How to become a system administrator - a guide for beginners (Part 2)
Previous part: habrahabr.ru/post/118475
In this part: more about the life of enikeyschik: how to get settled, what to do, what to avoid, what to strive for.
I am postponing the question of the “future sysadmin” to the following parts - now I will focus on how my career begins. I repeat, to experienced administrators, all this will seem either offensive or obvious - but I have looked enough this spring at people who are trying to “jump into the industry”, but they fail. For them, this series of articles. (I don’t feel smart enough to talk about the future of a career for people who may have more experience than me).
')
Until about the mid-2000s, there were two ways to become a system administrator: through the path of an enikeyschik and through specialized higher education (usually, in all kinds of communications institutes). The first gave a lot of experience, the second - a lot of knowledge (of which most are not needed). Now a third one has appeared - all kinds of “system administration courses”, which, in reality, are dust and dust (judging by what those who graduated know and are able to do).
For the time being, I will focus on the first one - namely, “through enikei to admins”.
What I write will cause a storm of indignation (in any case, such a storm is usually caused by the text of a vacancy with such requirements and s / n at 15-17 tr. (St. Petersburg)).
It is necessary: ​​to be able to install Windows, fix the boot loader for it, know exactly where the programs are, user data, etc. (what is called "confident windows user"). Further interenee: you need to have an idea about the SCS (explain which pairs and why turn up in the cross), know about routing (at the level to explain what the network mask separates from), DNS (at the level of knowledge about the existence of RR and the ability to determine IP by dns- name in the console), network diagnostics (know what ping is and be able to interpret its output), you need to have some experience with office applications, to be able to read mail servers.
Heavy list, right? The last time I looked for a sysadmin assistant, I decided not to give up and stopped at that level. I must say, the person did (after 3 weeks) was found.
So the first is knowledge. Where to get them? Apparently, at home. Think carefully about what you are doing, try to figure out why. Each reinstallation of windows from scratch is your loss.
The second is adequacy. A free schedule, time saving work is the lot of admins. Enikeyshchik should be on time (and nobody cares about a bus in a traffic jam), he must be friendly to users, he must speak Russian and have more or less written etiquette (to respond to letters within the company in a responsible manner).
In order to get (s) to work, you need to have an interview. There are different companies, I don’t know how to behave in the situation of a HR fool or a general director as an interviewer, but here are some simple rules that influence whether or not the interviewer will take you to work:
Actually, everything.
Next you need to assess the adequacy of the people around. Difficult task. You should not flirt with steep admins and crony (see item 1), ask what the company does, if you see difficulties in answering, specify that only that which will need to work according to official duties is of interest. Many companies are a terrible interweaving of various LLCs that do something horrible, and no one will tell you about the business.
Now more about the two typical professional mistakes at the interview.
I mentioned them above, I write in more detail:
By the way, about the answer to the question “Do you plan to work with us for a long time?”, Answer honestly: “I want to gain experience, I think that at least a year, if it is interesting, then longer”. It is a reasonable time for enikeyschika. Finding an employee is no less haemorrhoid than a job search, so a person with the intention of working for a couple of months will not cause enthusiasm, but the promise to work as an employee here before the grave-board will not cause trust in your words either.
In this section, how to perform official duties. About what is actually (for your own career advancement to do, just below).
First of all, be aware of why you were hired to work: to remove a job from the administrator. Not its surplus, very rarely the administrator is very busy, but to remove from it the most unpleasant part of it: communication with users and dancing around computers with a tambourine.
So:
a) Politeness. The ultimate. Even if the asshole and capricious. If they complain to you, and even so that the admin will be called to the carpet, then this is 50% of the departure from work.
b) Memory. Remember, if you were told that after three days it will be necessary to disconnect something at 13:00, then you and only you remember about it. The fact that you did not turn off will remind you in 2-3 days, and even declare guilty in all subsequent problems. If you use outluk - use the scheduler. No - use alarms, sticky notes on the monitor, whatever - but remember. Forgetful enikeyschiki do not stay at work.
c) Make an effort to solve problems. This will not only make you a little better in the eyes of the admin (to get an “intelligent enikeyschik” rating - this is worth a lot, although don’t hope for an increase), but it will also give you the very experience that you lack.
