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Learning a New OS... and Fast!?
Inexile2002 asks: "I've been asked to assist a consultant on a project using VMS and basically have four days to figure out enough that I'm actually of some use. (We're not doing development, just security reviews, so I'm not totally screwed.) Originally I was going to ask for advice on how to start teaching myself VMS from scratch including best books and support websites when I realized that there is a more generic issue here. What are people's thoughts on learning a new OS and learning it fast? Have people found optimal ways to pick things up quickly, get a familiarity with commands and underlying logic? How about learning the basics when you can't actually install and play with the OS in question?"
I've been asked to assist a consultant on a project using VMS and basically have four days to figure out enough that I'm actually of some use.
I seriously doubt that you will learn enough in 4 days to be of any use. You will probably slow down the others who do know what they're doing. I would just admit that I didn't know anything about the OS, but would like to work along with the others to learn.
I've always thought consultants were overpaid. This proves it. See this week's Dilbert strip for proof.
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The first place I always look in this circumstance is the Rosetta Stone of Unix aka " What do they call that in this world?" Unfortunately, vax mainframes aren't one of the listed. Read up on the DEC stuff, since they had a similar design philosophy. I remember two things about VMS: prepare to go all caps, and version control is with a semicolon and file version after it for every file. Good luck.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
You can connect with telnet of SSH.
I am not an old fart by any definition.
But I had been building my own little microcosm of the internet, complete with a few vaxen. All the windows monkeys at work look at me with a strange grimace, and sometimes utter things like "What is the point in all of that? No one *ever* uses it anymore...".
But don't worry, security is a simple thing, and even someone that knows nothing of VMS can fake it in a few days. I'm sure that 99.999% of kiddiots will never be able to exploit a VMS hole that you have no chance of catching....
I'd have to second this guy's recommendation. Several years ago one of my co-workers and I went to what was billed (by DEC) as a beginners VMS class. Once we got to class though, the instructor informed us that the class had been restructured at a intermediate/semi-advanced level. She offered to refund our money or schedule us for another class at a later date. I told her to give us about half an hour and we'd tell her if that would be necessary. The first thing I did was type 'help' (which was how the online documentation was referenced on the MPE systems we were both highly proficient in). After browsing through the help system for a while, and testing out a few simple commands we were able to proceed with the course fairly well.
For a long time I used to think of the various operating systems as different languages that had to be learned in order to make the computers work for you. Over time I've come to the conclusion that they are actually more like dialects of the same language. The most important paradigm (did I really use that word???) to me when working with unfamiliar systems is that on most computers it is demonstratively true that "everything is a file". Learning the equivalent of the 'cd' command and how to view, move, copy, and delete files actually goes a long way towards understanding peculiarities of the given dialect being learned.
With Unix(all flavours), DOS, VMS, MPE, RTE, windows, and several others that don't immediately come to mind, there is a way to use the equivalent of the 'copy' command to simulate the 'cat' or 'type' command to display the contents of a file to your monitor. Knowing how an operating system represents and deals with the various special types of files, i.e., directories, files, programs, and devices, can really help you to get a quick handle on how things are done.
One of the really nice things about VMS IMO is the built-in versioning system. This makes for easy recovery in case of stupid mistakes in deleting/changing files in many circumstances. VMS is a cool OS, but I unfortunately haven't been in a position to spend as much time with it as I'd have liked.
This is an ex-parrot!