Re: [cobalt-users] System Admin Materials Needed

["Steve Werby" <steve-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"tradesho1" <tradesho1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I am starting up a RAQ4 server. I will need to handle much of the
> administrative duties and need to learn more about the operating system
and
> structure of the system.

Welcome to the list, Raymond.  Here are some resources that will help:

Sun Cobalt manuals: http://www.cobalt.com/support/resources/manuals.html
Sun Cobalt user groups:
http://www.cobalt.com/support/resources/usergroups.html
Sun Cobalt knowledgebase:
http://cobalt-knowledge.sun.com/cgi-bin/kbase.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php
The AIMS Group cobalt-users searchable archive:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=cobalt-users
The AIMS Group archives (hundreds of lists): http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/
Red Hat (RaQ 4 runs a modified Red Hat 6): http://www.redhat.com/

Here are some other resources which aren't directly related to your
question, but which you might also find useful.

Sun Cobalt upgrades/patches:
http://www.cobalt.com/support/download/index.html
Unofficial, unsupported packages: http://pkgmaster.com/
Sun Cobalt FTP site (sources, upgrades, etc.): ftp://ftp.cobaltnet.com/pub/
Sans Institute: http://www.sans.org/
BugTraq at SecurityFocus:
http://www.securityfocus.com/popups/forums/bugtraq/intro.shtml
Freshmeat (great place to find open source sw): http://freshmeat.net/

If you haven't signed up for cobalt-security (low traffic) and
cobalt-announcement (very low traffic) please do so.  Check out the AIMS
Group archives.  You can search hundreds of Internet related mailing lists
at once (or individually).  There are other search methods to find previous
discussions on the Cobalt lists, including Google and Cobalt's internal
archives, but IMO the AIMS Group archives are the best to work with.

> Can any one point me to reading material especially on the web but books
or
> courses also would be helpful to know about.

Books on Red Hat, Sendmail, Bind (DNS) and Apache might be good to have
handy.  Instead of recommending a book I like, I'd just suggest you spend a
few hours at your local bookstore and find books that have the content and
style that best suits you.  If you want to know the top selling books for
each category check out the sales rankings at amazon.com.  Then buy the
books from somewhere cheaper like bookpool.com (where I get my technical
books, very good prices, fast delivery using cheapest shipping method,
YMMV).  And if you're planning on allowing users to run PHP, Perl, MySQL,
PostgreSQL, etc. I'd advise books on those as well.

> I have hosted accounts for years but it has always been thru an elaborate
> interface to a unix/solaris box with techs on hand for the tough stuff.
> Looks like I'll be on my own on this one unless I want to pay 100.00 an
hour
> for tech help.
>
> Any ideas other than run for the hills? :o)

Pay great attention to security.  Your server is pretty insecure out of the
box.  Ignoring security for the time being may save time and money, but then
you're playing Russian Roulette.  Implement a good backup and recovery
solution.  Backup your files automatically to off-server (and preferably
off-site) media (if nothing else use your PC) and test re-installing files
from the backups so you don't find out the hard way that the recovery step
doesn't work as you expected.  Prioritize your needs and come up with a plan
to get the skill you want X months down the road and stick with your plan.
Make notes and document everything you do to the server so you can undo it
or redo it if necessary down the road without having to relearn what you've
already done.

HTH,

--
Steve Werby
President, Befriend Internet Services LLC
http://www.befriend.com/