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A Linux Admin's Guide to Windows?
Rexburg asks: "I recently took a job managing an all Windows network. While my knowledge of the OS is enough to perform the functions of my job, I want to have my bases covered. Naturally, I began the hunt for documentation, but all I can find are books to help Windows users/admins understand and use Linux. I need the opposite. Can the Slashdot crowd point a fellow OSS-head in the right direction?"
No
[Just Shut Up and Do What I say]
What, you have to have something marketed directly at you?
I don't think I've seen any of them titled "Windows HowTo: Don't read me if you know anything about Linux"
Face it, if you're going from Linux to Windows, you're in a pretty small minority.
I'd like to have whatever hes having. And make it a double!
[Just Shut Up and Do What I say]
really, i mean if you are a unix/linux admin, then Windows to you should be very clear and straight forward. A few testing(i am sure you can spare the time and hardware, even at work, temporarirly)...The dialogs in Windows are self explanatory...
but just in case you get stuck, the best resource is the MSDN library..
The lunatic is in my head
"I recently took a job managing an all Windows network...."
Run...... run fast!!!
No.... seriously good luck. I went from a pure HP-UX enviroment to a Windows one... It's really fun to try and script mass file renames among other things
BE PATIENT AND YOU'LL LIVE!
Click Start, Help! Look, no man pages or Engrish documentation!
I recently took a job managing an all Windows network.
Were they aware that you have no idea what you're doing when they hired you?
NO CARRIER
Look at the O'REilly series for NT/2K/XP system admin. They talk about doing the types of things you are used to on Unix (Scripting etc).
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
Looks like Cliff wants to be excommunicated by the slashdotcrowds. Average slashdot user: 'WTF? A linux guy as windows admin? /popping artery/
Can't recommend titles of any specific texts. Go fr a rummagein the nearest Border's or B&N. Then check online.
Microsoft does publish large, thick texts on their network platforms. I remember them as being much better than most 3rd-party books.
Also, if you can get your hands on the books used in an MCSE course, you'll at least have something. My boss sent me to an MCSE course a long time ago. I remember the notebooks as being long on "click here" and short on "here's what the code does after you click", but you will get an overview of Microsoft's network model.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
As somebody else pointed out, there's lots of information online at msdn.microsoft.com
For other needs, you can google your way out of most problems (since the chances of you being the first person to run into an issue with Windows are slim).
Learn vbscript, they're the only way to get things done sometimes (unless you want F2 to be your new best friend). Also, learn some of the old Batch scripting, many of those tricks can be applied to the vbscript tools.
Oh, and learn all the hotkeys, it'll speed things up ([+]+D: desktop, [+]+F: Search, [+]+E: Explorer, etc.
Also, look for documentation on your network's weak spots. If you're running IIS, get ready for some fun learning how to lock it down tight. Oh, and bookmark windowsupdate.microsoft.com on every machine, but test each patch on a test system if you can before deploying it across the network.
Speaking of deploying across the network, there are a number of tools to take care of installations and patches over the network from the comfort of your desk (I'm sure there's OSS OS equiv's). Also, at least with windows 2000 and up, you can schedule tasks remotely if you connect to the remote machine over the LAN (or VPN) using administrator account credentials.
Anyways, good luck. Hope that helps.
DONT PANIC
Go to MSN.com, and search for "Linux". The third result is how to switch from Linux to Windows.
I'm serious.
I mostly deal with *nix but need to deal with Windoze from time to time. I got the Universal Command Guide: http://www.ucgbook.com
There's plenty to complain about starting with the hubris of the "Every Command Every Operating System Cross-Referenced Together" subtitle Apparently TRON, Plan 9, vxWorks, etc. aren't operating systems (or "Some of the More Common Operating Systems, Many of the Common Commands" didn't get past the marketing department). The selection of commands in the book can sometimes seem odd and at $70 it isn't cheap, either.