In general, this concerns not only the “assistant”, always agree to any one-time job (well, except for work as a drug dealer and a missile tester) - once you get more experience from this job than your employer does. Once they dragged the SKS - a pack of experience, once they figured out the video cameras - another invaluable experience. We learned how to program a PBX system telephone - again, experience. Experience, experience, experience. Faced with a problem, try not only to solve it here and now, but dig to the maximum. If you have time, try to read in Google at least some about each new name that you meet.
Following the above tips you will be a good enikeyschik, but no more. If you want to become an administrator, then:
So, you have some time every day between the accountants' calls about the sticky button, the promise to “go fix this unknown garbage” and other stupid, time-hungry and low-paying things.
This time can be:
a) Spend on games. Blow right away. Not only spend all the time, but also get a lot of problems at work, because you will be stupid, slow down and not have time to do what you said.
b) To spend on surfing, contacting, chatiki, dvuchiki, leprosy, even some other great service in its socialization. Approximately the same, however, is less dangerous for work.
c) Spend on self-study.
And this is the main thing.
Remember, the main differences between the admin and the enikeyschik: theoretical knowledge and experience. Experience you can not deduct, it will come with time. But exactly which one will come, and, most importantly, the first item depends ONLY on how much you will read.
Read, read, read, read.
If at work there is prof. literature - read everything. Even if half do not understand. Read the entire regiment - start reading what you did not understand before.
The flow of knowledge that will collapse on you from the most stupid and shattered admin book is enough to get 2-3 levers on administration, and on topics completely disconnected from the topic of the book. (Memories: a book on 2003 ekcheynzhu gave me a huge layer of knowledge on the device of the Windows and the active directory, probably more than about ekscheynzh).
The first books will be incredibly hard to read. But this needs to be done, because if you don’t learn to learn, then the peak of your career is an elderly semiadmin idiot. I met these, they are naive nonsense about antiviruses and buggy Windows at 45+ years old. Mostly they survive in the state. organizations or the half-Soviet offices dying from idleness.
So read, read, read.
What if there is no literature?
1) Buy (sometimes bites)
2) Read what you have (from the screen)
3) Trying to ask to buy books at the expense of the company (there is little chance, but there is).
In any case, read, read, read. Agree with yourself - at least an hour a day to read _KNIG_. Chatter on thematic resources for this does not count. Immediately I answer the question of which books: all that somehow relate to what you work with and to which you have reached out. For a conditional year, you need to read at least 20-30 books, which is very, very, very much (this is not a belletter, some smart books need to be re-read 2-3 times). If you really want a manual - well, at least “DNS and Bind” by Albets and Lee. In principle, Neymet is good, he, however, is not on the wind part. From myself I will still recommend Filimonov, "Basics of Multiservice Ethernet Networks", gives a very powerful kick on a bunch of technologies. But, 2-3 weather books do not - read, read, read.
Next point: communication on thematic forums, community, etc. Useful, but not a substitute for books. It is better to read the answers, maximum, ask questions. Clever is too early, but if you poke your nose at your stupidity, try to find out why you are still an idiot, and do not arrange a battle of trolls for Flemer's cup. If we are already involved in a dispute, then argue - look for sources, prove. In principle, one prolonged holivar can lead to the fact that you greatly improve your knowledge in the field - but this is on condition that you try to prove your point of view on the sources, and not the loud and powerful IMHO.
Further, as mentioned earlier, try to figure it out. If you ask idiotic questions about work, then this is normal (note, only that the admin is not a god, and if he shrugs off, then there is a possibility that he simply does not know).
As stated earlier, at first everything - related questions from books will give you a basic knowledge of a wide range.
Further it is necessary to do key technologies:
By the time you learn all of this, you are likely to have some kind of experience already and will completely pass for the novice admin.
Here we begin the most difficult part.
First, in the Windows world, it is common to pirate paid software. In the Linux world, too, there is almost no paid software, many repositories are needed and open source, so the problem is less acute.
