Preface

The Administration Guide offers an introduction to the technology of SuSE Linux, providing details about the installation, system administration, and the configuration of special system components. It also introduces the theoretical basics of certain properties of Linux and especially of SuSE Linux, including background information about the X window system, the boot concept, printing, and the Linux kernel.

Working with and in networks has always been one of the main strengths of Linux. Therefore, a large portion of the book is dedicated to the theory, configuration, and administration of networks and their various services. Learn about various protocols, routing, NFS and NIS, heterogeneous networks with Samba and Netatalk, and proxies. The final chapter extensively covers the issue of security in networks.

We are confident that the Open Source policy, the boot concept, the easy installation, the stable and secure network operation, and the extremely flexible X11 environment will do their part to convince you that your SuSE Linux is the superior operating system! The digital versions of both SuSE Linux manuals can be accessed by way of the SuSE Help System under SuSE Linux.

New Features in the Administration Guide

This section lists the changes to the documentation from the last version to the current one:

• The GRUB Section in the bootloader chapter has been reorganized and includes some additional details (see Section 4).
• There are major additions to the printing chapter (see Section 6).
• The sound chapter has been moved to the User Guide.
• There are some minor additions to the notebook chapter which are related to SCPM and power management (see Chapter 8).
• The introduction to IPv6 has been completely rewritten (see Section 13).
• The chapter on the domain name system includes new sections about the topics of secure transactions, zone updates, and DNSSEC (see Section 13).
• The text as a whole has been updated in many places to reflect the changes brought by SuSE Linux 9.0.

• These parts are completely new:
  • A chapter about running SuSE Linux on the AMD64 platform (see Chapter 9).
  • A comprehensive introduction to LDAP (see Section 13).
  • A section about the basics of XNTP (see Section 13).
  • An introduction to the Apache web server (see Chapter 14).

Typographical Conventions

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Text layout	Meaning
YaST	programs
/etc/passwd	file or directory names
<parameter>	when entering a command, parameter should be replaced by the actual value, excluding the angle brackets.
PATH	the environment variable PATH
192.168.1.2	the value of a variable. In this case, 192.168.1.2
ls	the command ls
SuSE @nohyphen news	the user SuSE @nohyphen news
	A key to press. Keys to press sequentially are separated by spaces.
+ +	Keys to press simultaneously are grouped with the `+' sign.
Permission denied	System messages
` System Update'	Menu items, buttons, labels

A Word of Thanks

The list of all people who contributed to the success of this distribution would exceed the scope of this book. We would like to express our gratitude to all who worked tirelessly to present this quality SuSE Linux release. With their voluntary commitment, the developers of Linux cooperate on a global scale to promote the development of Linux. We thank them for their efforts -- this distribution would not exist without them. Furthermore, we want to thank Frank Zappa and Pawar. Last but not least, special thanks to Linus Torvalds.

Have a lot of fun!

Your SuSE Team