DNS & Bind Cookbook Author: Cricket Liu Pages: 222 Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0-596-00410-9 Summary: Concise. Thorough. Yummy! Review Date: 9 September, 2004

As you can see from my review of the Apache Cookbook, I liked that book a lot. About as concise as it could get, but still very thorough, and only weighing in at around 200 pages, it had a certain appeal, that's still hard to put my finger on. O'Reilly's DNS & Bind Cookbook seems to be made of the same stuff that made me like the Apache Cookbook. It's concise, it's thorough, it's authoritative and it's full of helpful information. At 200 pages full of short, informative recipes, it's easily digestible. All stuff, no fluff.

That's not to say that the heavier cookbooks don't have their place. The Perl Cookbook is worth its weight in gold. But like I say, there's something attractive about these slim cookbooks on system administration topics. Perhaps it's because as a busy admin I already have enough to do without getting bogged down by slogging through numerous pages outlining a particular concept. I've got enough experience that's it's usually enough to point me in the right direction, give me a simple example, and, thank you, I can take it from there. These books are like good signposts that way. They detail "best practices" and the Right Way(tm) to do things, without being overly verbose or in your face with minutia.

However, one fear I have with these books is that in the wrong hands, or without the appropriate backgound material, they could encourage cargo-cult system and network administration, but fortunately the author covers this very concern in the preface. There, he offers several other resources one can turn to for further background coverage. Most recipes in the book also offer pointers to further information about each topic. Unfortunately, it's a small minority of people, I'm afraid, who actually read prefaces. I guess I'm odd that way (at least my wife thinks so).

The book's table of contents should give you a good feel for the range of topics covered. If the brevity of each topic concerns you, then you might want to pick up a copy of the venerable companion to this book, O'Relly's DNS & Bind for more in-depth and tutorial coverage.

Is the information in the DNS & Bind Cookbook practical? You bet! I've already found myself turning to the book for some very handy recipes (such as resetting a zone serial number, if you need to change it to a smaller number, such as when moving from a YYYYMMDD format to an epoch time format). The coverage is broad, from the basics, to the arcane, but all relevant, reliable, and timely.

If you manage DNS on a regular basis, the DNS & Bind Cookbook will probably become a regular fixture on your desk (as opposed to your shelf). If you manage DNS on more rare occasions, this work, like a good signpost, will show you "how to get there", and moreover, "the best path to take."

Overall Rating: 9/10