Ask HN: Books that cover the "SysAdmin issues" for web-start-ups | Hacker News Reader

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

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.

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.

I aim for comments recommending books covering all kind of topics regarding web-start-up server/cloud administration.

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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.

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.

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?

"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/

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