Hello everybody!

I just finished reading a few of the old BofH stories and started wondering, what kind of Zen tricks real-world Linux admins use to deal with the horrors inflicted upon them by their users.

Do you do it like the BofH, rm -rfing their whole /home and mail spool, or do you just sit back, close your eyes and meditate by rerunning the main server's boot messages in your head?

This thread is of course for recreational purposes only and none of the advice here should be taken as if prescribed by a doctor, but still, feel free to share whatever helps you get through the rough patches of the week when either your users or that bloody new printer that won't work correctly just drive you mad.


Greets,

Rokyo

Ok, I'll start then.
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A friend of mine who works as an admin at a local telephone and internet provider says this:

Whenever I run into a problem with a piece of hardware/software/config that I just can't get to work, I always step back, make myself some tea or coffee and go through the problem in my head before actually doing anything else on the actual device I'm working on. Just physically going away from the keyboard and thinking about the problem in a different environment (ie the tea kitchen) takes off the pressure for me of 'having to fix this, NOW'. Also, the water boiler at our kitchen takes about ten minutes to boil tap water, so usually I can figure out what wall I had been running into and fix it when I get back to the machine... plus I got some coffee then, so everything is better already.
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So, there you go, first trick is out there. I'm always eager to hear more.

rokyo:

"users". ugh.

That bad, eh?

After 19 Years, I personally do not have a high regard for users.



subscribed with interest...