Our gallant criminal code provides that the one who set the software is guilty. And if by office note - then “by prior agreement”, that is, there are no excuses. If something happens, they will try to make you guilty. Keep this in mind, try to stay away from Microsoft, Adobe, Autocad, 1C. Unfortunately, there is no choice, decide for yourself - to risk a potential conditional term or to fly completely out of work "for idiocy." This is a professional risk of many novice admins (as well as the price of working with well-known windows).
You can try to make a hybrid loader and assistant assistant farmer. From carrying the servers (easy) and server ups (hard) you can’t get away, but try to evade from all the farm nonsense. For time eats, but does not add qualifications.
(to be continued)
Continued: habrahabr.ru/post/119407
In this part: more about the life of enikeyschik: how to get settled, what to do, what to avoid, what to strive for.
I am postponing the question of the “future sysadmin” to the following parts - now I will focus on how my career begins. I repeat, to experienced administrators, all this will seem either offensive or obvious - but I have looked enough this spring at people who are trying to “jump into the industry”, but they fail. For them, this series of articles. (I don’t feel smart enough to talk about the future of a career for people who may have more experience than me).
')
Introduction
Until about the mid-2000s, there were two ways to become a system administrator: through the path of an enikeyschik and through specialized higher education (usually, in all kinds of communications institutes). The first gave a lot of experience, the second - a lot of knowledge (of which most are not needed). Now a third one has appeared - all kinds of “system administration courses”, which, in reality, are dust and dust (judging by what those who graduated know and are able to do).
For the time being, I will focus on the first one - namely, “through enikei to admins”.
What should Enicus know?
What I write will cause a storm of indignation (in any case, such a storm is usually caused by the text of a vacancy with such requirements and s / n at 15-17 tr. (St. Petersburg)).
It is necessary: ​​to be able to install Windows, fix the boot loader for it, know exactly where the programs are, user data, etc. (what is called "confident windows user"). Further interenee: you need to have an idea about the SCS (explain which pairs and why turn up in the cross), know about routing (at the level to explain what the network mask separates from), DNS (at the level of knowledge about the existence of RR and the ability to determine IP by dns- name in the console), network diagnostics (know what ping is and be able to interpret its output), you need to have some experience with office applications, to be able to read mail servers.
Heavy list, right? The last time I looked for a sysadmin assistant, I decided not to give up and stopped at that level. I must say, the person did (after 3 weeks) was found.
So the first is knowledge. Where to get them? Apparently, at home. Think carefully about what you are doing, try to figure out why. Each reinstallation of windows from scratch is your loss.
The second is adequacy. A free schedule, time saving work is the lot of admins. Enikeyshchik should be on time (and nobody cares about a bus in a traffic jam), he must be friendly to users, he must speak Russian and have more or less written etiquette (to respond to letters within the company in a responsible manner).
Interview
In order to get (s) to work, you need to have an interview. There are different companies, I don’t know how to behave in the situation of a HR fool or a general director as an interviewer, but here are some simple rules that influence whether or not the interviewer will take you to work:
- No hats (bad example: “yes, this is elementary, well, what can I do here, a swimming problem, I don’t like these, but I can”). If you are so smart, why are you applying for a “helper” and not an admin for a year already?
- Positive attitude. Even if you can not tolerate Windows and 1C, if you work with them, there is no (at least during the interview) coining about buggy Windows, fucking 1C, stupid lamers, etc. Approximate response format: Yes, I know, yes, I can. This and that - probably I can, although I have never done it. This is - I do not know yet, it is difficult to assess the complexity.
- Lack of self-confidence. Typical errors: “I know everything about Windows”, “I know Linux”, “I know 1C”. The biggest mistake that can be made during an interview with a professional (when the administrator will interview you, and not the lady from HR) is to know more knowledge, but not to show them. In this case, even your small knowledge will not be counted. Be honest - the clearer your level of knowledge, the more trust you will have. When you know everything, but can not do anything - this is the worst option. Frankly, if a person declares profound knowledge at my interview, but in fact can’t say anything, then at this interview can be considered complete (I will reveal this thought just below).
