Product: 1430219300

Several months ago I was asked to evaluate a LAMP platform ( Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP ) for an in-house intranet application. I choose CentOS and this book to begin. So how did I get on.

Getting Started with CentOS …

This is the first section of the book and spans 4 chapters. It answers the questions, why choose CentOS, installation and where to download the files from, a few basic commands and how to patch your fresh install with the latest updates using the YUM tool. YUM stands for ‘ Yellow Dog Updater, Modified ‘; beautiful, I was loving it already. The installation assumes CentOS 5.2; the present release is 6.2 ( as of January 2012 ) which I installed. In the space of a few days I had a fresh CentOS box up and running. The book took me through the steps one at a time. No problems; could it be this simple !.

Going into Production …

The second section of the book. It spans 6 chapters and introduces ( keyword ) Apache web server ( Yes, LAMP platform here we go ), DNS, DHCP, Mail, Samba and Virtual Private Networks …. Ahh no database chapter. Reality bites !. Nevertheless, being a complete novice only some weeks previous, I now had grasped enough bite sized knowledge and terminology to explore the CentOS website, documentation and forums and other web resources to locate the remaining snippets of information I required to install and configure MySQL. The book now moves from a step by step, do as I say approach to become more of a guide to the features ( the bells and whistles if you like ) of CentOS. It uses Apache, Samba, DNS etc. etc. configuration files to nudge you in the right direction but more in-depth knowledge will be required to move from installation, beyond configuration and finally to release.

The last section ( Enterprise Features ) presents Core Builds, High Availability and Network Monitoring. Suffice to say it would be possible to devote books to these areas; this book introduces only the basics.

I would recommend the book as a good purchase for those completely new to CentOS; indeed Linux in general would perhaps be more apt. The areas I found the book to lack in would be security configuration, essential CentOS/Linux commands to gather system information, status of services, maintenance, file creation etc. etc.. All in all though I loved the book and would certainly recommend it.
Rating: 5
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