System administrator...stupid?
 

I know many of us visit places such as schools or work that have network/system administrators, and I also know they tend to be paranoid and easily feel threatened. What is the admin like around you? I know the one I deal with is paranoid, highly trained in Solitaire and eating pizza.:rolleyes:

The company I currently work for recently switched IT Directors (about 4-5 months ago). The original Admin I didn't know well (he left just as I was hiring on), but the new one has been easy and laid back, but far from stupid or "unaware". His first order of business was to tighten security by deploying a few OpenBSD boxes in strategic places on our network (firewalls, DNS, etc...). Now he's testing PostgreSQL as a replacement for our MS SQL databases.

He's a contributor to both FreeBSD and OpenBSD, and when I jokingly said I'd like to have another computer so I could run Gentoo on it, he hunted one down and had it to me within a few hours. Very cool guy.

You left off the option for "I'm the system administrator."

System administrators often have rules that are necessary for reasons you may not be aware of. This hardly makes them paranoid. Sure, there are bad admins out there who are lazy, and sometimes do things just to somehow make themselves feel powerful, but you shouldn't assume this without having more information. Network security should be high on the list of important items of a good admin, and sometimes this means doing things that an end user may see as "paranoid" or "stupid," but as I said, in most of those situations the end user doesn't have all of the information, and just doesn't understand that there are real reasons for certain policies and/or restrictions, etc.

Well, see, at the school I used to go to, the admin was open to suggestions, laid back and extremely efficient, but not at the school I go to now, he is a jerk. He does his work by personal interest, and sets up appointments in which I am to meet him and he is never there. I am glad they aren't all like that...

The sysadmin at my old high school was a mix of 3, and 5. The sysadmin at my most recent high school...well, I never see him/her/it/them.

But with the old sysadmin, he would do NOTHING aside from stare at the netlogs scroll by, and see which one of us was pissing around with the network - we were a select group of, about five, and let me tell you, he LOVED us. *cough*

our sysadmin at school was paranoid. we coulen use floppy disks usb pens or any other removable storage, and the PCs werw screwed into the desk! so if one crashed you had to turn off the power to the whole room to reset it.
you had to change your password every 2 weeks and you coudlent use one you had ever used before (they had to be at leas 10 caricters long and had to contain, upper case, lower case and numbers)

we diddnt have email.
you couldnt view PDFs on the web as it thoght you were downloding somthing


to print more than 5 pages you had to get special dispensation in teh form of a signed slip from your teacher with the file name on it (the sysadmion would print ity for you )

if you reallly neeeded to ransfer a file to teh network you could give the disk to the sysadmin who would virus scan it several times with diffenrt clients on a sand alone machine before copying the file over.
so many phrases were banned on websites that the short form of seconds (secs) would block the site and add the domain to the blacklist for evermore.


hen he moaned that he was overworked ;)

At my local library, the sysadmin is an old woman who refuses to believe the cables are wrong, never upgrades, basiclly knows nothing. 5 miles away the lib computers are so you can't log on if your under 18 without a parent. 24 miles away, the sysadmins are the only thing stopping one of my friends from switching to Linux! Uuugh...

Well...

I am the Sys Admin where I work. Hmm, I see some folks in our office have voted incorrectly.

Now, where is my ether-killer...

My college just hired a new Network/Sys Admin last semester, one of my friends :D

He's a really cool guy that knows his stuff.

I voted for "slow but works well" because I am the systems administrator for my work. I get the job done, but I know I could be more efficient and productive. Most of the time I am surfing the web or taking an afternoon walk.

I am my system administrator, so naturally I voted "lazy and unproductive".

Since I've had no cause to speak to him in the last two years, save to report that a PC's not booting, i'll go with 'Reliable and efficient'.

I'm one of several other sysadmins. I'm sort of considered senior to the rest since most of them started here fresh out of college and I'm only 28, most of them are 25 or younger. Most of them I'd consider novice sysadmins, they've never worked anywhere else and got lucky as the company I work for hired fresh college grads, but then realized they needed some experience.

The only problem is they still don't know their shit and since they've "technically" been here longer than me, they have seniority and don't listen most of the time, so I just sit back and let them learn their lesson.

