sysadmin bootstrap #2
Signed-off-by: Nico Schottelius <nico@kr.ethz.ch>
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[[!meta title="Sysadmin bootstrap - seek for information"]]
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After [[having setup the sysadmin console|sysadmin-bootstrap-1]],
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it's now time to find out
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Where to start?
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## Background
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When I start a new jobs somewhere, the biggest challenge in the beginning
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is to find out, what, where, when and how to do. In most companies this
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becomes clear after a few days. In ETH, it's a bit different: There are
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many internal service providers with very different focus. To find out
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which are the machines I have to take care of, where they are located
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and which services are running on them took me about a year.
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## Step one: My bosses and the local sysadmins
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The ones who hired me should best know, what needs to be done.
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After getting some basic information, the next
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information centre here in ETH is the ISG, the
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"IT Service Group", which takes care of general IT issues
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in the department. In my case this is the the
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[isginf](http://www.isg.inf.ethz.ch/).
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### Your local ISG
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So, what's about that ISG thingy? Why is it needed if I am hired
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as a sysadmin? Aren't we competing against each other? The simple
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answer is: **No.** While the ISG is also doing sysadmin related
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stuff, their focus is on a broader view than the one of a dedicated
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sysadmin. To quote from
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[their site](http://www.isg.inf.ethz.ch/AboutUs):
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...purchasing and repairing hardware....
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...operating various central services...
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...administration of several hundreds of workstations...
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...allow the users...to concentrate on their main tasks...
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So as a sysadmin, maintaining hundreds of server and cluster machines,
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focussing on the groups demands, the sysadmin is mostly working in
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a different area. On the other hand, a sysadmin can have the ISG
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maintain stuff in the group, which they can do good
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and the sysadmin probably does not want to do (like Windows workstations).
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## Step two: Retrieve information from newly know sources
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After the initial contact with the local folks, I'm ready to
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dig into other sources I am know aware of. In this case:
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* [The Systems Group wiki](https://wiki.systems.ethz.ch/)
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* [The Sysadmin wiki](https://trac.systems.inf.ethz.ch/trac/systems/ns/)
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* [/sans/: sysadmins home](http://sans.ethz.ch/)
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* [Informatikdienste](https://www1.ethz.ch/id/services/a_z)
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### Systems Group in detail
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Most of the information related to the sysadmin job for the Systems
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Group can be found in the wiki. Though the wiki is probably always
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a little bit behind the reality, it is heavily used and gives pointers
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to the right places.
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### /sans/: Sysadmins home
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This is still a pretty youg project, but unique at ETH: It is a
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regular sysadmin meeting and information exchange, without the formal
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stuff or the the borders of departements. You may find a lot of
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sysadmin related information directly on the website or find out more
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in one of the meetings.
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### ID: Informatikdienste
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The ID are offering basic IT services for the whole ETH. Most of the
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network stuff and things like the [Blog service](http://blogs.ethz.ch/)
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is made by them. Although as a sysadmin you're mostly just using their
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services without interacting with the people behind them, it's a good thought
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to get in contact with them: In case the network is not working anymore,
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they are the right ones to ask for help.
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There's a "little" trap though: The ID combine a lot of "smaller"
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departements, of which one has to find the right one for the right problem.
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## Step three: Not offering your own services
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While after some time a sysadmin will find out that a particular service
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is missing in the group, it is probably worth *not* to offer it yourself:
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Although one may get the impression that this particular service is not
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available at ETH, you may almost always be wrong:
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Almost every service is already being provided somewhere at ETH.
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## Step four: Offering your own services
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After one has tried out the various services, you may still be unsatisfied:
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Either because the service is not being offered they way you require or it
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takes you a lot of time and energy to use it. While it may be worth and useful
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to run your own service, always triple check step three!
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[[!tag eth sysadmin]]
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