Top 10 System Administrator Truths

Vo0k writes "What are your top ten system administrator truths? We all know them already, but it's still fun re-telling them. Stuff like "90% of all hardware-related problems come from loose connectors", even though you already know it's true, may save you from replacing the "faulty" motherboard if you recall it at the right time."

In no particular order....

[FalconZero]

Fixing Problems
---------------

• Rebooting Solves 90% of Windows problems.
• Users are the cause of the problem 90% of the time.
• The weakest link(s) in your security is/are human.

Getting Help
------------

• Good manuals should be read before you do anything.
• Bad manuals should not be read UNDER ANY CIRUMSTANCES.
• Google is your best freind. ever. period.

Other People
------------

• Good managers ask for something in 5 days, but need it in 6.
• Good developers/suppliers promise something in 5 days, but deliver it in 4.
• "I don't know, but I'll find out" is always better than "I know" (when you don't).
• Technical support hotlines will invariably tell you what you already know.

Simple

[mysqlrocks]

The solution to the problem is almost always simpler than you think. You can often cause more problems trying to fix a problem then the original problem itself. When you try one thing and it doesn't work, reverse the changes before trying the next thing and document each change.

Sigh.. another mirror post.

[un1xl0ser]

http://www.misterorange.com.nyud.net:8090/2005/12/ top-10-system-administrator-truths.html [nyud.net]

Another one

[missing000]

90% of all quotes on slashdot are made up :)

Seriously, the "90% of all hardware-related problems come from loose connectors" bit is found nowhere in the article or on google for that matter...

Re:Top 3

[stevey]

Actually I always make a point to NEVER use a wildcard when RMing

I frequently use wildcards for deletion, even large constructs like "rm vm[1-4]/*.bak" - the trick I use is to make sure that I always run "ls vm[1-4]/*.bak" first, to make sure I know exactly what is and isn't going to get matched.

Its a fairly simple thing to remember, and it does prevent me being suprised by unexpected glob matches.

Re:95% of all problems....

[operagost]

Dell techs seem to be very good at wiping out arrays. You're the third guy I've heard mention that (and it has happened to me, personally).

Re:In no particular order....

[hotdiggitydawg]

Apologies for posting full text - finally found a link:

http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/know.your.sysadmin.ht ml [gnu.org]

Label everything

[sapbasisnerd]

You want to spot the real pro in the machine room he (or she) has a vacuum cleaner in one hand and a Brother p-touch in the other. I honestly beleive there is a direct linear relationship between the efficiency and uptime of a shop and how anal they are about labelling stuff. I want to open a front door of a rack and see every server's hostname and every removable media device clearly labelled. I know YOU know that that CD-ROM drive is drive D: on the frodo server but I ain't got time to try to figure that out. Even more importantly I similarly want EVERY cable in the back of the rack to have some kind of useful label on both ends (unless it is less than a foot long then just one end is OK).

Re:95% of all problems....

[QuantumPion]

Actually you would check the power outlet first and then the cord... Or the surge protector or UPS, but I'm getting symanetec.

Symantec fixes hardware now, too? Man, and I thought their software was bloated when it just protected against viruses...

Re:GeekSquad Top Ten?

[korbin_dallas]

How do you think they make money?

On a $20 house call?

I worked in a retail shop as a tech after a period of unemployment and jobs were tough.
I KNEW I was gone at the very next job when the boss described the pc repair operations should be run "like the car repair shops". You know, while I got the 'hood' off it looks like you could use some more memory or another hard drive, etc, etc. Talking to customers about their pcs and upgrades is one thing, pestering them endlessly about stuff the don't need is another. But thats how one makes money (and it is pretty easy to do).

Re:GeekSquad Top Ten?

[dada21]

It may not be GeekSquad's operation, but this guy worked that way. I'm watching closely to see if he gets fired or if they keep him on after the busy Christmas season.

I do know of one really decent guy who works at GeekSquad in my town, and I've been thinking of stealing him once our business gets through the Jan/Feb dip. I make sure I meet most of the GeekSquad employees as often as possible to weed up the real entrepreneurs from the future ITT-commercial actors.

Of course, YMMV. One of my customers that left us has been VERY happy with GeekSquad, although I know (from talking with the employees down the chain) that they'll be coming back in a few months. Money saved doesn't always equate to profits made.

Switch ports can't withstand mechanical load long.

