[lug] System Administration - First Dive?

[Walter Pienciak]

On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 07:12:50PM -0600, Erik Lenderman wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am primarily familiar with the basic GUI of Linux home OS's, but I am
> interested in exploring a career in system administration and beyond.  I
> would like to learn how one could best acquire the knowledge and skills
> necessary for developing a Unix/Linux expertise.
> 
> Would you recommend that I register for 5-day Linux System Administration
> crash-courses, or would a direct move into entry-level help desk be most
> effective?
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Erik

Lots of experience on this list; no doubt for each 5 people, you
could collect 7-8 opinions on the best way to proceed.

I personally prefer the "set up a Linux box and dive in"
approach.   Pick a distro, install it, buy the Nemeth/Snyder/Hein
"Linux Administration Handbook," and start puttering.  Set up a
web server on it, set up printing, add users, whatever floats
your boat.  Find and learn to read the system documentation.  (At
a command prompt, type "man man".)

You will quickly surpass anything you might learn in a 5-day
class. 

If you want to be a sysadmin (or beyond), you need become
familiar with and to learn the core system, which has little to
do with GUIs.  My opinion is that using a GUI will cripple you in
that endeavor; many GUIs are abstractions that insulate you
from the system and expose only a subset of what is actually
there to diddle.  And when a system is having problems, you
may find yourself with nothing but a console or SSH login and
your wits anyway.

Learn to use a text editor that is always bundled into systems.
I use vim/vi; emacs is mostly ubiquitous (how is something mostly
ubiquitous?); pico is an entry-level tool that can get you going
with a short learning curve.  

Find out where all the logs on your system are and check them
out.  Find out how to find the logs ("man find").

The bottom line is, you get a Linux box and start dinking with
it.  Some things will be interesting to you; you will learn in
that area.  Some things won't be interesting and you won't see
an immediate need; maybe later.  Some things will be puzzling,
and you'll ask questions.  It's mostly a matter of getting
started and finding out if you have the aptitude and interest to
do this for a career.

FWIW, here's a quote from a recent job posting of mine:
"Command-line administration and scripting skills are required."
Bourne shell scripting is worth learning; as is Perl.  If you
learn to automate yourself out of the mundane, you may be
happier, and you will have the time to pursue more interesting
work.  Admins who can't script or program and who are trapped in
a GUI wind up being -- well, in the days of tape, we called them
tape monkeys.

No doubt one of my friends will be along shortly to explain
carefully how wrong I am (especially regarding vi).   ;^)

My $0.02, maybe $0.03,
Walter