I’ve been a Systems Administrator for going two decades\u00a0now, and I’ve learned a thing or two about how dumb I am. This blog is mostly errata that I think might help my users: if I googled it, they might eventually too, and so I want to be able to point them to something that will work in our environment.<\/p>\n
Having said that, stuff that I blog about here should work for you too. If you have questions or problems, just ask!<\/p>\n
In my computer career I’ve worked at Johns Hopkins University Computer Science<\/a>, the Enoch Pratt Free Library<\/a>, the State of Hawaii Clean Air Branch<\/a> & various NASA<\/a> contracting firms.<\/p>\n I’m currently the senior UNIX & Mac SysAdmin at the Old Dominion University<\/a> Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography<\/a>. My scientists study the effects of climate change on sea level rise, among other things.<\/p>\n I have the best systems job in the world, because all of my users are power users. You should be so lucky. If you find a job like mine,\u00a0take it!<\/em> Added bonus: working at my alma mater.<\/p>\n A few points of troubleshooting & meta advice for junior systems administrators in general:<\/p>\n I’ve been a Systems Administrator for going two decades\u00a0now, and I’ve learned a thing or two about how dumb I am. This blog is mostly errata that I think might help my users: if I googled it, they might eventually too, and so I want to be able to point them to something that will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3412,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/sobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/sobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/sobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/sobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3412"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/sobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/sobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/sobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/sobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
grep<\/code>ping your brain. It’s a compliment.<\/li>\n$PATH.<\/code><\/li>\n$PATH<\/code>, it’s probably a permissions error.<\/li>\nsu -<\/code>. Just don’t. sudo<\/code> instead.<\/li>\n.tcshrc<\/code> or .bashrc<\/code> or whatever. Then remember: If\u00a0it’s white, make sure it’s right.\u00a0<\/em>Or, if you use a terminal with black text and a white background,\u00a0If it’s black, you can’t go back.<\/em><\/li>\n$EDITOR<\/code> or your beloved $SHELL<\/code>. Give the user the tools he wants to do his job. And smile about it.<\/li>\n$ df -h<\/code>.<\/li>\nlsof -i<\/code> to see what the system is opening to the world, then run nmap<\/code> on your systems from the outside.<\/li>\ndenyhosts<\/code><\/a>. For days.<\/li>\n\n
whoami<\/code><\/code><\/li>\nsudo cp aFileImAboutToEdit aFileImAboutToEdit.date<\/code><\/code><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n