what should a unix sys admin know

[John Boland]

folks,
i've been tasked with making a sys admin out of one of our support people.
where can i find a list of what a junior sys admin should know.
tasks, commands, theory, concepts. maybe a bit more comprehensive than
simply listing job requirements.
i'm sure this has been done once or twice already. ;>))

tia...


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[Dan Ritter-2]

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:51:10AM -0400, John Boland wrote:
> folks,
> i've been tasked with making a sys admin out of one of our support people.
> where can i find a list of what a junior sys admin should know.
> tasks, commands, theory, concepts. maybe a bit more comprehensive than
> simply listing job requirements.
> i'm sure this has been done once or twice already. ;>))

You could start with _The Theory and Practice of Systems
Administration_ by Limoncelli and Hogan. O'Reilly, I believe.

-dsr-


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[Scott R. Ehrlich]

On Tue, 13 May 2008, John Boland wrote:

> folks,
> i've been tasked with making a sys admin out of one of our support people.
> where can i find a list of what a junior sys admin should know.
> tasks, commands, theory, concepts. maybe a bit more comprehensive than
> simply listing job requirements.
> i'm sure this has been done once or twice already. ;>))
>
> tia...

I might take the approach of evaluating what I/you are responsible for -

- proper security procedures
  - including good passwords
  - visiting trusted web sites
  - obtaining software from legit sources
  - license management (keeping track of who has what licensed products
installed and ensuring more licenses are obtained, if needed)
  - Virus/spyware protection
  - secure protocols vs insecure (ssh vs telnet, scp vs ftp, http vs https
    [lock symbol vs no lock] etc)

Differences among MacOS, Windows, and/or Unix (depending on your
environment) and respective vulnerabilities of each OS - and what a
vulnerability really means

Discussion of ports (http, https, ssh, etc) for basic common knowledge.

Difference between ssl and non-ssl - what to look out for

Good email practice (never email confidential info to unknown parties,
including passwords)

Never log into a system as admin/root - create auditable accounts and
logging out when not in use, or locking for a short period of time if
returning

Regular patch management, and keeping up on respective security email
lists and web sites for announced updates and vulnerabilities

Why would you never put a brand new windows box on the Internet?

Why would you want or need to disable unwanted services on a system?
What _are_ services?  How do you manage/control them on each OS?

Whatever else you might be responsible for.  I'd say all the common sense
stuff, plus stuff that's good to know.

Scott

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[Kristian Erik Hermansen]

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 8:51 AM, John Boland <jj.boland@...> wrote:
> folks,
>  i've been tasked with making a sys admin out of one of our support people.
>  where can i find a list of what a junior sys admin should know.
>  tasks, commands, theory, concepts. maybe a bit more comprehensive than
>  simply listing job requirements.
>  i'm sure this has been done once or twice already. ;>))

Study and take LPIC-1 cert :-)
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you halve them."

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[Jerry Feldman-2]

On Tue, 13 May 2008 17:49:46 -0400
Dan Ritter <dsr@...> wrote:

> On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:51:10AM -0400, John Boland wrote:
> > folks,
> > i've been tasked with making a sys admin out of one of our support people.
> > where can i find a list of what a junior sys admin should know.
> > tasks, commands, theory, concepts. maybe a bit more comprehensive than
> > simply listing job requirements.
> > i'm sure this has been done once or twice already. ;>))
>
> You could start with _The Theory and Practice of Systems
> Administration_ by Limoncelli and Hogan. O'Reilly, I believe.

We've had Tom Limoncelli  at the BLU a couple of times.



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[bostonlinuxandunix]

I would highly recommend both of Tom's books:

    The Practice or System and Network Administration
    Time Management for System Administrators

Tom's website is at

    http://www.everythingsysadmin.com/



On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 7:55 AM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:

> On Tue, 13 May 2008 17:49:46 -0400
> Dan Ritter <dsr@...> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:51:10AM -0400, John Boland wrote:
>> > folks,
>> > i've been tasked with making a sys admin out of one of our support people.
>> > where can i find a list of what a junior sys admin should know.
>> > tasks, commands, theory, concepts. maybe a bit more comprehensive than
>> > simply listing job requirements.
>> > i'm sure this has been done once or twice already. ;>))
>>
>> You could start with _The Theory and Practice of Systems
>> Administration_ by Limoncelli and Hogan. O'Reilly, I believe.
>
> We've had Tom Limoncelli  at the BLU a couple of times.
>
>
>
> --
> --
> Jerry Feldman <gaf@...>
> Boston Linux and Unix
> PGP key id: 537C5846
> PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB  CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss@...
> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>

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[Derek Martin-9]

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:51:10AM -0400, John Boland wrote:
> i've been tasked with making a sys admin out of one of our support
> people.  where can i find a list of what a junior sys admin should
> know.  tasks, commands, theory, concepts. maybe a bit more
> comprehensive than simply listing job requirements.  i'm sure this
> has been done once or twice already. ;>))

I think the job of System Administrator is one of the most diverse,
but also one of the most *pragmatic* jobs one can have.  In that
regard, I think the best answer to your question is, "it depends."  A
junior sysadmin is usually primarily assigned some of the more tedious
tasks of system administration, to let the senior people focus on
projects and other more interesting work.  But one must keep in mind
that the sort of person who's likely to become a *good* sysadmin will
probably grow bored with doing these things fairly quickly, so you
have to find a way to give them a carrot... ;-)

So, as the mentor, you should start with things that will make your
life easier -- the day-to-day, task-oriented aspects of system
administration, like user account maintenance, host resolution
management, data retention management, etc.  Tailor the list to your
own site and needs.  I've personally found it extremely helpful to
have thorough knowledge of the shell and shell programming, for
automation of repetitive tasks, and just because so much of what the
sysadmin does is done at the shell prompt (usually more quickly and
easily than in a GUI, or at least more flexibly).  I also think it's
highly beneficial to be very familiar with most of the features of at
least one of vi(m) or emacs...  I've seen techie folks of various
sorts spend hours manipulating data in ways that would have taken me a
few minutes using a simple shell (or Perl or Python) script, or even
faster using just a few of vim's advanced features.  

After that, the list of things to learn is quite varied, and what is
most important really depends on your site.  Understanding the
hardware deployed in your environment is a must.  Learning how to
manage services is also essential, with a focus on services you use
(and perhaps the ones that give you the most trouble)...  Samba might
be a great thing for a sysadmin to learn, but it's not very helpful to
you if your site doesn't employ it.  Naturally you'd want to develop
your junior sysadmin to be able to manage all of the services in use
at your site.  Developing a thourough understanding of TCP/IP
networking is important too.  A couple of often-overlooked but
important skills to learn are how to prioritize issues, and how to
manage time/workflow.  Unix-only shops being somewhat rare, it's also
helpful to know something about WinDoS.

Others recommended some books, I'd like to take a moment to plug the
Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder et. al. series, originally _The Unix System
Administration Handbook_, and more recently, _The Linux Administration
Handbook_, published by Prentice Hall.  I found that the original Unix
series taught me most of what I needed to know to become a successful
system administrator, so I was honored when I eventually became a
technical reviewer for the Linux series.

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