Let me tell you the frustrations at times trying to tell my supervisor (only because he's been here for 3 years and is the worst manager in the world by all standards) who's only 25 how it should be done, when I only view him as a young immature frat boy.. I feel older everyday.. ;)

I'm sufficient, fast and respond when necessary.. there is one other guy here that is a little bit older than me who is the same. The rest are slow, can't manage time and goof off way too much and lack a lot of experience. They learned from the previous frat boys that started here before them and scared when I mention something they're unfamiliar with cause they don't understand it or not willing to learn. Hopefully one day they'll all grow up, but I'll be long gone by then.. ;)

I didn't understand the question. Can we schedule a two hour meeting to discuss it? Preferably in the morning so I can skip breakfast and scarf down some free bagels.

owch!!! that woudl kill just about anything ethernet related

When I was at school, the main SysAdmin was a ratherscary guy who, according to the techs, would sit in the office minding his own business, then suddenly, "there's a fault on windows box 72 in E14!"

And as for the 'ether-killer' :O

I now know what you mean by sitting back and let them learn their lesson. There was this systems admin in another department at my work and he was trying to set up a new network. He didn't know anything so I helped him out. Then I just learned that he got some major award ($$$) from his department for setting this network all by himself!!!! B.S.!!!!! He couldn't of done it without my help and guidance, yet the guy gets the credit and award. Makes me feel cynical, but I ain't helping people at my work anymore outside my department. I only shot myself in the foot. Let that be a lesson to all of you!

lol nice find!

The sys admins at my school are ok. The problem is that sometimes they'll move a couple files or change some settings only to find that it messes with something like the JDK. USB disks are fine with them.

However, they have a stupid web filter installed that block too many sites, including linux.org.

I offered my sys admin a URL to a new network bug scanner that I thought he'd be interested in...or not. He thinks Solaris (every version) is a $50,000 OS that is only used by governments and therefore, I could not 'just order it'. He is so stupid. He is a sys admin, but know nothing about Novell and Mandrake. Mandrake it the only Linux he uses because its 'more indepth and stable than any other Linux'. He also says ALL versions of Linux are free, then he said that Linspire, Red Hat Enterprise, Xandros, etc are not real Linux distros. OK...right.

Wow...

I realize that sys admins run the entire spectrum in knowledge and ummm...their ability to stick their foot in their mouth?...but that's pushing it. I've had a copy of Solaris 10 for a few months now (that I have yet to install...doh?), and it certainly didn't cost $50,000, nor am I a government...

My experience with Mandrake is limited, but I found it to be "just another distro". Just my opinion...take it with a grain of salt (especially if it's your chosen distro...heh). Nothing special or "more indepth" with Mandrake. I find binary driven distro's to be (not trying to start a flame war...) a waste of time. I'm picky, I guess...but I generally will find something that I don't like and will end up recompiling anyways, so why not get it done and over with from the beginning?

I don't have any real admin, it's a windows-only admin. He doesn't know how things really work... I have fun with the network :)

my work sysadmin is fairly knolegable but not in linux... the network is virtually windows only
(ok there are a few solaris 2.6 boxes still in use and 1 gentoo linux box that will be replacing them) but the rest is all windows XP 2K or novel PCdos based netware (the server)

lol, we have some old newrok infastructure too...
on site we have 10base ES (thick coax with vampire taps ) 10base 2 (thin Coax) 10 base T, 100 base TX , 100 base F (fibre inter building link) and a little 1000 base T
oh and 802.11 B/G wireles


thats preaty much the whole spectrum covered and in use except for token ring!

I think I actually have an ether-killer somewhere...

Back on topic: Our SYSOPS are a bunch of really conflicting types. One of them (The head SYSOP) only got there because he's the head's son. The others struggle to keep the Win2k3 servers running. The SYSOP in tech is really odd though. He just seems to run into the IT rooms, steal a monitor or a box and runs out again.

Incidentally, I would like to see our SYSOPS in T-shirts that read: "I am root, if you see me laughing, you better have a damn good backup!" Although, I think very few people would understand...

PPS: Do you reckon that shade is really Simon? ( http://bofh.ntk.net/Bastard_Indexes.html )

My local sysadmin, and myself, have an uneasy truce. He recognizes that I know more than he does (at least regarding networking but not regarding Windows) and understands that if he opens a door, I will walk through it every time. If he installs an open wireless network to test something... I am on it almost as fast as it is up. And so on.

