System administrators need libraries of solutions that are ingenious but understandable. They don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but they don’t want to reinvent filesystem management either! Expert Shell Scripting is the ultimate resource for all working Linux, Unix, and OS X system administrators who would like to have short, succinct, and powerful shell implementations of tricky system scripting tasks.

Automating small to medium system management tasks

Analyzing system data and editing configuration files

Scripting Linux, Unix, and OS X applications using bash, ksh, et al.

What you’ll learn

Debug shell scripts using existing debuggers, not inspection.

Use and extend text–editing one–liners and learn to forget Perl.

Manage files and filesystems using scripting, not inflexible utilities.

Use scripts to build complete Linux systems.

Script X Window without getting lost in configuration files.

Ignore Python, and script in bash and ksh instead.

Ron Peters

Ron Peters spent more than ten years administering Linux and Unix systems while building a very large library of shell scripts. He realized that the world is full of how–to documents, but not many seem to read them, nor can many system administrators lay claim to being shell scripting experts. He apologizes that it took him so long to make his efforts known to the world. He is married with two children and very happy that he found the time to write this book.