A recent post where someone suggested redirecting with a clobber ">" to a file the same command was reading from prompted me to post this sysad good practice list. Some items are from times where I have learned things the hard way. I think this would be helpful so we can learn from each others mistakes.
1. Test thy backups
2. pwd before rm
3. hostname before reboot
4. Executing a command with a recursive option on .* can be unpredictable
5. One word. Clustering
6. Test patches on a staging machine
7. If you are going to do it frequently, script it
8. Don't redirect to a file you are reading from
9. Copy a file before editing it
10. Document your systems' configuration and topology
This may be obvious but sometimes it does not get done.
11. Keep your documentation up to date. (The only time you realize that it is out of date is when you really need it. A bit like 1. Test thy backups. The only time you realize that the backups are wrong is when you really need them.)
This goes aong with backing up a file before you change it, but since I'm in CM, Use source control. That way you can recover from that last "update".
And documentation isn't something you do once and then forget. I can't count the number of times that I've used documentation (in house written) and it was a few releases behind or for hardware that had been replaced.
In my company, it's fallen on me to serve as the admin of our new HPC cluster, a task that's very new to me. It's very important to me to lay a solid foundation and avoid any unnecessary pitfalls. So, can anyone recommend a succinct guide or list of do's-and-don'ts for adiminstering an HPC cluster?... (0 Replies)
hi people,
I am very much interested to Oracle. I decided to write one exam soon and I am refering guides from certmagic.com. It seems good. Any of you know any good books than this ?! (0 Replies)
Hi! I am currently an M$ engineer who wants to move my career towards UNIX. My datacenter has about 300 Sun servers but not enough SA's (we also have 1800 Windows Servers). My manager is supportive of my moving toward UNIX, and I know it won't be an overnight move, but I am willing to put in the... (1 Reply)
Hello,
I'm going to be studying for my Solaris 9 System Administrator Certification and wondered if anyone had taken the exams and could recommend some good study guides / crams / books.
Cheers, (8 Replies)
I am currently working on my Solaris 8.0 Certification ,and I've been working primarily with the Solaris Study Guide produced by Syngress & Osborne. It's a good study guide ,but I think that it does lack some clarity and detail! My question is ,are there any other Solaris Study Guides that could... (1 Reply)