Still, when you are used to "w", "ifconfig", "passwd" and the rest but find yourself sitting in front of a Netware/Mac/DOS/Windows machine thinking "there must be an equivalent instruction if I only knew what/where it is", then the cross reference in this book should at least get you pointed in the right direction.
I only pick it up every few months but even at $70 it doesn't take much time and frustration savings to pay for itself.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
The Bible, but it looks like you have already sold your soul to Satan.
http://www.jsiinc.com/
There is an incredable wealth of information on that site.
altp
AND THEY ARE FREE!!!
:) It's very rare if I run into a
And this old white haired guy that has trained the
whole world is selling them and stuff. Strangely,
the shipping is 7 bucks.
Seriously though,
I knew UNIX first. When my buddies were raving about
dos and windows 3.0 being the next big thing, I was
busy with other stuff and kinda ignored them. Next
thing I knew I had NT 3.51 on a DEC workstation
staring me in the face in the form of a new
flight scheduling system. FUN! NOTHING like UNIX
in any way shape or form. So I started with the
basics. Operating systems all do pretty much the
same types of things. The idea is to find out how
to do those things. How do you:
Set up a network card
Install drivers
Configure user accounts
Change passwords
Modify the filesystem
Schedule jobs
and so on and so on.
The way I learned windows was to make a list of
all the things I could think of that I had to do
on a daily basis to admin a UNIX machine, and
do research to find out how to accomplish those
things on windows. After you've done that, you
can fill in the rest of the blanks later. I spent
a lot of time on USENET searching newsgroups for
answers to silly things. The Microsoft Knowlege
Database is an excellent tool. In the end, I
learned something truly valuable. Windows NT 3.51
sucked. Thoroughly. And I threw a party 5 months
later when they scraped the NT Alpha box and
replaced it with a Sparc running SunOS. Still,
that initial exposure to Windows NT has helped
me fix all kinds of things on family and friends
Windows machines for quite some time. You just
have to get used to touching a mouse a lot more
than a UNIX person should. You have to get
comfortable navigating point and click mazes
to find things that aren't always were you'd think
they would be logically. You have to get used to
not always having the blessed log file to look at
for help when something isn't working right, and
being fed error messages that make no sense at all
and give you no clue as to what the actual problem
is. Today, USENET can be searched very easily with
groups.google.com. A short time ago, you used
deja.com.
problem with any OS platform that someone else
hasn't already run into that problem and asked
someone on a newsgroup how to fix it. Hope this
helps.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Windows
Uh, the door?
Being a cross-platform admin myself, I feel your pain.
The only usefull and/or needed reference guide I've ever found for Win32 server platforms are the (I'm sad to say) Microsoft Press, Windows Administrator's Pocket Consultant books.
They are more to the point and have much less fluff than most other books on the subject.They are a lot more like the books we Unix/AIX/AS400 guys are used to reading.
Just remember, a book about an OS can only be as good as that OS.
He's totally right. If you already know UNIX/Linux really well, Windows products are a friggin joke to learn. Hell, I don't think I've ever read a book. You just start pointing and clicking. A retarded monkey could do it. Just get used to the lack of power and lack of fine grained tuning options up front.
But aren't you unqualified for your job?
What did you do, bribe the interviewer? With that many MCSEs waling around unemployed I'd say it's fairly easy to find a Windows admin that actually knows Windows.
Just pretend that FisherPrice or Hasbro or Mattel rewrote UNIX for 5 year olds. That's all windows is. When you start thinking of it as a pretty, underpowered version of UNIX for "special" people, it's very easy to use.
I'd like to have whatever hes having. And make it a double!
Thank you for being the frist respondent! and YES I can say that unequivocally you MAY SUCK MY DICK!!! But hurry fast, because my dick is in very limited supply! Only ONE that I know of in North America alone! But remembr DON'T BE GAY WHILE YOU DO IT!!! You have been warned and a sharp scrwdriver whill be at the ready and pointed at your temple the entire time so as to insure not gayness!
