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How Did You Become a UNIX Administrator?
xylix asks: "I figure there must be a number of UNIX admins among the Slashdot readership and I am wondering how you got into that field to start with. The reason I am asking is that I really want to be a UNIX admin but don't know how to get from here to there. What kind of education did you have(CS or other)? How did you start out (as a junior admin or moving laterally from another position)? What certifications are useful?"
"I am an English teacher now but am a techie at heart and spend all my time coding and using various Linux / BSD distros. I figure I am capable of handling a junior position, but most ads I see for *nix admins are looking for several years of work experience (on specific platforms), CS or EE degrees (I have a BA in philosophy) and perhaps years of experience in a specific industry (financial, wireless, transportation...).
I have been told by a couple people that at 33 I am far too old to start ANY kind of tech career (with no previous work experience). Anyone out there with experience to counter that? I know the job market is tough right now, but I am thinking long term."
I am sure that others will have more specific helpful advice, but the fundamental principle is simple. It's the same way you learn to program -- or play the piano, or dance the watusi -- passionate curiousity and reckless experimentation. Education and experience are both very valuable, but both of these are offshoots of a self-driven desire for knowledge.
So, install Linux on a partition (I imagine you probably have already). Network your apartment/house/dorm room. Set up a web server and host your friends' sites. Set up a firewall. Follow the security updates for the software you have installed. Put a free database on it and write some useless but entertaining CGI on it. Translate the code into Java, Perl, and PHP just for kicks. Get excited, and the rest will follow.
Try to become a programmer and fail.
I'd avoid Linux. I may well love the OS, and have been using it since the Linus boot/root disk days, but I'd advise something else for learning how to admin the box. Linux makes life too easy, with the consequence that you get used to the niceties and are then stuck when confronted with an OS that doesn't have them (and most of the paid Unix admin jobs will have such an OS).
Writing bash scripts, for example, gives you some syntactic sugar, but little in the way of real added value over and above plain Bourne shell. But it means your scripts won't be portable, and when confronted with an OS without bash, you're stuck.
I'd recommend OpenBSD or Solaris, or preferably both. Both can be acquired at zero cost for PC hardware, and hence make good choices to play with. Try to do everything you do without resorting to adding extra toys to the system (via the ports collection or sunfreeware.com, for example). Some might claim that's making your life hard for the sake of it, but I'd say it gives you invaluable experience that you'll welcome later in your Unix admin career. Get exposure to as many different versions of Unix as you can lay your hands on, and learn the differences between them. I've met (and in fact, interviewed recently) too many admins that only know Linux, or only know Solaris. Ultimately, Unix is Unix, but if you can show exposure to a wide variety, you're demonstrating an ability to deal with the variance between systems. I've met AIX admins who didn't know how to use a system without smit/smitty, and hence are useless on any other version of Unix.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
No, really. I admin six boxes at a state agency, and sort of backed into the position. Coming out of college, I had a BA in International Studies, and (most of) an MA in International Affairs (suffice to say it's a bad idea to seriously annoy the profs on your committee). Upon realizing how valuable THAT was, I got a job installing computers in junkyards, then VB programming, then Web programming.
Took a job at this state agency as a programmer, then filled a void when it turned out their UNIX skills were crap.
I do not currently hold any certifications.
It used to be that you could apply for a job with a fraction of the experience stated as "required." I don't know whether the economic crash has changed this substantially, but it never hurts to apply. The worst that'll happen is that they say no. So tip #1 is: just apply, and see what happens.
#2) Don't be a snob. Before I started here, this was an NT/Novell shop, which has (slowly) changed into a UNIX/Novell shop. The migration has gone pretty smoothly, but required some handholding along the way. OTOH, you may have to take on some NT admin stuff en route. Once people see that you don't have to reboot *nix boxes daily, you're in pretty good shape.
#3) Don't ignore your local and state governments. Is it sexy? No. Does it pay well in comparison to other IT positions? No. On the up side, they still have positions to fill, and you may find yourself at the top of a middling crop of non-traditional IT resumes. Being a medium sized fish in a smallish pond has its advantages.
#4) Use your strengths. One of the big problems in IT is that the people who staff the positions can't communicate. This certianly doesn't apply across the board, but the stereotype fits for the most part. I'd think someone who can write effective emails and describe the situation to PHBs would deliver significant value to an organization.
