Product Description

UNIX expert Randal K. Michael guides you through every detail of writing shell scripts to automate specific tasks. Each chapter begins with a typical, everyday UNIX challenge, then shows you how to take basic syntax and turn it into a shell scripting solution. Covering Bash, Bourne, and Korn shell scripting, this updated edition provides complete shell scripts plus detailed descriptions of each part. UNIX programmers and system administrators can tailor these to build tools that monitor for specific system events and situations, building solid UNIX shell scripting skills to solve real-world system administration problems.

From the Back Cover

Discover how to solve real-world system administration problems with this collection of end-to-end shell scripts

This comprehensive book takes you step-by-step through the process of writing shell scripts to solve real-world Unix problems and tasks. Each chapter begins by presenting a typical Unix challenge that you'll most likely experience at your job. With each challenge, you'll learn how to identify a specific goal and start the shell script by defining the correct command syntax to solve the problem. You'll find out how to build the shell script around the commands, filter the commands output to strip out the unneeded data, and add options that give users more flexibility on the command line.

The approach used will teach you how to attack problems logically. It will also empower you to take the basic command syntax and turn it into a shell scripting solution.

Throughout the book, you'll find end-to-end shell scripts that you can use to automate repetitive tasks and solve real-world system administration problems. These tasks include:
Communications such as automated event notification, monitoring processes locally and on remote systems, and automated FTP file transfers
Information gathering and monitoring for file systems, paging/swap space, system load, applications, processes, and capturing the system's configuration
Print queue management to keep the printers printing
Floating point mathematics in shell scripts using the bc utility

The companion Web site contains all of the shell scripts and most of the functions that are discussed in the book as well as bonus shell scripts for various tasks.