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Linux in a Windows World (Linux)
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by Roderick Smith
Sales Rank: 661695
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List Price: $44.95
$29.67
At Amazon
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Paperback: 494 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc. February 7, 2005
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0596007582
ISBN-13: 978-0596007584
Product Dimensions:
9.1 x 7 x 1.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
Product Review
"This is definitely one of those "jump up and down" books. A number of books on "Linux-Windows integration" have appeared in the last few years, but none have impressed me as much as Linux in a Windows WorldO'Reilly has another winner with this one." - James Mohr, - Linux Magazine, July 2005 "A word on the last appendix. If you are a UNIX admin that has always viewed PAM with a mixture of awe and terror, buy the book simply for this appendix. It explains PAM simply, directly and with no fuss whatsoever. This is a truly marvellous reference on PAM and I would be happy to shell out (pardon the pun) the entire price of the book for this appendix alone! Thank you Mr. Smith for an excellent all-rounder. I feel that this is a book pitched just right to help Windows admin to take their first steps into a Linux world, and to help Linux admin overcome their suspicions of Windows. After all, in today's service-dominated society, our users want more and better service. This book should help achieve that." - Steven Ashley Woltering, Ping, March 2006
Product Description
Linux's unparalleled functionality and adaptability have made it the main alternative to Unix and Microsoft Windows operating systems. And with good reason. System administrators realize that this robust alternative can greatly improve their operating system's reliability and save them money, too. Linux systems are even less vulnerable to attacks by computer viruses and worms. Not surprisingly, businesses, government agencies, schools, and a wealth of other institutions are all looking to Linux to replace the Windows desktop for these same benefits. Linux in a Windows World takes an in-depth look at exactly how Linux can be brought into an organization that's currently based on Microsoft Windows systems. Featuring a litany of insider tips and techniques, Linux in a Windows World dispenses all the practical advice you need to migrate to this revolutionary open source software. Author Roderick W. Smith, himself a renowned system administrator and Linux convert, understands that the skills required to install, deploy, and maintain Linux are not easy to find. That's why he has tapped the absolute best source of information available: the Linux server experts who have made it their life's work to build and manage the Linux system. The latest in O'Reilly's line of bestselling Linux titles, Linux in a Windows World is an invaluable companion for any system administrator interested in integrating Linux into their Windows environment.
Customer Reviews & Comments
This book has well developed details on Linux client configuration for Linux only solutions with some small Windows tidbits thrown in. Given that the scope of this book should be "Linux in a Windows World", I expected more material on connecting Linux to modern Windows infrastructure, especially Active Directory. What coverage that was offered on Windows, e.g. some chapters dedicated to SAMBA, was mostly focused on 10-year older Windows NT era of technologies. I will delve in to some topics to illustrate this. In Kerberos (Chapter 9), more than 80% of the coverage is about Linux Kerberos solutions and client configuration. There is a measly 2 pages out of 30 on Windows client configuration. In one area (page 216), the author states that Kerberos to Kerberos cross-realm trust to Active Directory would beyond the scope of this book, but I seem to recall that this information took up roughly 5 pages of text in Kerberos, The Definitive Guide by Jason Garman. There is zero coverage on how to configure Linux to use Active Directory KDC, which is something done in about two pages from the same aforementioned book. I'm wondering where's the "Windows World" involved in this as overall coverage is again for Linux to Linux. For the topic of LDAP (Chapter 8), the coverage is again about configuring Linux clients to use OpenLDAP for authentication. Even within the scope of Linux-to-Linux the information was limited (there's less than adequate coverage about how lack of caching can cause serious problems, or how to use things like SASL for Kerberized authentication of LDAP). There is no mention of using Active Directory LDAP in this chapter for Linux clients. There was some coverage of Windows client configuration through pGina. However, I would prefer to see Windows solutions as this is suppose to be about a "Windows World" book, but get Linux-to-Linux solutions and with pGina, a