Yours truly the original valitudinarian....
TechNet
If you're admining a winblows system you need to check for security releases daily and run every single piece of shit software they offer to harden your system.
Good luck, you'll need it.
BTW I admin about 10 windows machines, 8 linux machines, 1 solaris machine and 2 os x servers. By far I spend most of my time admining the Windows boxes. I would venture to guess around 90-95% of the time. Windows sucks but until it no longer pays the bills, I'm stuck.
Holy fuck are you writing that on a web enabled phone?? Whats up with the columns man?
Wrong place, wrong question. Doh!
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Yup. I do all my posting on a web enabled phone. :). You are the first AC that actually figured it
out in 3 years. I'm not even kidding.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Really, my man!
There is *nothing* you need to learn about windows systems. Gather together all your extensive knowledge & experience & put it all to use! Immediatly!
In other words: Just use CygWyn.
http://www.cygwin.com/
And may I be the first to wish you Luck on your new assignment.
( If all you have availible are windows tools, well, yer gonna need it. )
(:-L~
Cygwin and Python should be your new best friends. They turn Windows into a very administrator-friendly system. Cygwin will give you all the great commandline tools you need, and Python is just about the best scripting language there is. Together, they rock Windows harder than you can imagine.
The only "dummies" book with a redundant title.
But if you mean a book specifically pointing out the similarities between powerful unix/linux commands and their few, watered-down, dos/windows counterparts, you probably won't find one. There just isn't a enough of a market for migrations in that direction for something like that to get published. You know what they say, 'Once you go hack, you never go back.'
You need to learn how windows authentication and permissions work. The NT model is more robust than most default Unix implementations, and difficult for many Unix-people to grasp.
If you are using active directory, you need to understand ldap.
If you are a good Linux admin, you'll be a good Windows admin too. Remember that groups.google.com is your friend.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
5 Minute mini lecture using WinInternals only!
introduction
WSD, it seemes to be allmost forgotten here in the civilised worlds but here and there you still need to bring support to some legacy systems as the WSD-2K/XP or the even more archane WSD-03
luckally there ARE ways to allmost be as productive in your new login shell CMD.EXE (aka Command Prompt or DosBox) as you where in your shell, *cough*
documentation /?), as though you forgot to install some packages, feer not! this only appears to be this way, the list shown here is the equivalent of your once so feared, loved and reveared {s,}bin directories.
When you expect your now fairly standard info, man and share/doc documentation you will feel, at first exploration of the DosBox 'help' function (C:\>HELP or C:\CMD.EXE
most of these programs can be invoked with the ? argument to get there --usage statement
help background
help started as a builtin in the olden dages but has since been replaced with an utility much like the GNU 'info' program.
having a CLI widget interface which supports hyperlinking, ANSI and more,....
(damn shame there ain't much to hyperlink to;)
argument invokation /S /?
Once accustomed to using backslashes as directory seperators you might look back at previous example and see the frontslash (/) used there as a hyphen (-) to pass an argument to a program
eg $ ls -R == C:\>DIR
or $ ls -h == C:\>DIR
shell grammar ;) /* from various lines of precious future customer satisfaction that "the customer just don't want right now (tm)", and have support for an already replaced by v2 arcane standard that, imho,is hopefully deprecated and (pray to Hasthur) soon replaced by something nice oo-ish or something.... /? man page has more information on these SHELL BUILTIN FUNCTIONS
CMD.EXE syntax does get more features every time they do the 'Even Better, Improved' thing
i even think they are working hard to get it to one of those POSIX-Level 1 compliant shells!!
It has been around for ages, so who knows, maybe the marketing reps will say go, and once again someone removes the
loops, variable substitution, etc is not available when you run cmd.exe interactively.
but it can also be used to run stand alone shell scripts who are called *.BAT files.
