Win32 Perl Scripting: The Administrators Handbook

Scripting has become an enormously popular method of managing and maintaining Windows NT and 2000 networks—as evidenced by the success of Windows NT Shell Scripting, which has sold over 30,000 copies in 2 years. Simpler than programming, yet allowing greater complexity and utility than packaged network management tools, scripting is now the tool of choice by many of you network administrators. Perl is yet another powerful element of the scripting arsenal, yet since it has been ported to the Windows environment, very little information has been published on how to employ this extremely effective tool. Win32 Perl is so powerful that it can accomplish virtually any task that you may want to perform. Dave Roth, prolific creator of Win32 extensions, is prepared to share his unique insight into how these tasks can be accomplished and provide scripts that can be immediately employed. This book illustrates how Perl can automate many current mundane administrative tasks.

Dave Roth is the contributor of various popular Win32 Perl extensions, including Win32::ODBC, Win32::AdminMisc, Win32::Daemon, and Win32::Perms. He has been providing solutions to the Perl community for difficult-to-solve problems since 1994. Dave has been a speaker at the O'Reilly Perl Conferences as well as the USENIX LISA-NT conferences. He has also contributed to the Perl Journal and is the author of Win32 Perl Programming: The Standard Extensions (New Riders Publishing, 1999).

Dave has been programming since 1981 in various languages, from assembler to C++, LPC, and Perl. His code is used by organizations such as Microsoft, the U.S Department of Defense, Disney, Lucus Films, Digital Paper, Hewlett-Packard, Metagenix, Radcom, the state of Michigan, and various colleges and universities, among many others. Dave helped assemble and administer a statewide WAN for the state of Michigan and has designed and administered LANs for Michigan State University and Ameritech.