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Ask HN: Tips on Sysadmin Job

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Re: Ask HN: Tips on Sysadmin Job

#61

Post by computershit »

Adding to the list of what's already been said:

1. Passwords / Secrets management. Ensure there are no shared accounts in use, no credentials or passwords on the company wiki. Implement adoption of a password manager (LastPass if commercial, BitWarden if you can selfhost) for team and individual secrets.

2. Identify all public-facing endpoints and do an initial once over on the software that's backing them and any vulnerabilities (especially if they have anything Atlassian in their stack).

Re: Ask HN: Tips on Sysadmin Job

#62

Post by withinboredom »

metajon wrote: post #43
300 wrote: post #6

Here's what to do in the first few weeks: 1. Require not 1, but 2 people, for hire, right now. It will take a long time until it gets approved, HR does their thing, and you (or someone else) hire people to help you. 2. Document, as fast as you can, all of the assets in your environment. Don't waste time on looking for software. Plain text or spreadsheet will do for start. 3. Identify the most important assets (server…

A possible corollary to 2: Don't forget to document incidents as you go. You'll learn a lot in these situations and you may find resources that are handy / work for you along the way. Keep a text file, or OneNote or whatever, open while working an incident. Don't overthink it, don't over-complicate it.

I use InkDrop for these kinds of things. It’s dead simple, and syncs everywhere. I don’t care about formatting and love that I can use simple markdown. It’s perfect to jot some notes down on a phone and open them later on a computer — more importantly, it’s not tied to a certain OS and it’s cheap.

Re: Ask HN: Tips on Sysadmin Job

#63

Post by hullsean »

I’ve been doing the above as a consultant for a couple of decades. Here’s what I see:

o As others have said it’s a lot. That said it sounds like management trusts uou. More than hiring someone off the street to take the reigns. This means there is room to breathe and room to fail a little bit.

o Talk to all biz units to learn what services they rely on. Thus will not be 1:1 with servers and applications as you see them. But it’s an important starting point.

o Inventory all the systems that you can see/find.

o identify backups, DR and put together a list of your concerns. Document this and share with management. This will give you cover.

o develop your own priority list. Be prepared for management to give you a different set of priorities. You will need to learn skills of push back and compromise.

o learn to reach “good enough” in the short term. If you try to fix everything elegantly and perfectly other problems will wait longer.

Re: Ask HN: Tips on Sysadmin Job

#64

Post by what_is_orcas »

denton-scratch wrote: post #56
what_is_orcas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the physical logbook?

The reason I used a physical logbook is that if you use software, you have to have the software and the logfile on-hand all the time. You can keep them both on a stick, of course; but you still need the right OS/FS drivers etc. Also, your screen and keyboard may be connected to a machine that's crashed, or being repaired. And it's easier to scribble a line in a physical logbook than to crank-up some editor, open the…

Hey thanks for the explanation. That makes a ton of sense.
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