Comments on: Be the best system administrator in the world http://www.techyouruniverse.com/technology/be-the-best-system-administrator-in-the-world Musings about technology from a Geek Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:35:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: matt http://www.techyouruniverse.com/technology/be-the-best-system-administrator-in-the-world#comment-79 matt Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:57:00 +0000 http://www.techyouruniverse.com/technology/be-the-best-system-administrator-in-the-world#comment-79 Perfect systems are generally impossible to build, and when possible not practical. If you strive for perfect projects, you will likely miss the forest for the trees. Accept this, and make sure your systems are built to be "as good as it needs to be" .... or maybe when you have resources, maybe even much better. Make sure that when things do go wrong, you have this planned as well .... many of the above points will also ensure that you have an easier time fixing it (1,2,3,4,5,6). Yes even #5-- nobody wants to help a dick. Perfect systems are generally impossible to build, and when possible not practical.

If you strive for perfect projects, you will likely miss the forest for the trees. Accept this, and make sure your systems are built to be "as good as it needs to be" …. or maybe when you have resources, maybe even much better.

Make sure that when things do go wrong, you have this planned as well …. many of the above points will also ensure that you have an easier time fixing it (1,2,3,4,5,6). Yes even #5– nobody wants to help a dick.

]]> By: Clint http://www.techyouruniverse.com/technology/be-the-best-system-administrator-in-the-world#comment-78 Clint Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:25:00 +0000 http://www.techyouruniverse.com/technology/be-the-best-system-administrator-in-the-world#comment-78 Ugh, you users. Don't you know you are just supposed to trust us that everything is right?! ;) As a sysadmin, I have to stress #5.. Don't be a dick. If you can't be open and communicate with your users, people will do everything in their power to work around your controls.. and you'll waste lots of time on keeping them in check (and of course, on cleaning out their workstations cause they get fired for hacking on your network.. ;). On #3 .. montoring when your config files change is not just good for uptime, its a good security practice. There's a program called tripwire that is great for this. For consistency, something like cfengine, or systemimager are key if you have more than 15-20 boxes. Ugh, you users. Don’t you know you are just supposed to trust us that everything is right?! ;)

As a sysadmin, I have to stress #5.. Don’t be a dick. If you can’t be open and communicate with your users, people will do everything in their power to work around your controls.. and you’ll waste lots of time on keeping them in check (and of course, on cleaning out their workstations cause they get fired for hacking on your network.. ;).

On #3 .. montoring when your config files change is not just good for uptime, its a good security practice. There’s a program called tripwire that is great for this.

For consistency, something like cfengine, or systemimager are key if you have more than 15-20 boxes.

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