Python is an ideal language for solving problems, especially in Linux and Unix networks. With this pragmatic book, administrators can review various tasks that often occur in the management of these systems, and learn how Python can provide a more efficient and less painful way to handle them.

Each chapter in Python for Unix and Linux System Administration presents a particular administrative issue, such as concurrency or data backup, and presents Python solutions through hands-on examples. Once you finish this book, you'll be able to develop your own set of command-line utilities with Python to tackle a wide range of problems. Discover how this language can help you:

* Read text files and extract information

* Run tasks concurrently using the threading and forking options

* Get information from one process to another using network facilities

* Create clickable GUIs to handle large and complex utilities

* Monitor large clusters of machines by interacting with SNMP programmatically

* Master the IPython Interactive Python shell to replace or augment Bash, Korn, or Z-Shell

* Integrate Cloud Computing into your infrastructure, and learn to write a Google App Engine Application

* Solve unique data backup challenges with customized scripts

* Interact with MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, Postgres, Django ORM, and SQLAlchemy

With this book, you'll learn how to package and deploy your Python applications and libraries, and write code that runs equally well on multiple Unix platforms. You'll also learn about several Python-related technologies that will make your life much easier.

Jeremy Jones Jeremy Jones is a software engineer who works for Predictix. His weapon of choice is Python, but he has done some shell, plenty of Perl, a touch of Java, is currently learning C#, and finds functional programming languages (especially OCaml) fascinating.

He is the author of the open source projects Munkware, a multiproducer/multiconsumer, transactional, and persistent queuing mechanism, ediplex, an EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) parsing engine, and podgrabber a podcast downloader. All three projects were written in the Python language.

Jeremy spends his spare time enjoying his family and doing a little writing. He lives in Conyers, Georgia, just east of Atlanta, with his wife, Debra; two children, Zane and Justus; a Lab named Genevieve (how Madelinesque).

Opinions and views expressed by Jeremy are his own and not those of Predictix.

Noah Gift Noah Gift is an author, speaker, consultant, and community leader, writing for publications such as IBM Developerworks, Red Hat Magazine, O'Reilly, and MacTech. His consulting company's website is www.giftcs.com , and his personal website is www.noahgift.com . Noah is also the current organizer for www.pyatl.org , which is the Python User Group for Atlanta, GA. He has given presentations at PyCon and PyAtl.

He has a Master's degree in CIS from Cal State Los Angeles, B.S. in Nutritional Science from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, is an Apple and LPI certified SysAdmin, and has worked at companies such as, Caltech, Disney Feature Animation, Sony Imageworks, and Turner Studios.

In his free time he enjoys spending time with his wife Leah, and their son Liam, playing the piano, and exercising religiously.