Linux old-timers revel in reminding newcomers that they used to have to do everything by hand, at the command line, uphill, both ways, with duct tape for shoes. What really gets some of these folks sputtering is today's collection of system administration tools that introduce quite a bit of automation. There's good reason for this, actually; if you don't know how to administer your system by hand then you are sunk if something goes wrong. However, this factor doesn't mean you shouldn't take advantage of available helping hands.

There are four major players in the world of Linux system administration tools: COAS, Linuxconf, Webmin and YaST. One of these, YaST, is tied specifically to SuSE Linux. The other three, COAS, Linuxconf and Webmin, come by default with some distributions but are independently available for download and installation.

[ Read more ]