- Lack of attempts to climb across the fatherland to the inferno. In my youth, for example, I suffered from this - by going to an interview I tried to figure out the maximum about the structure of the company's network by the headlines of the letters. Sometimes it was possible, and I proudly explained that I already know a lot about this network. Of course, the reaction was not “oh, how clever he is, we take him right now,” but strictly the opposite - hostile suspicion “and what else does he want to sniff out?”. So far you are a stranger to digging - and there is no confidence in you at all - “searching” enthusiasm - this is an interest in the “inside” of the company of a stranger, which is definitely a hostile act, especially in the conditions of widespread flies with VAT and other “holding business methods”.
- Of course, no nonsense from books about employment about the special enthusiasm for the company. If you are settling in “Blablabla” LLC, then to say that you would like to work here is a mistake. It will sound fake. (However, if you go to a big sonorous name, then say that it would be interesting for you to work in a large company, but it will not affect anything). By the way, I have a suspicion that the phrase “I want to work in a large company” can be interpreted as “I want you as a line in a resume and I won’t be late for long”, so I would suggest at this stage to refrain from describing my career expectations
- No reasoning what you would like to work with. Let’s leave it until the moment you see your specialization - people need a person who will do what they said (remember the “consumable material” from the previous post). The right to choose your field of specialization, you can after it appears. Up to this point - what was given is what should be eaten. Eat, do what they said hard and learn-learn-learn
- Obvious, but important: bring a resume with you. It can help a lot, because sometimes it is forgotten to print / read, etc., having it with you will firstly show that you are going here and not just anywhere, and secondly it will give a drop of human gratitude. There is no need to specifically offer, but it is quite possible to put it next to you on the table. In a resume, it makes sense to write a fork from the proposed salary for posts of this kind. It is usually written in vacancy ± 1t.r.
- If you are offered to move down, do not be outraged, say that “this is the lower fork of my expectations, I would like to see a little more money, if you insist on the lower border, then if you can, then I would like to think for a while and look at other proposals on the market. " This gives a moment of maneuver to both you and the employer.
- It will be very nice to clarify what will need to be done in a position, but in reality it is not the position to choose something somewhere.
- Do not tell me about mega-programming skills and other cross stitching. If you are a cool programmer, why are you being interviewed for the position of assistant system administrator? This is especially true of knowledge in C, assembler, Java and other things that are not exactly used in system administration. However, if you can, it is worth saying that “they can write scripts more or less tolerably” - this will be considered a plus.
Actually, everything.
Next you need to assess the adequacy of the people around. Difficult task. You should not flirt with steep admins and crony (see item 1), ask what the company does, if you see difficulties in answering, specify that only that which will need to work according to official duties is of interest. Many companies are a terrible interweaving of various LLCs that do something horrible, and no one will tell you about the business.
Now more about the two typical professional mistakes at the interview.
I mentioned them above, I write in more detail:
- Overqualification. If the admin feels uncomfortable next to you, then you are unlikely to get this job. If you need a person to replace cartridges in accounting, and you talk about mad skillz in reverse engineering of hasp keys, then this causes a negative reaction. Why does this person need us? What is he all about? The same applies to overqualification as a whole. If you say that in the two previous jobs you admini net of 30 computers, and in general you are a cool admin, then why are you now looking for a job assistant? This question is not idle, and has several important conclusions from the employer. At the admin: he wants to move me. At the sane admin: he is lying, or why he goes down the career? And one more question: how long will he work with us?