#5) Practical experience over "home use." Can you start something where you are? It doesn't have to be big, per se, just functioning. Email/WWW gateway for your students? I know that getting something into production will greatly increase your value over "well, I set SAMBA up at home, and I've got Apache running on my home network." This'll also give you an idea of whether you actually want to do this.
Good luck.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Take a shot at adminning for a small ISP, they usually can't afford to pay an admin. Be prepared to get paid squat, but you should at the least have very flexible hours.
Review your job situation very frequently and objectively. Don't get caught deadending or in a rut.
Don't be afraid to change up jobs after a year. Its hard to do, but it seems like unless the company you work for allows you to advance within, you can only advance by getting out of there.
A CS degree or EE degree does NOT an admin make. I think out of the group I work with only one has that degree (Actually he has both). The rest of us have our degrees across the spectrum.
Apply for some of the jobs that you see in the papers/web. Chances are the ads are asking for the moon while hoping they'll get someone with a telescope.
Just because a company is asking for a CS or EE degree shouldn't scare you off. Alot of times they want someone with any degree. It has to do with the stupid traditions that companies have, but it also shows you can stick something out for 4+ years.
Honestly, if you have some decent programming skills you should at the least be able to get a job as a programmer. If you find one at a small firm, you'll be the programmer and the admin so your dilemma is solved. Good luck.
I want to put in a plug for getting started at non-profits (not volunteer work, but a paying gig at a non-profit). They tend to be a bit more relaxed about qualifications, since they usually can't pay as well as businesses can. Since they usually have fewer people to throw at a problem, you'll get a chance to work with more environments than you might if you just became the mail-server-backup-guy at a corporation with an IT staff of 500. And you won't have much of a budget, so you'll learn how to make your existing stuff work instead of just having the option of throwing money at a problem.
You'd be amazed at how many folks come up from the dregs of their university helpdesk. Unfortunately, as you're already 33, and most have had a job that actually pays well, and you don't have to deal with abusive people, this may not be the best way for you to go.
For me, and quite a few of the folks that I've seen, they get a part time job during college, supervising the computer labs in some way, then once they're seen as dependable and hard working, they might be given a few extra tasks to do by your manager, or they might just been seen as the person that everyone keeps refering questions to.
From there, you either use that as a job reference to go someone else, or if you like working for the university, you wait for a good job opening (expanding the department, someone leaving), and work your way up from there. [I did a little of both -- I left for a couple of years, then came back]
Of all of the folks I've dealt with in the past dozen years or so, I've only seen one person recently make the change over once they were over 30. [Quite a few did so decades ago, but it doesn't seem to be a common thing these days]. Unfortunately, he was a little bit of a black sheep, as he kept making poor decisions which affected other departments, and many of the other system admins wanted nothing to do with him. The person who hired him had also been stripped of all of their hiring abilities. Of course, he didn't try to take the slow route, but went to a certificate course, and then applied for the job.
I would say that the folks who don't come from an all-computer background tend to make better system/network admins overall. I've worked with some great folks with Psych/History/Art/construction backgrounds, and because they don't think in the conventional CompSci/CompE terms, they can sometimes circumvent many of the problems. There have been quite a few CompSci folks that have made spectacular system admins, but there also tend to be so many of 'em in the field who suck, and bring down their average.
So, well, where's that leave you? Unfortunately, there aren't many places to go. You say you're a teacher, but not where. If it's in higher education (college, university, whatever), you might be able to teach a class with a computer slant once a year/semester whatever, come up with a reason to put up your own server, so that you can work it all back into fleshing out a resume. For high school/middle school, you might be able to do some of the same stuff with extracurricular activities...maybe be an advisor for a computer club, etc.
If you're a seasonal teacher (eg, high school, and have 2months off for the summer), or you have enough extra time, you might try moonlighting for an ISP helpdesk, and flesh out your resume from there. Although it might be possible to take some certificate course, and then get some manager to hire you when you have to experience, you'll do better in the long run if you get a good foundation, and build from there.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I'd enjoy being SysAdmin - if it weren't for the users...
That is to say that you do not enjoy being a sysadmin.
If it weren't for the users there would be no system to admin. Give them their sandbox and when they trash it, delete the user and their resources. If they complain, then tell them not to fuck around and hand them a policy sheet.
Admining a system is not about tinkering with the OS and hardware, it is about making the box useable to others. This implies dealing with users. If you don't like dealing with users then you need to look elsewhere for another job, because this one doesn't fit the description.
Having a system admin who hates dealing with the users is like having a developer that hates writing code.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.