Windows-to-Linux solution. On the topic of DNS and DHCP (Chapter 15), only Linux solutions are covered, so there is no information on using Linux with Windows DHCP and DNS backends. In the scope of Linux DHCP, the information is very limited, and there is no information on how to assign IP addresses based on computer names, which is a feature that even Windows DHCP doesn't support. Windows clients spit out names with an appended "0" character to the DHCP server, which could be use for further configuration of services. In the scope of Linux DNS, there is no information about features needed in BIND to make it interoperable with Windows Active Directory, or even Linux Kerberos solutions for that matter. One needs Dynamic DNS, support for SRV records, and in particular for Active Direcotry, one needs support for underscore characters "_", which I heard is a compile time option for BIND9. Additionally, Microsoft has a proprietary WINS record for legacy support that is not supported by BIND. Both Microsoft certification publications and "DNS and BIND" by Albitz and Liu (O'Reilly) offer solution scenarios for this. None of this important essential information was presented, as the predominant focus appears to be Linux-to-Linux. On the topic of NTP services (Chapter 15), the information is applicable for older Windows 9X/ME/NT systems that used a NetBIOS to locate a non-NTP service from Windows NT. In Windows XP/2003 that is so ancient history and Windows has full support for NTP client and services through the w32tm command. This is completely absent from from the presentation and details on this topic. Also surprising is no mention of why time sychronization is vital to either any Kerberos solutions, including Active Directory; any clients authentication to a Kerberos KDC should sychronize to the clock on that same server, or else users will not be able to log on if their clocks are more than 5 minutes off. When covering mail technologies (Chapter 13), most of the documentation is an overview of mail technology and a exploration of Linux solutions with sendmail and postfix, which is very good presentation of those technologies. Microsoft Excahnge Server gets an honorable mention of less than 2 pages out of 51 pages. I would have appreciated more scenarios on how to integrate Exchange including for a variety of technologies, and would also have been interested in Windows clients that would hook into Linux solutions. There's no mention that that modern versions of Exchange are dependent on Active Directory -- something of a headache for Linux admins, but important consideration for planning the infrastructure. The Windows interoperability in this area like other chapters was quite lacking. There are four chapters in Part II "Sharing Files and Printers" dedicated to SAMBA and related technologies like CUPS integration. The coverage here is predominantly focused on 10-year old Windows NT era technologies. One chapter is even dedicated to NetBIOS Network, something even Windows admins wish would have never existed. I don't know but I would hope that interoperability would cover modern technologies that are at least applicable within the last three years (after all, Windows 2003 is about 3 years old now). There only mention of Active Directory, and NONE of the richness found in where Linux boxes can be added to Active Directory domain, authenticate through ActiveDirectory via windbindd (with support for caching), and Windows account sid (security id) to user id (uid) and group id (gid) mapping with LDAP Unix schema support with either SFU 3.5 or AD4Unix in Active Directory (( NOTE: This can be done through SAMBA 3.0.20 and above, but authors haven't a clue )). The interoperability here is for historical network scenarios that is well covered in existing published (and online free) books. I would expect that a book written in this time would offer appicable Windows interoperability. In the scope of printing through CUPS (Chapter 4), there's no mention that I can tell of Windows support for IPP, the same technology that CUPS uses. Linux clients can connect directly to Windows IPP printer without even touching SAMBA (just have to use port 80 in the URL as Microsoft implemented their solution before the RFC was finalized). Some redeeming qualities of this section was how to do free PDF-Gernation printer share on Linux, and also how to implement Microsoft RPC facility (through SAMBA) for auto-insstallation of printer drivers on Windows clients. Overall, given that the focus is predominantly Linux for Linux solutions, this book maybe should be called "Linux in a Linux World". If you need an overview of Linux technologies and solutions, then this is a decent book, but if you want modern real-world details on interoperability to Windows, then there are far better books in this space.
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Linux in a Windows World (Linux)
List Price: $44.95
Available from Amazon
Price: $29.67
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