10 things I wish I'd known before becoming a Linux sysadmin

Red Hat ^ | 12 February 2020 | by Ken Hess

[ShadowAce]

Tech Ping

[bigbob]

11. You can’t fix everything with sudo

[ShadowAce]

Every single point above seems to describe my life.

[central_va]

Try this:

#su - root
#cd /
#rm -rf *

Your problems are over!

[ClearCase_guy]

IT is a bit of a thankless job. The money can be OK (you’re generally not going to get rich — Bill Gates didn’t get rich because he was really good at IT. He made business deals.) But age discrimination is a huge problem, outsourcing and H1Bs are a huge problem, and IT is the whipping boy for most organizations. People only pay attention to you when things go badly. So pretty much 100% of the time, when people think of you, it is unkindly.

[Billthedrill]

It’s all true. When I was interviewed for my last job I was asked the cringeworthy “Do you consider yourself a people person?” I told my new boss later that if I’d told the truth it would have been, “No! I’m a sysadmin! I hate my users and I want them all to die!!” “I know,” he sez, “that’s why you got the job.”

[ShadowAce]

lol--here's a better one:

:(){ :|:& };:

[rightwingcrazy]

“It has never failed to be true on every new gig or job I’ve ever taken. I’ve never figured out what the people before me did at the same job I now have. They didn’t patch. They didn’t maintain the hardware. They didn’t remove old users. They never upgraded anything. And they documented nothing.”

Stick around long enough, and you’ll burn out and become one of them.

[SaveFerris]

Correct on all points

[ARGLOCKGUY]

One good thing about being a sysadmin is that no one can ever accuse you of being bigoted,sexist, or homophobic. The reason is you end up hating everyone equally.

[CatOwner]

I saw some of this on our Sun Solaris UNIX systems (as a user) with fellow co-workers. They had very little sympathy or understanding of the work sysadmins go through to secure a system for a defense contractor.

Apparently, I knew enough and was patient enough that I eventually became something of a backup sysadmin for some tasks. There were times when the sysadmins were unavailable to enter our classified compartment (and networks were isolated to the compartment), so a few basic root tasks I was allowed to perform. For something a bit more complicated, they were able to talk me through it.

Yes, I had the root password for about 12 years as a user, but not once did I screw up any of the UNIX systems.

[Moss]

I equate it to the pecking order in a chicken coup. The hens figure out which is the weakest hen and begin to peck it to death, but, the farmer will not remove it. As soon as he does, the hens find a new weakling to peck on. So as long as there is a pecking order there will be a System Administrator.

[chrisser]

My favorite.

You can’t convince management to update the servers and infrastructure even though they’re past their forecast and budgeted usability window.

But then they want to buy bleeding edge toys/gadgets, bring them into the office outside of the normal procurement/testing process and are then ticked off when you can’t get them to integrate into the antique (in IT terms) systems you’re forced to keep supporting.

[sauropod]

.

[miliantnutcase]

This isn’t just Linux admin, this is really any job in IT.

[cartan]

11. You can’t fix everything with sudo

For anything else, there is always suid…

[glorgau]

IT is like plumbing. Nobody cares unless there is a stench.

[dayglored]

> :(){ :|:& };:

That's a perennial favorite fork bomb.

Article is a great read, thanks for posting!

[OrangeHoof]

The real job is being on the other end of the phone from Jazmit Slamalamadingdong in Mumbai on his cheap cell phone (in speakerphone mode) explaining how to solve the problem by formatting the hard drive then rebooting. In other words, you’re on your own, jack.