You know, I honestly have no idea why I decided to do this today, but I was poking around my Digital Ocean account and found something interesting. I hopped on my droplet and for whatever reason decided to see if anyone other than myself was trying to use it. I was shocked to see how many attempts there were. Here’s but a brief section from /var/log/secure: Read More
Author: runlevl4
sed & awk
One of the tasks I find myself doing a lot these days is reviewing web and application logs. Working in a Windows environment with a product responsible for literally billions of transactions each year it’s difficult if not impossible to do this. A single days’ log can easily exceed the capabilities of many Windows text editors and those that can manage it aren’t as fast as Unix tools.
I don’t have a huge need for sed, the Unix stream editor, but I make extensive use of awk. grep is also another tool that plays an important role in my toolbox. Since awk and grep both make use of regular expressions it was nice to find a chapter dedicated to the subject.
There are three chapters dedicated to sed and four geared towards awk. Each utility also has its own quick-reference guide.
The book hasn’t been updated in some time (pre-2000) but let’s face it, not a whole lot changes with basic Unix functionality. I found the examples to be concise and well-suited to helping me grasp the concepts. The material goes much deeper than what I need for my daily tasks but it’s nice to know that a lot of power is at my fingertips should I need it.
If you’re new to ‘nix system administration or like me and trying to clear off the dust this is a great reference book. Grab a copy!
RHCSA/RHCE Study Guide
This is my chosen text for my Red Hat cert. I’ve made it through chapter 4 so far and I’ll update this as I make progress. Unfortunately, while it appears to be a good text for the most part I do concur with a number of negative comments from Amazon and other sites.
Things do seem a bit disjointed. I find myself skipping forward and back again trying to set things up. For example, you’re expected to set the virtual machines up before you learn how to set them up. I do like the general layout and the exam and real-world tips that are broken out of the main text. I’m not put off by the issues enough to knock the book.