Tips for being a good BSD system administrator

[_martin]

this is by far the best text about system administators/administration

https://wwwth.mpp.mpg.de/members/hahn/humour/FieldGuideToAdministrators.html

Some maniac examples reminded me of a prank:

$ ls -al
total 37
drwx------  2 4321 foo      9 Oct 13 22:35 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 root wheel    4 Oct 13 22:35 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 4321 foo    950 Oct 13 22:35 .cshrc
-rw-r--r--  1 4321 foo    311 Oct 13 22:35 .login
-rw-r--r--  1 4321 foo     79 Oct 13 22:35 .login_conf
-rw-------  1 4321 foo    289 Oct 13 22:35 .mail_aliases
-rw-r--r--  1 4321 foo    255 Oct 13 22:35 .mailrc
-rw-r--r--  1 4321 foo    966 Oct 13 22:35 .profile
-rw-r--r--  1 4321 foo   1042 Oct 13 22:35 .shrc
$
$ id
uid=1234(4321) gid=1002(foo) groups=1002(foo)
$

 

[Espionage724]

Be into problem-solving

The biggest thing is having some sort of centralized place to store documentation about what you're doing and how you're doing it.

I used DokuWiki for about 10 years. I have OS set-up pages like this for 16.0; earlier I tried figuring out why a game wouldn't start, went to my notes and figured out some tweaks to disable, and eventually found an env (didn't expect no-error to break Wine EGL -> GLX); noted and disabled

 

[hedwards]

Be into problem-solving

I used DokuWiki for about 10 years. I have OS set-up pages like this for 16.0; earlier I tried figuring out why a game wouldn't start, went to my notes and figured out some tweaks to disable, and eventually found an env (didn't expect no-error to break Wine EGL -> GLX); noted and disabled

I think the key thing is that whatever system is used that there be text involved. Markdown compatible systems are great. I personally like that I can embed portions of pages from elsewhere into other pages, so for things like keeping track of IPs, I can have the list in one place and I can reference it in the page for setting up my reverse proxy.

 

[blackbird9]

Learn vi, grep, sed, awk, regular expressions, shell programming and Perl.
Bonus points for learning 'expect'.

 

[covacat]

well, you can skip perl

 

[blackbird9]

Really? Maybe perl's not getting used so much now then...
I dunno, still widely used where I am, but maybe in the outside world not so much. Python, I suppose? Bah... crap language...

 

[Espionage724]

sed

I figured out some syntax for that years ago and been copy/pasting it for other stuff since (occasionally need a different separator like / vs #); it's probably not hard but iirc had to change up something with -e and -i between Linux and FreeBSD

 

[covacat]

well sometimes you need something more powerful than awk which is in base
but you can choose between perl, python, tcl, php, lua whatever to do your thing

 

[blackbird9]

Essential tools:-
- multimeter, something robust like a fluke
- a separate mains power tester can be useful
- pliars, screwdrivers, cable cutters, wire stripers, hammer/mallet, stanley knife, scissors...
- maglite torch, so when you're up on a stepladder peering at the cabling going into the fibre switch at the top of the rack, you can see what you're doing amongst the forest of cables hidden deep inside
- wheelie stand-on stool thing, aluminum step-ladder
- phone, to take photos of screens showing kernel oops, and similar stuff
- ear defenders, earplugs
- floor tile lifter
- trolley for carrying heavy kit around
- tape, cable ties, dymo labeller
- beer, coffee, chocolate, video nasty dvd's, etc, to bribe the lab technicians
etc...

I've never dropped a 2U server or other heavy gear on my foot, but it would be quite easy to do when you're building or dismantling a stand. I never wore safety shoes with steel toecaps either. Maybe I've been lucky.

 

[blackbird9]

It is difficult to say because Joyce was an artist and I do not see him as system administrator or computer user..

Actually I've known several artists and musicians who became system admins. One of the guys I knew played in an orchestra. Another was a film-maker. They were both good sysadmins, their sysadmin jobs were how they survived financially.

 

[hedwards]

Really? Maybe perl's not getting used so much now then...
I dunno, still widely used where I am, but maybe in the outside world not so much. Python, I suppose? Bah... crap language...

There are other options, but IMHO, Perl is just hard to beat for being able to sit down and quickly bang out some code to solve a problem. Although, there's also Raku. Personally, I think Perl has a low enough barrier to entry and enough libraries out there that it probably should be the default language to use for system administration tasks if you need more than what Bourne can do.

 

[blackbird9]

Raku aka Perl 6 is over-complicated, it's too big, regardless of how 'perfect' it is. Perl 5 is the weapon of choice, imho, we use it all the time here, along with shell of course. A lot of people try to use python but it doesn't really cut it, it always seems to end up with an even worse mess than perl. Ruby seems to have more or less vanished, I don't know anyone using it. Of course that might just be around here, it's a big world out there.