[SharpFang]

Don't hang the hub by the cables, no matter how thick the ethernet and tiny and tiny the hub. Don't let 2m of cable hang from the switch on the high shelf down to the hole by the floor. It will work the first month or two, then will start to mysteriously fail. The most basic reason behind all these ports failing is that the cable puts stress on a port. Just attach all the cables half a meter away from the hub with ducttape or nails or staples or whatever, don't let them hang though, keep them loose, always leave at least minimal slack.

Re:95% of all problems...

[aj1]

>>I know this was said as a joke, but I see this a lot amongst the geek community, the attitude that users just don't know what they are doing, and that is why they can't make anything work.

The reason you see it so often is because it is so true. User is a broad term, and I use it as anyone who is touching the system aside from the administrators (bosses, subordinates, that monkey down the hall). I work as a sys admin in a lab at the university I am currently attending and the worse things happen because a user thinks they know what they are doing when they don't. Here are a few of my favorite examples.

1. One user put a 3.5 floppy into a cd drive (One of those that has no tray, you just put in the cd.
2. Last week on our automatic DVD burner ("bob") we had a user put tape in the drive itself to help keep the dvd strait.
3. On this same burner the tape was causing the robot arm to put the dvd's off center so it was pushing down harder than is safe. Solution? Put a candy box underneath the drive tray and continue burning your 100 Dvd's. (with the tape still in). It has never slid all the way out since.
4. We had an operating system on one of our servers (Win 2000 at the time) crash, so the solution my boss required... Format the drive, I KNOW we have a backup -- As it turns out the backup was disabled a few months back and in my own defense, I refused too push the enter key on the format and the backup server did have data on it, just nothing from the last few months.
5. We use workstations connecting to a domain to authenticate profiles. About once a month we have to remind users not to save anything on their desktop and to use their home drive (a network mapping of a backed up server). One user disregarded this and had a copy of 2 dvd's on their desktop which had saved itself to the domain controller. They came into work the next morning, tried to log on to a different workstation and thought the system crashed because it took so long. They then attempted several machines in succession until I came in to find they had six machines all downloading local copies of their dvd's. It took about a half hour till any of those machines where useable.

In the defense of the user, those who "know" what they are doing often makes mistakes as well. My favorite example of this is when the IT office calls and tells me that I have a virus on my webserver and it opened a port that is getting a large amount of traffic. I was told to fix the problem immediately or my port would be shut off. Naturally I asked which port... the answer? Port 80. After a short technical explaination they agreed to leave my port alone if I would at least do a scan. I scanned with a few antivirus and spyware programs as well as looked at a hijackthis log. Surprise surprise, the system was clean

Re:Use Trivial Passwords, whip me, beat me!

[SharpFang]

Alternative: Leave the password printed in big letters around. Let only the user know how to read it.
See topic of this post.
R:UTP,wm,bm!
Great password, isn't it?
Just look around the user's seat for texts. They are there. Posters, manuals, regulations, brand names, directions, manuals. Something the user always has around them. Pick first letters of the words, retain capitalization, include all the semigraphics, optionally include 1337sp33ch pieces if it seems too weak. Instruct the user how to use. "Here, this book cover. It spells out your password." They won't forget.

Re:95% of all problems....

[Morrigu]

Dell, Dell, Dell. The customer at one site decided to buy into Dell's 'home-grown' [findarticles.com] mid-tier SAN offering [entmag.com] in that brief period of time around 2001 after Dell and EMC had parted ways and before Dell came back to its senses and re-partnered with EMC. The re-badged EMC Clariion controllers + arrays on a Brocade fabric had not given us a single issue in the year they'd been in use, but this new demonic half-breed SAN shows up as part of the "new Win2K SAN" (yes, this customer ended up with 4, I kid you not, 4 different and non-connected SANs in the same physical server room).

Dell techs came, and Dell techs went. We had a former field-circus clown who was "certified" on this new storage system sitting in our server room, leafing through the product manual and scratching his head while customers were ranting and raving about not being able to get to their files. The cluster software didn't work. Various bits of the hardware routinely committed seppuku rather than operate with that demon of a storage system. The Dell-trained installers ran the cables backwards between the disk trays and the controller (gee, I wonder where all these fiber-channel errors are coming from). Files mysteriously disappeared. Various VPs within Dell called and made weekly pledges of earnestness in an effort to not get their product thrown out of the server room.

A few months after all this, Dell quietly discontinued [byteandswitch.com] their 'home-grown' SAN products [com.com] and went back to EMC [com.com].

I'm happy to use their laptops and desktops as long as someone else pays for it :), and their entry-level to midrange server offerings aren't significantly worse than anyone else's, but may I be damned to the foulest depths of Hell if I ever recommend their storage systems and professional enterprise services to anyone. Ever.