5 Things Every Good Linux Administrator Knows
There are 5 things that every good Linux Administrator knows. Do you know what they are?
They are in no particular order of importance:
1. Users are a Necessary Evil – Do you ever wonder why System Administrators seem so annoyed by you and your questions? It’s because you are, in fact, an annoyance to them. Don’t be insulted by this–it’s just fact. You are generally the reason they exist but life would be easier for them if you didn’t exist or ever need anything from them.
Take a deep breath and realize that you have a symbiotic relationship with your users. They probably don’t like you either.
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Unskilled and Unaware of It
O stare de vesnica actualitate… Via http://www.damninteresting.com/ (cu toate credits-urile aferente), indirect via http://www.manac.ro/
When asked, most individuals will describe themselves as better-than-average in areas such as leadership, social skills, written expression, or just about any flavor of savvy where the individual has an interest. This tendency of the average person to believe he or she is better-than-average is known as the “above-average effect,” and it flies in the face of logic… by definition, descriptive statistics says that it is impossible absurdly improbable for a majority of people to be above average. It follows, therefore, that a large number of the self-described “above average” individuals are in fact below average in those areas, and they are simply unaware of their incompetence.
What are REAL IT policies vs. What is actually enforced…
(Evil Sysadmin laugh) Silly Users! You cannot escape my domain!
I have been getting a whole lot of questions regarding… "Can I do this at work" or "Will I get caught if I am downloading…" and my all time favorite "If I look at a little pron will I get caught?"
Here’s a clue, most of the time, if we have the capabilities of remote monitoring, we’re not using them. Unless you do something to draw the Evil Eye of a Sysadmin, we just don’t care, we’ve got other things to worry about.
Now that being said, if you DO happen to do something to draw our attention, you’re dead in the water if you’re doing something wrong.
Here is a list of things that most Sysadmins don’t really care about:
- Light Porn surfing (if it’s playboy type stuff) up to say 10-15 minutes a day, we just don’t care. We might be a bit entertained by your old woman or tranny fetish, but chances are, nothing to really worry about. Unless you owe us money. Just be aware, we know what you’re doing.
- Reading news sites, or shopping online. Again, we just don’t care. Most of our days are spent in one of two modes; putting out fires, or preventing fires.
- Circumventing the proxy to go watch that really funny YouTube video your brother sent you in your corporate email. If you’re smart enough to do it, more power to you. If you didn’t do it exactly right, the Evil Eye is turning your way right now. If it’s just a funny YouTube video, no big deal. If you’re logging into hardcore pr0n sites to download videos, and eating all the T1 bandwith, your fapping is about to be seriously interrupted. It might even be something like total computer failure, which we will conveniently be able to pin to the pr0n you were downloading.
If you have thus far managed to evade the Evil Eye, good job! Here are some things that will draw down the Striking Hammer Of God:
- Illegal pr0n. If she could be your daughter, or our kid sister, you are toast. We don’t just get you fired, we call the FBI and let them arrest you. If you (sick bastards) are unlucky enough to get a Sysadmin like me, you first get the living shit beat out of you, then you get to deal with the Feds.
- Illegal pr0n. If the "man" of the pr0n is named fido, we call the FBI and again, probably beat the crap out of you for good measure. We definitely make sure that EVERYONE in the company (and likely your spouse, and/or family) know what you were doing, and why the men in suits have come to take you away.
- Downloading illegal music. Not cool man. Not at work. Yeah we have a T1, but it’s not your personal playground. Expect to have the music mysteriously disappear from your machine overnight, and forget being able to do anything like that in the future, we just demoted you to the Guest account.
- Listening to streaming music. Ok, so yeah it’s not illegal. But you and your 10 brethren have just filled our T1, and effectively DoS’d the email server. If you want music, bring it from home on a portable hard drive, and don’t copy it to the machines. Just play it from the hard drive.
- Installing or running any port scanners, or downloading anything that might be considered a "hack" tool. Congratulations, you just pissed IT off, and will likely be locked out of the network shortly. I’ve got enough to do without wrangling your script kiddie ass too.
- Heavy pr0n surfing. Like 5-6 hours a day heavy. Dude, just stop. You are likely going to be visiting some websites that are, ummm, less than legit, to get in that amount of pr0n every day. You are going to end up getting that machine infested with virii and spyware. You might even actually inadvertently compromise the corporate network. If that happens, do you really think that anyone is going to let that slide? I’ve actually had to explain to the boss why you need to be fired before your little problem destroys the network, and I don’t really care to discuss what you’ve been looking at (you mean there’s more than one person that looks at THAT?!?!?) with my boss.
