Amazon.co.uk Review
The most complete (and important) product of the Linux Documentation Project is arguably the Network Administrator's Guide, usually called NAG. It's freely downloadable, distributable and saleable under the Gnu General Licence.
O'Reilly has worked with the authors to improve the quality and accessibility of the NAG for this book version. All the improvements have been fed back into the original, which means you can download this book for free. In practice, a printed version is so useful--and it costs so much more to produce an inferior print copy for yourself--that you'll want to buy it. But download the digital version to prove it.
Linux is primarily a networking operating system and supports a multitude of networking protocols as well as the near ubiquitous TCP/IP. The NAG tells you everything about TCP/IP, from how to set up networking cards to setting up and deploying DNS. It also goes into the depths of UUCP (the store and forward protocol), Novell's IPX and NCP, SLIP and PPP for dial up networking, firewalls, IP masquerading, routing, Sun's NIS, NFS, Sendmail and Exim for e-mail, NNTP for newsgroups and more besides. What it doesn't cover is interfacing with Windows on networks, which is a function of Samba. If this is what you need, buy O'Reilly's Using Samba as well.
The NAG is the definitive guide to Linux networking whether you're coming to it cold or have previous experience. --Steve Patient
Rory Beaton, First Monday, April, 2002
In all, this is a valuable addition to O'Reilly's already packed stable of Linux titles and I look forward to more from the author.
