1.5. Who Should Read this Book?

This book should be read by anyone wanting to use Webmin to manage their Linux or UNIX systems. It was written for readers with a basic knowledge of UNIX commands and concepts—people who have installed Linux and have used it for a while.

Each chapter starts with an introduction to the service being configured so that readers have some idea of what the DNS protocol is for or how a firewall works. Even so, a complete novice should not try to set up a server until he understands how it works and what he wants it to do. The best way to learn is to use the service on some other system as a user. For example, if you have used a proxy server before on some other network, then you will have the background knowledge needed to use this book to set up the Squid proxy on your own system.

The development chapters, on the other hand, are written for someone who already understands how to write Perl scripts and CGI programs on a UNIX system. This means that they are more complex than the rest of the book, and assume some knowledge of programming and manual system administration. They can be skipped, however, if you just want to learn how to use Webmin rather than how to extend it.