- Error in the assessment of their own knowledge. I repeat: “I know Linux”, “I know windows”, “I know computer networks”, “I know SQL”, etc. - this is an obvious FALSE. Even if you pass the MSCE exam, this does not mean that you know windows. Believe me, there are too many specific knowledge areas for an ordinary person (don't believe? Ok, servers were left aside, test Windows desktop questions: How can a perfmon show additional performance counters for installed software? Where is the availability of counters controlled? Another question: how How is the update validation performed? What certificates and certificate validation service settings affect this? Third: Where is the information about the data that has been changed by the MSI installer stored? Yator; is it possible to change the data, and if so, under which conditions?). About "I know linux" is strictly the same. So, they forgot about the arch-gigantic and stupid statements about the inclusiveness of knowledge. Speak more precisely: “I know and am able to perform typical operations with windows of such and such versions — reinstall, configure drivers, the simplest network ...”. Never say generalized statements, if you do not know the details of what you are talking about - it means that you do not even have a general idea of ​​what is there. On the contrary, a detailed description of your superficial skills will provide information that you at least know something in the field, and you will be easily educated to the desired level.
By the way, about the answer to the question “Do you plan to work with us for a long time?”, Answer honestly: “I want to gain experience, I think that at least a year, if it is interesting, then longer”. It is a reasonable time for enikeyschika. Finding an employee is no less haemorrhoid than a job search, so a person with the intention of working for a couple of months will not cause enthusiasm, but the promise to work as an employee here before the grave-board will not cause trust in your words either.
What to do when you get a job?
In this section, how to perform official duties. About what is actually (for your own career advancement to do, just below).
First of all, be aware of why you were hired to work: to remove a job from the administrator. Not its surplus, very rarely the administrator is very busy, but to remove from it the most unpleasant part of it: communication with users and dancing around computers with a tambourine.
So:
a) Politeness. The ultimate. Even if the asshole and capricious. If they complain to you, and even so that the admin will be called to the carpet, then this is 50% of the departure from work.
b) Memory. Remember, if you were told that after three days it will be necessary to disconnect something at 13:00, then you and only you remember about it. The fact that you did not turn off will remind you in 2-3 days, and even declare guilty in all subsequent problems. If you use outluk - use the scheduler. No - use alarms, sticky notes on the monitor, whatever - but remember. Forgetful enikeyschiki do not stay at work.
c) Make an effort to solve problems. This will not only make you a little better in the eyes of the admin (to get an “intelligent enikeyschik” rating - this is worth a lot, although don’t hope for an increase), but it will also give you the very experience that you lack.
In general, this concerns not only the “assistant”, always agree to any one-time job (well, except for work as a drug dealer and a missile tester) - once you get more experience from this job than your employer does. Once they dragged the SKS - a pack of experience, once they figured out the video cameras - another invaluable experience. We learned how to program a PBX system telephone - again, experience. Experience, experience, experience. Faced with a problem, try not only to solve it here and now, but dig to the maximum. If you have time, try to read in Google at least some about each new name that you meet.
What really needs to be done?
Following the above tips you will be a good enikeyschik, but no more. If you want to become an administrator, then:
- No one will teach you specifically
- You have every opportunity to learn.
- But no one will offer you these opportunities.
So, you have some time every day between the accountants' calls about the sticky button, the promise to “go fix this unknown garbage” and other stupid, time-hungry and low-paying things.
This time can be:
a) Spend on games. Blow right away. Not only spend all the time, but also get a lot of problems at work, because you will be stupid, slow down and not have time to do what you said.
b) To spend on surfing, contacting, chatiki, dvuchiki, leprosy, even some other great service in its socialization. Approximately the same, however, is less dangerous for work.
c) Spend on self-study.
And this is the main thing.
Remember, the main differences between the admin and the enikeyschik: theoretical knowledge and experience. Experience you can not deduct, it will come with time. But exactly which one will come, and, most importantly, the first item depends ONLY on how much you will read.
Read, read, read, read.
If at work there is prof. literature - read everything. Even if half do not understand. Read the entire regiment - start reading what you did not understand before.
The flow of knowledge that will collapse on you from the most stupid and shattered admin book is enough to get 2-3 levers on administration, and on topics completely disconnected from the topic of the book. (Memories: a book on 2003 ekcheynzhu gave me a huge layer of knowledge on the device of the Windows and the active directory, probably more than about ekscheynzh).
The first books will be incredibly hard to read. But this needs to be done, because if you don’t learn to learn, then the peak of your career is an elderly semiadmin idiot. I met these, they are naive nonsense about antiviruses and buggy Windows at 45+ years old. Mostly they survive in the state. organizations or the half-Soviet offices dying from idleness.
