If a person wanted to learn about what it takes to run a server / be a webhost, are there any specific books or tutorials anyone might recommend to a beginner?

Also, what sort of the following script knowledge is essential to being a successful webhost: CGI, Perl, PHP or others. Any specific tutorial or book recommendations for beginning to learn these scripts?

E-mails welcomed...
Thanks so much for any insights or info!

sabrina

first book you want to pickup is probably a good DNS book. You then want to decide on a platform (Linux/windows) and get a good book on network administration.

Perl, CGi, PHP, mySql, SQL, Cold Fusion, ASP are all important components of webhost and you should probably pick this up if you are heavy into web programming.

You might also want to pick up a book on general networking like cisco routing book to learn more about the internet.

Hope this helps :)

Sabrina,
Id recommend a big fat yellow book called 'RED HAT BIBLE 7.1' which is the newest version.

Also I have found 'Setting Up A Linux Internet Server - A Visual Black Book' very useful.

Check amazon.com for these. I know compusa has the RED HAT BIBLE book for sale as well as barnes and noble. Its not hard to find but the second book is made by CoriolisOpen Press and may be harder to find.

Please see http://www.coriolis.com/store/product.asp?sku=954 - Thanks

James :D

well, since you have internet Access , i guess you should utilize it and not spend more money on Books.
there are so many Online Guidelines " Free ones ".

Personally, i recommend this site "

http://www.learnasp.com/

would provide you with Solid infromation about Active Server Pages, database management, Visual Basic Scripting .. and so on.

enjoy :)

also for DNs and web servers, check this site out

http://webservercompare.internet.com/

wow! well thank you all very much! there's so much information out there, it can be quite overwhelming to decide where to start!!! thanks much!
sabrina

not to Forget Sabrina,


This forum it self is a valueble Source of Information,admins feedback, and real experience, other sites provide theoritical info.

goodluck :cool:

Originally posted by fuzzy71
not to Forget Sabrina,
This forum it self is a valueble Source of Information,admins feedback, and real experience, other sites provide theoritical info.

Good suggestion fuzzy71! :D

*gives Newbie award of the day to fuzzy* :bomb:

Sabrina,

If you're looking to use Linux, then you might find the Linux Documentation Project (http://www.linux.org/docs/index.html) _very_ useful indeed.

If you're looking to spend money on books, then check out the range at O'Reilly and Associates (http://www.oreilly.com/). Most sysadmins I know have their own personal copies of these books at hand. And they guard them well! I know because I once tried to borrow 'DNS and BIND' from a colleague :uzi: :dunce:

Hope this helps.

Some links to help you run a server:

http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/index.html (computing dictionary)

http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/solrhe/Securing-Optimizing-Linux-RH-Edition-v1.3/index.html

http://www.superscripts.com/tutorial/ (cgi tutorial, etc.)

http://www.netadmintools.com/

http://redhat.com/apps/support/

Memorize everything contained at these sites, and you're well on your way! j/k ;)

As far as being a Web host, you should sign up for a class or two in how to run a small business.

Hello alchiba,

Thanks for those links :D

Choon

be prepared for a very steep, long learning curve...

good luck!

Dear sabrina
I think Now you have sufficient link for enhancing your knowledge.If you want to know about apache web server then u can use the link www.apache.org. :)

In my extremely humble opinion, 80% of the resources named here are going to seem they are written in Greek to someone new to the subject. Remember, just because system admins find them helpful as a reference does not mean they are good as a teaching tool. Some of those documents have pages and pages of code. It can be overwhelming.

Now, my idea of a book for beginners would be one that had short step-by-step procedures for solving the top 100 problems, or tasks, associated with server admin--written in easy to understand language. If needed, a second book could contain another top 100 (very)short problem solving procedures. Think about it. How many times do you do the same thing over and over. These are things to be learned by a newbie. I know this could not come close to covering everything...nothing could, but remember we are talking about beginning to learn.

I never buy the 1000 page technical manuals. I don't have time to read every page. It reminds me of when I taught mathematics. So many textbooks are written by persons more interested in impressing someone, rather than teaching someone. There is a difference.

Some of the great minds in here should consider writing a book such as this. It has potential to make a great profit. I wish I had more experience to do it myself.

Then again, that's just me. Sorry if I rub anybody the wrong way.:)

-Lamar

I'd recommend any of the Wrox books for the languages, and for starting up on cgi/perl:
Perl and CGI for the world wide web - A visual quickstart guide
by Elizabeth Castro

Also just download scripts (simple to complex) to see how each part of them works can help. If the script is poorly written skip by it (however notice how they did poorly on it so you can avoid doing so) and find one that's labeled well and understandable. May take going through a few and read up in a book if they're all still a bit too confusing. :)

Good suggestion, Lamar. Many Web hosts already do this on their own sites in the form of FAQs or forums (or fora, to be precise). So perhaps we could add a recommendation to browse the Web hosts?

Like you, I stopped buying these bloated tech books a long time ago. For the most part they're just bound volumes of screenshots, filler, and bad editing. Yes, there are quality publishers (O'Reilly and a couple others) but to the uninitiated the computer book aisles in bookstores are a minefield and the good books can be missed.

A case in point: On a recent visit to my local Barnes & Noble I stumbled across a really attractive, thick book on MySQL. Had a great cover, good heft, dense type. Plenty of information, I thought. As I thumbed through it I was struck by an incredible sense of deja vu. This book was merely a bound copy of the online documentation found at www.mysql.com. USD $55, and no search button! :D

For linux visit
http://www.linuxdocs.org/ it will really help.
Best of luck.

:)

Here is a good book By SitePoint.com:

http://www.findsp.com/Marketplace/DirGo.Asp?ID=133

Those are all good ideas for becoming a systems administrator.

However, you can read all of that information and still fail miserably. What is even MORE important than learning how servers work is learning how BUSINESS works. You MUST MUST MUST become MORE knowledgable in business matters than servers.

You can always hire someone to do the things you don't know how to...but if you don't have a solid business sense, you won't be able to get far at all.

--Tina

Originally posted by AffordableHost

You can always hire someone to do the things you don't know how to...but if you don't have a solid business sense, you won't be able to get far at all.

--Tina

Tina,

I think you have summed up my feelings on this. The most important parts seem to be:
1)skills in dealing with people
2)basic business sense

I agree, which is why included among my recommendations was to take a class (community college, whatever) in how to run a small business. Although you may know *what* you're doing in terms of running a piece of equipment, you may not know *how* it's done in terms of a business.

As far as people skills. . . hehe, I think we learn that the hard way since there's no real documentation on the human psyche. :)