Systems Administration

Linux is one of the best decisions you can make for your computer — but knowing where to start is the hard part. This guide walks you through everything: choosing a distribution, installing it, and using it confidently every day. It was written by Jay LaCroix of Learn Linux TV, for complete beginners. No prior experience required.

Go beyond basic Linux tuning and learn how performance really works under the hood. Explore kernel internals, hardware behavior, benchmarking and production optimization with practical tools, real trade-offs and copy-paste-ready examples. Build the skills to diagnose bottlenecks and solve performance problems with confidence.

Building fast LLM inference is about far more than turning the right knobs. This book takes you inside vLLM and the systems behind it, showing how memory, scheduling, GPUs and distributed serving shape real-world performance. Learn how to measure what matters, find bottlenecks and build inference infrastructure that scales without wasting money.

When a license renewal lands at 567% of last year's bill, renting your infrastructure stops being a strategy. This is the escape tunnel: a complete production build of Apache CloudStack 4.22 LTS — KVM, Ceph, OS10 leaf-spine — across a three-city UK estate, written by an engineer with 32 years of building the real thing. Own your cloud down to the last packet.

Whether you're upgrading, deploying, or simply exploring Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, this book is your essential guide to Canonical's most ambitious long-term support release. From installation and desktop features to security, performance, and enterprise deployment, it provides clear, practical coverage of everything you need to get the most from Ubuntu.

The Linux command line has come a long way. This practical guide explores the modern tools that make everyday terminal work faster, cleaner and more enjoyable. Learn ripgrep, fd, bat, eza, fzf, zoxide, btop, dust and more, with real-world workflows and tips for leaving old-school Unix habits behind.

Build AI inference systems that run fast, use less memory and keep your data where it belongs. This hands-on guide walks you through model deployment, performance tuning, security and production engineering with practical code and real benchmarks. No cloud dependency, no surprise bills, just efficient AI systems you control.

What does it take to run an LLM on hardware that barely has enough memory to breathe? This practical guide takes you from transformer math and model compression to inference runtimes, benchmarking and real-world deployment, with hands-on case studies for building fully offline LLM systems on tiny devices.

BGP security is more than a set of filters and policies. This book takes a practical, systems-level look at securing routing infrastructure, from RPKI and route filtering to monitoring, automation and incident response, with real configurations, code examples and lessons from incidents that have shaped how the Internet is secured.

Master Kubernetes health checks from the basics to production-grade reliability. Learn how probes really work, troubleshoot failures fast and build applications that recover automatically. With practical YAML, real-world scenarios and proven reliability patterns, this guide helps you keep Kubernetes workloads healthy when it matters most.

HAProxy Essentials is a practical guide to building, running and troubleshooting HAProxy in production. From core concepts to advanced architecture, it explains how the pieces fit together and what can go wrong. Based on HAProxy 3.4 LTS, with clear notes on 2.8 and Enterprise-specific features.

Infrastructure gets complicated fast. Mastering Terragrunt shows you how to bring order to growing Terraform and OpenTofu environments without adding unnecessary complexity. Learn practical patterns for managing multiple accounts, regions and teams, streamline deployments and build infrastructure that stays maintainable as your organization scales.

Stop letting Windows decide how you work. This guide takes you from everyday tasks to the tools and techniques professionals rely on, covering PowerShell, WSL2, security, automation and AI. Packed with practical examples, it helps you unlock the full potential of Windows 11 with confidence.

Discover how eBPF is changing Linux systems engineering. Starting with the fundamentals, this book walks you through building, debugging and deploying real eBPF programs for observability, networking, security and performance. Learn practical techniques you can use with confidence in production across modern Linux environments.

The Linux Virtual Filesystem is the abstraction that unifies every filesystem in Linux behind a single interface. This book explores its architecture, kernel implementation, and modern applications, giving system administrators, developers, and kernel engineers the knowledge to understand, troubleshoot, and extend the VFS.