The Definitive Guide to CentOS

CentOS is just like Red Hat, but without the price tag and with the virtuous license. When belts have to be tightened, we want to read about an OS with all the features of a commercial Linux variety, but without the pain. The Definitive Guide to CentOS is the first definitive reference for CentOS and focuses on CentOS alone, the workhorse Linux distro, that does the heavy lifting in small and medium-size enterprises without drawing too much attention to itself.

• Provides tutorial and hands-on learning but is also designed to be used as a reference
• Bases all examples on real-world tasks that readers are likely to perform
• Serves up hard-won examples and hints and tips from the author's experiences of CentOS in production

What you’ll learn

• See why CentOS is an ideal platform for deploying services on the same level as Redhat Enterprise Linux without the cost.
• Prepare and install a CentOS server from scratch.
• Install and configure core services.
• Follow best practices for managing and administering the server and its services.
• Integrate enterprise features in CentOS/Red Hat networks.
• And finally, move away from Fedora, which has great features, but is not meant to be a server OS!

About the Authors

PETER MEMBREY lives in Hong Kong and is actively promoting open source in all its various forms and guises, especially in education. He has had the honor of working for Red Hat and received his first RHCE at the tender age of 17. He is now a Chartered IT Professional and one of the world's first professionally registered ICT Technicians. Currently studying for a master's degree in IT, he hopes to study locally and earn a PhD in the not-too-distant future.

TIM VERHOEVEN is a Linux system administrator during the day and a core member of the CentOS Project during his free time. He has been working with Linux for more then ten years and has been involved with the CentOS Project since 2007. He is interested in all things related to enterprise Linux. He lives in Belgium and has an engineering degree in computer science.

RALPH ANGENENDT has been working as a systems and network administrator since 1998. After being introduced to Linux in 1995, Ralph's interest in non-Unix-like operating systems dropped dramatically, so his work environment mostly consists of Linux servers. Besides having a sweet tooth for domesticating mail servers, Ralph has a strong interest in automated system administration. That's the reason why the networks he is responsible for run Cfengine: to ease the pains of administrating growing sites.

Since 2006, Ralph has been a member of the CentOS development team, where he leads the documentation force and does some infrastructure management. You can probably meet him at open source conventions in Europe, largely in Germany and the Benelux countries.