So read, read, read.
What if there is no literature?
1) Buy (sometimes bites)
2) Read what you have (from the screen)
3) Trying to ask to buy books at the expense of the company (there is little chance, but there is).
In any case, read, read, read. Agree with yourself - at least an hour a day to read _KNIG_. Chatter on thematic resources for this does not count. Immediately I answer the question of which books: all that somehow relate to what you work with and to which you have reached out. For a conditional year, you need to read at least 20-30 books, which is very, very, very much (this is not a belletter, some smart books need to be re-read 2-3 times). If you really want a manual - well, at least “DNS and Bind” by Albets and Lee. In principle, Neymet is good, he, however, is not on the wind part. From myself I will still recommend Filimonov, "Basics of Multiservice Ethernet Networks", gives a very powerful kick on a bunch of technologies. But, 2-3 weather books do not - read, read, read.
Next point: communication on thematic forums, community, etc. Useful, but not a substitute for books. It is better to read the answers, maximum, ask questions. Clever is too early, but if you poke your nose at your stupidity, try to find out why you are still an idiot, and do not arrange a battle of trolls for Flemer's cup. If we are already involved in a dispute, then argue - look for sources, prove. In principle, one prolonged holivar can lead to the fact that you greatly improve your knowledge in the field - but this is on condition that you try to prove your point of view on the sources, and not the loud and powerful IMHO.
Further, as mentioned earlier, try to figure it out. If you ask idiotic questions about work, then this is normal (note, only that the admin is not a god, and if he shrugs off, then there is a possibility that he simply does not know).
What to learn?
As stated earlier, at first everything - related questions from books will give you a basic knowledge of a wide range.
Further it is necessary to do key technologies:
- IP routing, and if there is a book, an ethernet device on the second and first levels
- DNS. Note that Microsoft exam preparation manuals are disgusting, because they contain almost no information. Read Albeza and Lee
- Basics of DHCP. You do not need to know up to a byte, but you need to know exactly who broadcasts when sending
- Windows architecture (if you work with it) - any windows administration talmud
- Any books on the "general" administration, there will be superficial, but for the first time it will come down
- HTTP protocol device. I do not know the books, learn by what you find. You need to know to the level, when you clearly distinguish between POST / GET, both of them are able to send via telnet / nc.
- Command line and scripts. If you do not know, it is imperative to teach, even for windows. For windows it is a power shell, for Linux it is advanced bash programming. If you do not know programming - learn, learn, learn. Without the basics of life will not.
- English.
If ...With high probability you don’t know him well enough. So - learn. You do not need to cram tension and faces, it is enough to read English literature. With a dictionary. The first ten pages will be a nightmare, then get used to it. It is necessary to learn English all reasonable life, because the higher the qualification, the less documentation in Russian (in English too, but we will leave these nightmares for future articles). By the way, English-language films with English subtitles (in their spare time) help a lot. - Something about virtualization. At least one sensible book will pump you 10-20 level in all respects.
By the time you learn all of this, you are likely to have some kind of experience already and will completely pass for the novice admin.
What to avoid?
Here we begin the most difficult part.
First, in the Windows world, it is common to pirate paid software. In the Linux world, too, there is almost no paid software, many repositories are needed and open source, so the problem is less acute.
Our gallant criminal code provides that the one who set the software is guilty. And if by office note - then “by prior agreement”, that is, there are no excuses. If something happens, they will try to make you guilty. Keep this in mind, try to stay away from Microsoft, Adobe, Autocad, 1C. Unfortunately, there is no choice, decide for yourself - to risk a potential conditional term or to fly completely out of work "for idiocy." This is a professional risk of many novice admins (as well as the price of working with well-known windows).
You can try to make a hybrid loader and assistant assistant farmer. From carrying the servers (easy) and server ups (hard) you can’t get away, but try to evade from all the farm nonsense. For time eats, but does not add qualifications.
(to be continued)
Continued: habrahabr.ru/post/119407
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/118966/
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