In these files you can, for instance, use a FOR (C:\>HELP.EXE FOR) that looks allmost like but then completely different as a 'bash' 'for' statement
the CMD.EXE
Compatibility
thank god microsoft has this funny view on backward compatibility layers, this, in their perspective, has nothing todo with protocols and such but with leaving _everything_ on the system, anyone really did "START>RUN>progman.exe" or some other arcane 16bit app from the golden 3.11 ages on there sparkling new X-MS-OEM-Jailed box to really, really use it?
"if it hasnt broke, leave it alone,and whatever you do, never EVER try to hit it harded"
Next Week
How MS Uses a 3 char string for all its EXEC, MIME and other needs. aka, why 640k would've been enough.
to be fair; you ofcourse also have .js .vbs .cmd .bat to run scripts from, .doc .xls .* .** .*****
but then, this also seems to be true for
Regards and GOODLUCK
(hehe, You DID already ported the servers to *nix with ACL's and stuff right?)
Thijs
I want to have my bases covered.
All your bases are covered by us!
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
A slightly longer summary would have a subtitle "How to run for your life in order to stand still" and an overview like this:
The actual content will say:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Laugh! If you start crying at what Microsoft says and does, you'll never stop.\
(-: The page was probably trying to install an ActiveX wizard to do the changeover for you, and assumed you were using Exploder :-)
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Except for learning and using the MS tools (Active Directory, IIS, ACLs etc.), making yourself a home is the best thing you can do.
Most *nix Software has been ported either directly by the developers (Emacs, Vim, nmap etc.), MinGW or CygWin. Insecure.org's tool list gives a nice overview over the essential networking programs and ActiveState has Ports of your three favourite scripting languages already.
After installing all these tools, Win2k becomes a pretty usable OS.Some older software installers sends DDE calls to PROGMAN to create start menu icons. That's why it's there.
Go get a copy of Master Windows 2000 Server, or Server 2003, whichever is most appropriate. It's big, but it cuts through the crap rather nicely. More importantly, it's not focused on MCSE test objectives like so many other Windows books tend to be, so it's applicable to the real world. As a bonus, Minsai doesn't work for MS, so when something sucks, he says so, and explains how to work with/around it in the real world.
To everyone who has had something useful to say, thank you. Your suggestions are what I was looking for. I have found a few resources in my own searching's, but felt that having the eyes and minds of the /. crowd helping would yield far greater results.
As for the rest of you: I have long wondered how many /.'ers were real sysadmins and hackers and who wasn't. Thank you for removing all doubt I may have had about your status.
Several of you have tried to make an argument that I am under qualified for the job I've taken. I read over my submission again, and at no point do I say "I've never seen one of these new-fangled Windows machines before". My specialty has been with implementing Linux solutions to Windows networks via Samba. I have a fair grasp of Windows technologies and am quite comfortable in said environment. However, it would be foolhardy to assume that I know all there is to know about Redmond's offering.
It is made clear to me by your statements that either you are wishful thinkers straining to install Corel's distro or that you haven't the self motivation necessary to stay competitive in this field. To the later, I look forward to cleaning up your network once you've been dismissed.
I realize this is a bit off topic, but I felt that it would be unfair to those in similar straits watching if I didn't address these comments. Now, as promised, the links which I have found most useful.
---------
Launch all sig
All it took was one look at the headline and I could imagine all of the jokes . However, let's look at reality. If you're a real bonafide sysadmin, you're probably going to have to deal with Windows.
I remember at one point I was having to write some VB code. It was during the dot com boom. There where certainly jobs for C++/Java people. However, there was a real demand for VB COM programmers. So I figured, I should at least take a look and try to figure out how the dark side works. Of course my first idea was to go around the office and ask if anyone had ever heard of a VB book for C++/Java programmers. (Actually I did run across a VB for COBOL programmers.) The immediate response was chuckles and outright laughter. Of course, my smart ass smirk probably didn't help. Anyway, there was a book that dove that deeply into VB. It was "Hardcore Visual Basic". There where a couple of good O'Reilly books as well. (As an ironic side note, the author stopped updating the book because he got so sick of microsoft abusing a perfectly good RAD tool).
