

Ask HN: Books that cover the "SysAdmin issues" for web-start-ups - conflagration

I was reading the article "I'll Probably Never Hire Another Pure SysAdmin" yesterday and kept wondering if there is a good book that covers all the sysadmin topics that typically occur in a start-up.<p>For my specific setup a book covering AWS, Chef/Puppet, deploying (to node.js) and monitoring would be nice. I know there are a lot of tutorials for specific topics out there, but I am looking for a general book presenting an all integrated solution.<p>I aim for comments recommending books covering all kind of topics regarding web-start-up server/cloud administration.
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poisonbit
My book (I do not own an startup, sorry):

"You pass from have driver problems in kernel with local devices, to have
driver problems in kernel with remote devices. You forget about bios updates,
hot air in the CPD, ordering cords and track hardware life-cycle and status."
:)

Why amazon? why chef? why puppet? why don't something like:

<http://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/node-js>

Try to avoid the need to learn and use daily
ruby+python+node+AWS+nagios+O.S.foo`(now make a tree of sub-packages of each
one) and just focus in your startup node.js code, and just in npm, and not 5
package managers + the distro one.

If I where you, I could just focus in one technology. You do not need to
master puppet+chef+AWS to mantain 2 servers or 20 equal servers. It can be
passed with ssh+rsync+a bunch of scripts.

They are nice tools... but... is that the focus of your startup ?

Do you need to manage a complex network with many different operative systems
(vendor and version), configurations and policies ? or just a production and a
developmen node.js environment ?

Has the startup resources, for a person full time, learning to mantain
systems? how many systems are needed? how many changes or daily operations in
the systems are needed?

There is no "a book" about that. System administration is about practices,
policies, know-how and data management, organization, etc.

I don't know a single book that covers all the topics that you may reach doing
"AWS+chef/puppet+node.js+monitoring (+DNS, +SSL, +backup, +availability,
+tunning, +etc)" sysadmin/devop may reach in a single day/week/month/year.

From this kernel module option that is better because of scenario A, to this
api change from last month on sub-package X, or this 0day exploit for service
Foo, or this opensource-bug on feature that our plan was relaying, or...

I will not give you book links, but I will give a tip for all those playing to
be sysadmin:

    
    
       Avoid if possible
       Backup everything
       Test everything (Outside production).
       Do it really.
       Be prepared for everything.
       Do it really.
       Do not blame things until you write something better.

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goodweeds
This is an incredibly loaded question, but I'd start with The Practice Of
Systems And Network Administration by Tom Limoncelli. You're not going to find
some magic book that answers all of your questions. Like every other technical
challenge it requires an incredible amount of research, tinkering, experience
to build the domain expertise.

Outsource to someone who knows what they're doing and focus on your product.

~~~
caw
Speaking as a sysadmin (hi /.), is this something that people might be
interested in on a wider scale? I'm thinking either a book with the mile high
overview of several technologies (ie here's your generic chef,cfengine,puppet
configuration tips & setup all in one place), or something that automagically
makes your configs for you after answering some questions on a webform?

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sheff
"Pro Puppet" is a good one to start with for the Puppet side of things.

<http://puppetlabs.com/blog/pro-puppet-a-handy-indexed-guide/>

