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Ask HN: How do I learn how to become a good sysadmin?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I learn how to become a good sysadmin?

#41

Post by nstart »

blumkvist wrote: post #29
crypt1d wrote: post #22

Sorry to disagree with a lot of posts here. >At the most basic level, when firing up a new server I follow the how to harden your server guides and install fail2ban, disable root login, enable ssh only login etc. This is simply wrong. There are two things wrong with this approach: 1. If I understood correctly, you are essentially following random guides on the internet about setting up your security rig. Not too far…

Learning from blogposts is a widespread issue it seems. I see content marketers and growth hackers who have never done a linear regression in their life. How they are "marketing" and what they do day-to-day is beyond me. If you want to learn something, go read (text)books. Not blog posts. You need core understanding. Nobody can give you that in a blog post. Even if the author actually knows what he is talking about,…

Would this list of books be a good starting point?

http://everythingsysadmin.com/books.html

Re: Ask HN: How do I learn how to become a good sysadmin?

#42

Post by mtalantikite »

Sysadmin is (unfortunately) a role that is on the decline, so from a pure employability perspective I'd suggest you focus more on the dev side.

As for the skills, I'd suggest running a Linux distro as your personal, everyday machine, not just a server you log into on AWS or DO every so often to configure (which, also -- don't do that. You don't want snowflakes in your environment). It'll force you to learn a lot about how the system actually works.

Try out a distro that doesn't hold your hand so much -- for me it was Gentoo in the early 2000s and Slackware before that. Always read the man pages. Learn all the tools for performance profiling and get used to reading your logs. Spend a lot of time learning how networking works -- maybe start with really understanding iptables which will lead you into lots of other parts of the networking stack. Read "The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD OS" if you're interested in Unix beyond Linux.

Ultimately it's a skill that you need to learn by doing. Just don't stop the dev side of your life because as things continue to be automated and abstracted away there are going to be less and less positions as a generic sysadmin.

Re: Ask HN: How do I learn how to become a good sysadmin?

#43

Post by nstart »

skywhopper wrote: post #37

As a long-time sysadmin, my best advice for learning is to give yourself the opportunity to break things. Constantly ask yourself questions about how things work and then see if you can answer them. I wouldn't even begin to start worrying about containers until you're more comfortable with the basics. Some questions and projects to get you started: Do you know how to start and stop services, how to tell what's runnin…

That... Was brilliant. My weekend plans seem to be pretty sorted. Thanks a lot for this. I wish I could reply with something more than just thanks but honestly, there's so much here. Just.. Thank you :)

Re: Ask HN: How do I learn how to become a good sysadmin?

#45

Post by ocdtrekkie »

mtalantikite wrote: post #42

Sysadmin is (unfortunately) a role that is on the decline, so from a pure employability perspective I'd suggest you focus more on the dev side. As for the skills, I'd suggest running a Linux distro as your personal, everyday machine, not just a server you log into on AWS or DO every so often to configure (which, also -- don't do that. You don't want snowflakes in your environment). It'll force you to learn a lot abou…

Why would you say that the need for Sysadmins is on the decline? If anything, I should think it would be greater than ever. I'm very curious here.

Re: Ask HN: How do I learn how to become a good sysadmin?

#46

Post by ocdtrekkie »

mvanvoorden wrote: post #23
jpgvm wrote: post #8

At the end of the day it's important to find a mentor or join a bigger company where you can study under a more senior sysadmin. These days things are getting more complicated, to be a good sysadmin you also have to be a good developer. Usually as good and sometimes more than the people that write the apps that you will run, maintain and love long after they have decided they have something more shiny they could be w…

I'm a sysadmin for 16 years, I have worked in big and small companies and I don't agree with a great part of this post. I'm not a developer, I have never needed to disassemble or fix programs built by others, never needed to understand kernel subsystems or anything else kernel related (except may be how to replace a broken driver/module). I know nothing of C, I know just the basics of system calls and I've never hear…

Absolutely agree. Sysadmins' interface with code is basically to be a compliance-checker. Software, be it from in-house developers or a third party solution need to meet that compliance bar, or it doesn't go to production. If your in-house developers are unable to meet those compliance requirements, that's a them issue and not a you issue.

It's good for devs to know some ops, and ops to know some dev from a familiarity standpoint, particularly because mutual understanding fosters a good working relationship, but they're two very different roles.

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