Yes, programming a glorified GUI sucks. Yes, you're ultimately going to cut and paste and cleverly misuse the IDE when you write code. Yes, VB is a painful. It like trying to ride a tricycle when you've got a Harley in the garage. However, most of the world runs Microsoft products and from time to time I have to work with Windows. So I getting sick of the snide comments. The submitter is definitely NOT A TROLL! I don't claim to be a hacker or an ubergeek but I'm kind of sick of the unprofessional nature of the Slashdot crowd.
So, my best advice is that you take a look at some of the O'Reilly books and stroll through some of the reviews at Amazon. Let their data miners do the work for you.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
The best (IMHO) Windows administration book is Mastering Windows 2000 Server by Mark Minasi. The writing style is informal and Minasi has experience with other OSes and doesn't automatically take the view that Windows is the best for everything. The book doesn't cover how to use the GUI like some do, but does provide an overview of stuff like remote installation services, Active Directory, policies etc.
Ignore what some other posts say - knowing UNIX will not automatically mean you know everything about Windows. To be a *good* Windows admin takes time and effort in the same way being a *good* UNIX admin takes time and effort.
My perspective is as a primarily UNIX based consultant / administrator who needs to know about Windows. This book gets five stars for providing the info I need to understand the basics.
Mod me up - this was informative.
I laughed my 'arse' off when I read your post! That's the funniest analogy I've heard in a long time.
The problem that most "Windows is God" people face, is that despite their best arguements, *nix/nux folks can work competently in a point and click environement (which isn't to say it's all point and click; obviously you have to push the little on button every now and then, or even the reset on occassion). Windows is really a very dumb overall OS. This is not meant as a derogatory statement, but actually speaks very well of the OS, considering it's main target is not server applications, but the average desktop environment (to circumvent all those really witty folks who will think this is a flame, yes, there are server capabilities, but the main target of Windows is not server based, but DESKTOP). In light of the OS being targeted towards desktop folks, and realizing that the average desktop user has the computational awareness of a rock, they've built a really dumbed down 'let me walk you through everything' OS. On the other hand, *nix/nux systems are meant for a much more broad set of applications and uses, and is targeted more towards server based environements (also, yes there are desktop versions, and yes it can be made JUST as dumb as Windows... so please no flames, not today... these are generalized statements, and we all know that there are exceptions to everything, so save the witty "i know so much more than you and here's the list of crap that proves *nix/nux is better than Windows", and vv) ... back to the main point... basically *nix/nux folks are used to working on systems and understanding them at a level that isn't required by Windows folks, therefore the transition from *nix/nux to Windows has always been easier. But watching a Windows person move to *nix/nux is incredibly painful and generally met with pure frustration, anger, resentment, and eventually the statement that Windows is obviously superior because it's easier to use, and "it doesn't make me think".....
Basically to sum up the other comment... Hiring a Windows person to handle *nix/nux boxes would be hiring someone underqualified. But never the opposite. Face this fact... an MSCE doesn't mean a blasted thing. You can do all the studying you want, read all the literature you want, and waste as much of your money as you want on M$ based certs. What the public absolutely knows to be true is that MS certs are rubber stamps which don't imply that you know anything about dealing with the systems. A *nix/nux certification on the other hand implies by it's very nature that the person with the cert has had REAL world experience and hands on training. Why do Windows folks refuse to understand this? Why is it that I'm constantly having to correct the problems that our MS certified SA's are unable to handle on their own systems? What is it that MS people aren't getting about this? What more has to happen to make you folks understand that despite all your bravado of "Windows is a real OS and is very difficult to use properly", that the OS really isn't? After awhile you get tired of seeing people defending Windows... Look if you've ever had a friend who was fired from a job, you'll know that it's never the friends fault. The jobs manager was mean, the job didn't fit, they didn't like the pay, etc., etc., etc.,.. if the friend loses their job once you tend to listen to what they have to say... if they lose their job twice, and have the same set of excuses, you listen and believe them, but wonder... If they continue in this trend, you start to realize that maybe, just maybe, it's not the job, or the managers, or anything else other than the person... Well the same analogy applies here with MSCE's and *nix/nux folks. Invariably when you put 10 MS people up against a *nix/nux person, a manager will tend to hire the *nix/nux... put 1 and 1 together already...
If you are use to system administration in emacs with the ability to use a good shell, windows is incredibly hard to use. I find point and click many times harder than just editing a config file, I'm fairly useless without grep (the unix almost all purpose search utility), and generally hate not having tools like command completion and command history (you would thing that MS could ship a distro with a descent shell).
One of the core arguments that linux users have against MS is that it's HARD to use. especially from a sysadmin's viewpoint.
Run *nix on the server(s) then use vmware or wine or whatever your preferance is to emulate windows. (Heck, even a screenshot might do). Let *nix run stable in the background, and whenever someone comes around or you go home for the night, just open up the emu. You might even get a reputation for running the most stable and efficient windows server ever, hehehe.
If your going to need to work on workstations, then you will need to get more creative. Hire one of those 11 year old windows addicts (you probably have a few somewhere in your family or at least in your neighbourhood.) Tell your boss its take your kid to work year, and let him handle the workstations.
My idea may not be very realistic, but it should would be fun.
The general idea is before the PC boots off the hard drive, you set it up to boot off the NIC. It searches for a DHCP server, uses TFTP to download a command interpreter called BpBatch.
Bpbatch is an extremely powerful tool. It can run scripts (stored on your hidden Linux server) which control the booting process. It can partition/format the local hard drive and download images (using a utility called MrZip (like Ghost)).
It has a bunch of capabilities. You seriously need to read up on this.
Kept me sane. You can create images of each type of machine with its Windows version. Store it on a server. A Linux server that you have hidden somewhere with a BIG hard drive. Anytime something goes wrong, you download the image for that particular machine. Result, the machine works perfectly again. The virus or whatever is gone. You, the hero.
This is based on PXE/DHCP/TFTP technology. So you'll need to have NICs that understand PXE. It helps if you can standardise on a few basic models of PCs.
You can use the MAC address of each NIC to link to the correct image for the particular PC. As long as the MAC address doesn't change, it's a no brainer.
You can set up menus to control which image you choose to download for a particular session. You can edit the registry or .INI files from files prepared, stored and protected under your control from your server. You can patch files while the PC is booting. You can store variables inside /etc/dhcp.conf which end up being used by BpBatch. These variables can indicate stuff like the IP address of the gateway for that PC or the DNS server or other networking stuff you need to control.
You also partition/format using the Bpbatch interpreter while the machine is booting. So one minute the machine can have just a Windows install, the next it can have a Linux install, or a dual boot configuration. You can boot off a floppy image stored on the server to do maintenace work without having to have floppies on you. (Cause you've disconnected all those floppy drives, haven't you?)
Hey, if you want to do a little after-hours experimenting with super-computer clusters ... just create an image and roll it out. Five minutes later ... instant Beowulf! With the big drives PCs have nowadays, why not? The users'll never know. :)
More seriously, you can have images for Marketing, Sales, Management, Engineering, whatever. Once you have the images sorted out, you just need to manage updates. But for each image, you do the work once. Then, you set the script to download the image, call the user, tell him/her to reboot, the updated image downloads, end of story.
You can download host files, command files, DLLs, patches, updates. You can be in control.
Of course, you'll be working towards the eventual goal of replacing every single Windows server as your primary target. :)
Most important - negotiate "acceptable levels of service" agreements with your superiors! Don't even attempt to implement the smallest non-Windows software without the complete understanding and agreement of your superiors. Please take me seriously on this. Windows is going to drive you crazy. Make sure THEY understand the hell you are going through. As important as actually running the system is, you need to manage your uplink to management. Nuff said!