Copyright

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Sobell, Mark G.
  A practical guide to Red Hat Linux : Fedora Core and Red Hat
Enterprise Linux / Mark G. Sobell.  3rd ed.
    p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-13-228027-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Linux. 2.  Operating systems (Computers)  I. Title.
QA76.76.O63S59485 2006
005'4'32dc22
                                                  2006014003

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by copyright, and permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding permissions, write to:

     Pearson Education, Inc.
     Rights and Contracts Department
     One Lake Street
     Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
     Fax: (201) 236-3290

Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at Courier in Stoughton, Massachusetts.

First printing, June 2006

Dedication

For my uncle, David Z. Levitov (1920-2005), who gave me the world.

Praise for A Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux , Second Edition

"Since I'm in an educational environment, I found the content of Sobell's book to be right on target and very helpful for anyone managing Linux in the enterprise. His style of writing is very clear. He builds up to the chapter exercises, which I find to be relevant to real-world scenarios a user or admin would encounter. An IT/IS student would find this book a valuable complement to their education. The vast amount of information is extremely well balanced and Sobell manages to present the content without complicated asides and meandering prose . This is a 'must have' for anyone managing Linux systems in a networked environment or anyone running a Linux server. I would also highly recommend it to an experienced computer user who is moving to the Linux platform."

Mary Norbury
IT Director
Barbara Davis Center/
University of Colorado at Denver
from a review posted on slashdot.org

"I had the chance to use your UNIX books when I when was in college years ago at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CA. I have to say that your books are among the best! They're quality books that teach the theoretical aspects and applications of the operating system."

Benton Chan
IS Engineer

"The book has more than lived up to my expectations from the many reviews I read, even though it targets FC2. I have found something very rare with your book: It doesn't read like the standard a technical text, it reads more like a story. It's a pleasure to read and hard to put down. Did I say that?! :-)"

David Hopkins
Business Process Architect

"Thanks for your work and for the book you wrote. There are really few books that can help people to become more efficient administrators of different workstations. We hope (in Russia) that you will continue bringing us a new level of understanding of Linux/UNIX systems."

Anton Petukhov

"Mark Sobell has written a book as approachable as it is authoritative ."

Jeffrey Bianchine
Advocate, Author, Journalist

"Excellent reference book, well suited for the sysadmin of a Linux cluster, or the owner of a PC contemplating installing a recent stable Linux. Don't be put off by the daunting heft of the book. Sobell has striven to be as inclusive as possible, in trying to anticipate your system administration needs."

Wes Boudville
Inventor

" A Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux is a brilliant book. Thank you Mark Sobell."

C. Pozrikidis
University of California at San Diego

"This book presents the best overview of the Linux operating system that I have found. . . . [It] should be very helpful and understandable no matter what the reader's background is: traditional UNIX user, new Linux devotee, or even Windows user. Each topic is presented in a clear, complete fashion and very few assumptions are made about what the reader knows . . . . The book is extremely useful as a reference, as it contains a 70-page glossary of terms and is very well indexed. It is organized in such a way that the reader can focus on simple tasks without having to wade through more advanced topics until they are ready."

Cam Marshall
Marshall Information Service LLC
Member of Front Range UNIX
Users Group [FRUUG]
Boulder, Colorado

"Conclusively, this is THE book to get if you are a new Linux user and you just got into RH/Fedora world. There's no other book that discusses so many different topics and in such depth."

Eugenia Loli-Queru
Editor in Chief
OSNews.com