But, being the good little PFY that he is, he recognizes that my transgressions must be punished (even if I was the BOFH in a prior incarnation). That little wireless incident, for example, still punishes me to this day -- because my sysadmin understands the art of inflicting pain. He just introduced me as the "front line Tech Guy" to go to before calling him for small problems. And he did that to a room full of technically incompetent teachers. Oh the pain!!! And he is paying for that... but I won't get into the details because I am posting this on his network and he might be reading it.

He is slow unless you're willing to bribe him -- like all decent sysadmins... and a little "Windows"-centric... but that is expected because my school is a total MS-whore.

Anyway, he's not a bad guy... yet. Give him time, he's maturing nicely.

Hmm, I think there should be a new option for the kind of sysadmins at my school.
It's usually the teachers who set up the network. All the computers have windoze xp installed. It doesn't matter that they have only 256mb of RAM, and they move like crap. But, because my teacher is convinced that Linux and Mac are database programs, and she probably never even heard of BSD or Solaris, or any other OS except windoze, I'm not surprised.
Technically, we have only a user account availabe for us, with which we shouldn't be allowed to access the web. How they thought of doing this? They put as proxy server in the internet options 127.0.0.1 and blocked user access to internet options. One detail that they forgot is that Firefox, for example, uses his own options, and can bypass the system ones. It can also be installed as user. Needless to say, every computer currently has internet access.
They put other paranoid limitations into it. E.g. you can't write on the hard-disk except in my documents, and it's generally annoying. But as the computers are almost never updated, and use micro$oft windoze, just pick your favourite exploit site, and get admin privileges in just a few cliks :D
Other "intelligent" limitations were the fact that they glued on the cover of the mouse to stop kids from stealing the ball. Now, most mice hardly work...
And, whenever there's a problem, they usually ask me, or I go myself and offer some help, because I hate seeing people struggle, although it's a pain to fix things in windoze...

So... how about a "totally lack any knowledge" option? :)

oh i pity you,

pur mice had the coveres glued on but if you had the right screwdriver you could get in to clean the rollers, (phillips #0)
the techie guys had one of thease about their person normally so thart they could do that when somone moaned about a mouse

the sys admin at my school, is some what paronoid considering he wouldn't let one of my friends boot up on a live cd distro, and he has never used linux, but he does use firefox and thunderbird

I booted Austrumi a couple times at school, and I can log onto the network just by changing the hostname...he wouldn't stand for it if he knew, but he's an idiot.

The guy I work with and myself are the sysadmins for our network. We are at a school, and have about 1,200 workstations on the network. I think a lot of the students thing we are idiots, nazis, narcs, peeping toms, etc. A lot of the teachers think we can do just about anything that they can come up with, just refuse to out of stubbornness or meanness.

There are a lot of rules that we have to follow, and the policies that we follow are not our policies, but the policies of the administration. We are held to the rules just as tight as anyone else, if not tighter, we just happen to be in the position where we have to be the ones that implement/enforce the policies. We also don't do the tech work on the workstations, but make sure that what the workstations need, is available from the servers. This requires balancing the needs of the workstations with the capabilities of the overall system. We have to keep a very open channel of communication with the technicians to be sure that one change doesn't shut off anything.

It takes a lot of work to keep everything working on a smooth, even keel, when there are literally a couple of dozen servers required to handle all of the resources that everyone thinks are "just there". Everyone expects that at 8:05am, when that bell rings, 15 labs of 24 workstations can login all at the same time, and it will be just as fast as any other time of the day. They expect, when a new student enrolls, we will have an ID and rights set up and a home dir, and everything will work immediately, system login, software logins, library system, cafeteria, etc, everything.

I don't think we're stupid, or lazy, but I'm sure, to someone that hasn't been in this position would question that. Luckily for us, we're mostly a Cisco, linux, and Novell shop, with only a few Windows servers, so maintenance at the server/system end isn't really killing us. It's more of do upgrades when it's the most transparent to the end users. User maintenance and data maintenance is what keeps us busy, and most users won't ever see that as long as we're doing our jobs correctly.