Even if I’ve been cool enough not to filter out web content, the boss is going to want to know how you were able to view this stuff. Rather than blow it for everyone, I am going to do the right thing. I am going to lie my ass off. You must be a hacker, because you’ve been able to circumvent every filtering method I’ve set up, and I have logs to prove it (believe me, I have logs to prove ANYTHING).
The short answer is, if we’re watching you, there is no escape. Between hardware keyloggers, and specialty software that is designed to be undetectable (which is extremely hard to find even to buy), we will catch you.
If you are doing something that is in a grey area, take your Sysadmin out for lunch a couple times, or for a beer, and find out what the real policy is (the one that gets enforced, not the one in the manual). Hell if we like you, we’ll let you get away with alot more than if you’re a dick to us in the hall.
Credit asktheadmin.com
Murphy’s Laws of Computing
- When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.
- When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it?s probably obsolete.
- The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you least expect to find it.
- When the going gets tough, upgrade.
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.
- To err is human…to blame your computer for your mistakes is even more human, it is downright natural.
- He who laughs last probably made a back-up.
- If at first you do not succeed, blame your computer.
- A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.
- The number one cause of computer problems is computer solutions.
- A computer program will always do what you tell it to do, but rarely what you want it to do.
Read more at http://www.murphys-laws.com/
No, I Will Not Fix Your Computer
The real reason your company’s computer guy doesn’t want to work on your personal PC.
“I’m sorry, I don’t work on personal PC’s. It’s nothing personal, I promise”.
Am lansat Free Media Program
OSN Free Media Program este o initiativa volutara in cadrul proiectului Open Software Network care are ca scop distribuirea de discuri CD sau DVD gratuite cu distributii Linux si *BSD pentru persoane care nu isi pot permite achizitionarea sau descarcarea lor de pe Internet.
Programul este orientat in special catre persoanele cu domiciliul in Romania. Programul promoveaza in principal distributiile romanesti. La publicarea unei versiuni majore a unei distributii, In functie de disponibilitatea Programului, Open Software Network realizeaza discuri imprimate si inscriptionate cu aceasta distributie, intr-un numar limitat de exemplare, pe care le distribuie in mod gratuit celor care se incadreaza in conditiile Programului in ordinea inscrierii si limitat la cantitatea disponibila.
Pentru mai multe detalii vizitati http://www.osn.ro/freemedia/
Sunteti bineveniti sa ne sprijiniti in actiunea de promovare a acestui serviciu. Dati vorba mai departe sau inserati codul urmator in site-ul vostru:
<a href="http://www.osn.ro/freemedia/">
<img src=http://www.osn.ro/images/ads/fmpad.png
alt="Open Software Network Free Media Program"
width="160" height="101" border="0" /></a>
Multumim!
Despre "maintenance" şi alte noutăţi
Iată că după un timp mai îndelungat decât cel prevăzut iniţial, în urma unui proces de actualizare majora, serviciul de weblog oferit de OSN este online din nou.
În primul rând, dorim sa ne cerem scuze tuturor utilizatorilor şi vizitatorilor ai serviciului de blogging pentru acest “offline” prelungit. Masura a fost considerată necesara si critică pentru buna funcţionare a platformei de blog. Au fost revizuite unele componente importante ale serviciului şi au fost actualizate o mare majoritate a facilităţilor, precum şi adăugarea a unora noi.
De astăzi, blog.osn.ro oferă utilizatorilor şi vizitatorilor suport pentru autentificare prin OpenID.
Ce este OpenID?
Standardul OpenID reprezintă un mod de autentificare pe un sit, prin utilizarea informaţiilor de autentificare deja existente (create) pe un alt site cu suport OpenID. Prin folosirea OpenID, nu mai este necesară reţinerea diferitelor nume de utilizator şi poate tot atâtea parole pentru fiecare sit pe care dorim să ne autentificăm, în schimb, se poate retine doar o simplă adresa de web care ne va identifica ca fiind identitatea noastră online.
Sperăm ca printre alte facilităţi mai mici sau mai mari aduse serviciului de blog, îmbunătăţirile sa fie folosite din plin de utilizatorii noştri.
Vă mulţumim pentru înţelegerea şi răbdarea acordată.
PS. Fiind o actualizare majoră adusă platformei, există posibilitatea să apară unele erori în utilizare. Dacă sesizaţi erori funcţionare sau utilizare, vă rugăm să ne anunţaţi prin adresa de contact weblog@osn.ro
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