Useful resources for writers of admin scripts
Allen V. Rouse MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA
Published: 22 Jul 2003 14:21 BST
A lot of excellent references and tutorials are available to help you learn how to write scripts. If you're learning scripting specifically for network administration, however, you should be aware that many resources lean heavily on scripting for the Web. Although the scripting languages may be the same, such as JScript or VBS, their purposes are different. Network administrators will find that resources focusing on Web scripting won't be terribly useful.
In this article about admin scripting, I'll discuss some of the best books and online resources you can use for further study.
Useful books
If you go to the Amazon.co.uk Web site and search on the keyword scripting under books, you'll probably find more than 80 titles listed. Some of them are for Unix shell scripting, some cover mainly Web scripting, and some deal specifically with scripting for network administration. I'll highlight three of the most useful books that I'm familiar with, but there are certainly other good ones out there.
- Microsoft Windows Shell Scripting and WSH Administrator's Guide, by Jerry Lee Ford, Jr., Premier Press, 2002, ISBN 1-931841-26-8. I really like this one. It covers shell scripting, the Windows Script Host, JScript, and VBS, all from the point of view of a network administrator. It's actually one of the few I've seen that covers using the FileSystemObject, Shell object, and Network object. It gives examples and shows the correct syntax in both JScript and VBS for each one. The section on Windows shell scripting is quite comprehensive.
- Windows NT Scripting Administrator's Guide, by William R. Stanek, M&T Books, 1999, ISBN 0-7645-3309-6. This is similar to the first book, in that it covers using both Windows shell scripting and the Windows Script Host with JScript and VBS. But each book covers various functions in slightly different ways, with different examples. If you're having trouble understanding some aspect of scripting, it can be useful to go to another source. Often, looking at the two books together can lead to a better understanding.
- Windows Admin Scripting Little Black Book, by Jesse M. Torres, The Coriolis Group, 2001, ISBN 1-57610-881-3. This book is quite different from the other two. It is designed to get the network administrator up and running quickly for any given task. Instead of offering a progressive tutorial on scripting, it is divided into specific functions, such as scripting installations and updates, file management, and local and remote system management. Within each functional area, it discusses specific actions, such as scripting a silent Windows 2000 service pack installation, and provides the specific information you need to create that script. It serves as a nice complement to one or both of the first two books.
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