We've been lucky to have a couple of students that we've had the chance to work with for a semester. I think that's one of the best things that can happen in our field. We get to show them "what happens behind the curtain" and we get some real feadback on what the students are thinking. We also get some college students from time to time. For me, it's a lot of fun to show/teach some of the ways of thinking that are necessary for what we do. It probably opens some eyes to realize that you can't think in terms of only one operating system, or only one form of communication, you have to think of how all of the pieces fit together, and how a change to one part affects the rest of the parts. That's also good for us, as we can't just say "that works because I clicked that button", but "that works because of layer 3 of the OSI model", and we have to be correct. Keeps us on our toes too!

Sorry for the endless rant, but as a sysadmin, I think this side needs to be mentioned too.

I've never met "The Admin Dude".

I only new there was one a few days back when my tech teacher mentioned him. I thought he'd be the one managing the computers; he's cool, and he knows what he's doing. Oh, and I do think he has root access, if not, then he's higher-up anyways, because he can remote-terminate stuff on our PCs. Pretty nifty when you think about it. (I think it's Citrix he uses, which would explain the lack of IE7, but IE6 still there)

Well, The Admin Dude isn't totally stupid; he's got NetWare (Which works with Novell Client & DeepFreeze, right?) on the servers, which isn't OpenBSD, but it's better than Windows. There's WindowsXP on the desktops, though, which sucks for me. They're all 650MHz P3s, with like 768MiB of RAM, so they can be incredibly slow at times, but my tech teacher's saying they'll be switched out soon enough. (I'm just hoping they don't put Vista!) Oh, and there's only 1 USB port open (They switched the mice to lasers because of the ball "theft"), which sucks for me, because my walkman is my only USB storage device, and it's huge. (Remember, these were made when 2 ports was considered big)

But where he messes up, IMHO, is the fact that there's no Free software. At all. They have iTunes but there's nothing remotely Free, except maybe some Java tools. =/ especially suckish since no software except for Dreamweaver has syntax highlighting.

He does a good job for maintenance, computers that aren't working generally get fixed whenever possible, but I don't think the guy sticks around much, and only comes like once in a while, so it's not really his fault if some things aren't working. And I guess it is someone else stopping him from putting Free applications. (Maybe the school board's administration is in the stone age?)

So I guess #2.

I know that at my old high-school, it was literally school board policy to not have any software installed that did not provide a license by which the board could defend themselves by.

Meaning, if the board bought X number of licenses for, say Dreamweaver or Photoshop, and the program caused many systems to crash and burn due to an unpatched memory leak, or something... then the school board would be able to whip around and sue for a faulty product impeaching the "security" of the students' personal information.

I couldn't stand my old high-school's admin though. The only time I ever saw him, were the times he went out for a smoke or lunch, or whenever he came to bust me for breaking through DeepFreeze and doing network-wide installs of Quake and Doom for LAN matches. It wasn't so much the fact that I was breaking the rules, but more the fact he wasn't learning from his mistakes. If this kid knows the password to DeepFreeze and pretty much the rest of the administrative programs, then change the bloody passwords.

I found out the passwords from the old sysadmin, who, much like myself, couldn't stand the new sysadmin. Hee hee, all the admin passwords were "greece", as the old admin was Greek. :D

LOL-thats good. I changed the visiting person's password at my (old) school (it was student for user, student for pass) and I entered the network as an admin and changed the password to like a 23 character password. ;-D

I set up an admin account for myself, and changed the vice principals password.

Me had fun....lol

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

I did alot of the same.
Let's just say, when I switched schools, the sysadmin's hair went from gray, back to its natural colour.

-wtf, double post?!-

ya, there are only 2 linux users in my whole school, (me being one) who have both been accused of hacking (which we never did) walking down the hall together. People back away, and everyone in the tech department skips a heartbeat. Funny thing is, I haven't even done anything to my current school network...yet. Excluding taking Austrumi in and booting it, using the tech's internet (whose internet isn't filtered) and then they can't monitor me with their precious software. I tell them sometimes that the only reason they can monitor me, is because I let them. I just adjust the firewall, and they can't see it (clueless). Or, I unblocked sites their proxy blocked. Besides that, I'm a perfect law abiding student...

Heh... It's the seventh System Administrator Appreciation Day on 27th July 2007.
http://www.sysadminday.com/

I'm definitely writing a thank-you letter to my school's SYSADMIN.

Incidentally, there's a nice video on this website:--- (spot the BOFH!)
http://www.ukuug.org/sysadminday/

I still don't understand the question. :scratch: