even

      • I opened the first chapter and almost puked, it's all confusing and crap.

        I agree and wanted to comment on the diagrams. I always look at the diagrams in the books at Barnes and Nobles to influence my purchase decisions. Well, these diagrams sucked major ass, but I thought...wow, this is probably an awesome book anyway. NOT! Do not buy "How to run viruses with or without Outlook". I still can't even get a single blip from Blaster out of my RH6.2 machine. Wine sux0rs if they can't even run a simple worm.
    • Well -- they get published (obviously), but the bad books don't get finished. Hey, I'd assume that bad books don't even make it past the "peruse at Borders/B&N before buying" pass I'd guess that most literate geeks would make before buying. Either way, the books are discarded long before the reader has enough material to write a review on.
    • I know this reviewer [amazon.com] isn't afraid to give bad reviews. However, there's no point in devoting time to bad books. Book reviewers get many books per month and spend their time reading the good ones. The only time a bad review is published is if the reader thinks it will be good, actually buys it, and then feels burnt by his purchase.

      On the other hand, Slashdot does publish too many glowing reviews. Good reviews are helpful to publishers and authors but bad for the public. Good luck finding reviewers wil

    • Maybe you can be the first and contribute a review for a (technical?) book that is not good enough for an 8 or 9 out of 10.
      Sorry if this gets classified as flamebait, but why whine, when you can contribute. This reminds me of people who whine about some open source projects I work on, but are too lazy to even submit a bug report, let along a patch.
    • What gives? Can we get an unbiased review, please?

      The publishers would not give complimentary copies to uncomplementary reviewers, don't you read slashdot?
    • Pretty simple. People will read mediocre books (contrary to popular opinion), but won't go to the effort of reviewing anything unless they're madly in love with, or want to warn the world away from.

      Since Amazon reviews have become a dime-a-dozen, I find that the 2-9 reviews are usually the most honest and relevant. Rarely do I find something useful in a 10++++ review, nor a 0--- one. Likewise, I very rarely give top marks to anything if I'm reviewing. (exceptions: The Unix System Administrator's Handbook,

  • bestbookbuys.com (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iosphere ( 14517 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @01:10PM (#7338870)
    I usually pull up bestbookbuys.com [bestbookbuys.com] to see about the best prices. This book shows up for $23.90 [bestwebbuys.com] at half.com...

  • Oak? Where? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Vrallis ( 33290 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @01:16PM (#7338939) Homepage
    Okay, I dug around a bit and couldn't find any references to an Oak syslog watcher outside of info about this book. Does anyone have any info about this utility?

    Or, better yet, a good recommendation for something to cull through a couple 100k or so syslog entries a day?

  • Link to files (Score:5, Informative)

    by trboyden ( 465969 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @01:38PM (#7339119)
    Here is a link to the files referenced in the book: http://web.mit.edu/ktools/ [mit.edu]

    Regards,
    Timothy Boyden
    Systems Administrator
    MIT Department of Facilities

  • Network Admin at MIT... (Score:3, Funny)

    by MosesJones ( 55544 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @01:40PM (#7339145) Homepage

    Is there a chapter on hair length, beard trimming and pizza ?

  • OSS alternative to Group Policy? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A Windows fan told me that Group Policy in Windows is a great way to administer a big network (ensuring patching, etc.) and that is why he prefers Microsoft, because there are no similar open source tool.

    Does anyone know an OSS alternative to Group Policy with an equivalent feature set?
  • Finally a reference that I can point to for my boss. I am a big fan of open source and freeware tools that get the job done at little to no expense.

  • Location of the tools (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Maddog ( 7952 )
    If you want to take a looksie at the tools, head over to the ktools software page @ http://web.mit.edu/ktools/ Looks like he wrote these himself.
  • I know that MRTG has been around forever, but these days I think Cricket [sourceforge.net] does a much better job of monitoring your switches and routers since it can track variables like memory and cpu usage. It can also monitor server statistics such as load, memory available, disk usage, and pretty much anything you want to gather from SNMP. I would recommend it over MRTG.
  • For a sysadmin, putting "MIT Network Operations" on a resume must feel pretty satisfying

    Mod parent down for irrelevant statement.

  • The reviewer says: "I still have to recommend The Unix System Administration Handbook first, however."

    I disagree. I have the "purple" book, otherwise known as the third edition, and I bought it after reading on /. about how great this book is.

    It's not. It's about as informative as reading any number of equally expensive, weighty, yet shitty books put out by SAMS or QUE. Honestly, it was the biggest dissapointment, and I would never recommend it to anyone. In the three years since I purchased it, I have co

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