Distributing Unix Knowledge Among Admins?

Posted by Cliff on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @05:50AM from the ya-gotta-work-together-to-get-ahead dept.

chadworthman asks: "I work in a server support role with 6 other sys admins. We are all responsible for 10 to 25 servers each (various flavours of Unix), mostly grouped by project. The person who is responsible for a server is called prime. We also identify a sys admin as secondary. This system is not working out well. Most sys admins are only familiar with the environments that they are prime for, and when a prime contact is not in the office or leaves the company, the rest of us try to figure out the environment. We are currently trying to figure out the best way to transfer knowledge of environments between sys admins. We have considered a plan that would involve partnering with another co-worker while you trade knowledge, then after a certain number of months, trade with someone else. I was wondering what other techniques for knowledge transfer between sys admins Slashdotters have encountered."

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Documentation by drivers · 2002-06-18 06:13 · Score: 3, Informative

Documentation. It's what you need. Some standardization would probably help too.
1. Re:Documentation by TheTomcat · 2002-06-18 08:59 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  We use a Wiki Wiki Web for all of our internal system (servers, network, telephone, hardware, etc) documentation.
  
  PHP Wiki
  
  It's great. Simple to use, easy to update, can read and edit from any web terminal on this side of our firewall. Need to find out hardware info about the Mac in the corner office? Log into the hardware tracker directly FROM said Mac.
  
  S