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Top 10 System Administrator Truths
Vo0k writes "What are your top ten system administrator truths? We all know them already, but it's still fun re-telling them. Stuff like "90% of all hardware-related problems come from loose connectors", even though you already know it's true, may save you from replacing the "faulty" motherboard if you recall it at the right time."
... are operator errors. But you can't tell the operator that.
australian project gutenberg is better than the original.
Never post stupid top ten administrator lists on Slashdot, lest I have to spend my time restoring a web server from backup.
the future is but past forgotten
When all else fails, reboot. If it still fails, blame the user.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
IT'S NOT A CUPHOLDER!!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I had a boss once who didn't lie to me but at the same time wouldn't follow my instructions when I had to help him over the phone. I'd tell him to do one thing. He'd do something else and then ask me what to do next. I'd tell him to do what I told him to do in the first place. After 3 or 4 tries, he'd actually do what I told him to do and his problem was usually solved.
Most users should not being allowed to operate computers, let alone drive cars. Sysadmins need to learn who these people are and minimize the damage they cause. I suggest randomly changing their password every day until they quit in frustration.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Unless you lack plans for the weekend.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Number One: You will die alone.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
If your job requires you to wear a name tag, carry a gun, or administer a Windows system, you have made a serious vocational error.
-- oh.... so..... sleeeeeepy.
It doesn't matter whether I'm giving or requesting tech support, the number one rule is that the person on the other end of the telephone is an idiot.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Don't get linked to by Slashdot!
None of the other nine truths will save your server!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
If the acronym contains an F, don't ask what it stands for.
Support the FairTax
Spontaneously combust
Trust me -- you do not want to get that call:
Caller: You know that machine in (room) that has a sign that says 'do not turn me off'? You: YesBuild it, and they will come^Hplain.
1. 90% of problems are user error.
2. The rest are us trying to fix the the first.
3. "Your mouse doesn't work because it has NO BALL!!" (I work in a school)
4. Q: What where you doing when the problem occured? A: Nothing, meaning organising the windows folder.
5. Q: Did you try to fix it yourself? A: No. Q: Why is the gaffa tape involved then?
6. Our server doesn't forget your password's you did.
7. If you save over 30gb onto your desktop don't ask me why your profile takes 10 min's to load.
8. Your mouse is moveing on its own because i have taken controll out of your silly hands.
9. Have you checked to see if your mouse/keyboard/screen/LAN/printer/Random piece of hardware is plugged in turned on.
10. Who said you could download all this crap?
11. No thats not what i said.
12. Thats not the question you asked the first time.
13. Asking my boss won't speed me/the LAN up.
Was it supposed to be 10?
And just remember that if we ran the networks for ourselves only they would probably have more problems due to tinkering. But at least everyone would be walking round the office with cordless headphones, mic chatting with gtalk.
They fitted George Orwell's coffin with rollers so he could turn over more easily years ago.
No One Ever Got Fired For Buying Microsoft.
Microsoft has been BOUGHT!?!?
*Runs to Check the stock market*
Now let me just kill that last background process with the old 'kill %1'
[$researchgroupserver]: kill 1 enter
Crap!
1) Never believe anything anyone tells you: always test for yourself."
Falling from the last story of a building hurts.
For some reason, I read that as "Always enrage the user", which is also useful advice.
Badass Resumes
Problem In Chair, Not In Computer :-)
sounds a lot like how eBay users rate each other
Isn't it ironic that a web site about sys admin problems has given a system admin another problem by slashdotting it?
MICROSOFT is an acronym: My Intel Computer Runs On Software Often Failing Totally (c) 2005 an_unknown_soldier
Great. Glad you feel that way. Now, before we all hug, skip, and fling daisies, you need to remember ONE thing:
THERE ARE NO FEELINGS IN IT. EVER.
Feelings are reserved for secretaries named Gladys who come crying to you when they accidently delete all the pictures of their grand kids.
"This article is very comforting."
You better sack the hell up if you are going to make it in the IT world.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Back in the mid 80s a co-worker of mine had told his boss at a previous job that the unix machines needed to rebooted when the PIDs got too high! Great bit of fun at the PHB expense. (This is also the guy who submitted an purchase request for some close parenthesis... got it signed also!)
Actually not true. I know the guy, and I fired him myself.
(We are a Linux/OS X shop today.)
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Nah, carbon based errors, instead of silicon based errors. 99% of people won't get it - unless you work at a chemical plant!
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I am a Microsoft Certified Reboot Specialist.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
I once worked in a place with a large testing lab. The computers and other electronics were on a UPS. The air conditioning wasn't.
Power failed one Friday evening.
What was found Monday morning is left as an exercise to the reader.
It's worse than you think.
Not long after starting my first real tech job, I got called into my boss' office to help him when he complained that he didn't have network connectivity to his computer. (Note: the boss was the director of an organization which later supplied internet access to about 100k people).
I walked into his office, and looked at the laptop. Back then (1997 or so), the ethernet came via a PCMCIA card. They were Xircom combo-cards, which I remember mostly for being bright red. I think that's why I can remember with crystal clarity the way the card looked that day, with the accompanying ethernet cable sitting next to it, disconnected, about six inches away. I plugged it in and walked out.
"Fixed now," I mentioned on the way out. "Connectivity issue." That seemed to satisfy him.
...wait at least 24 hours to read an email. Do not reply to any email until the sender has sent a follow-up email. Do not do any work until the requester asks his boss to talk to your boss about why you didn't respond to the service request.
I don't know about Bought, but given the number of totally trojaned systems I've seen recently, Owned does seem to fit :)
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I'm guessing he came up with this theory after using Lotus Notes for a few days? :)
Comment of the year
Computers can smell fear !
I've personally seen this happen all the time. Someone tells me "this doesn't work" and the moment I type the same command or push in the PCMCIA card myself or whatever, it suddenly works. We dubbed it the Proximity of Genius Effect and is similar to the following koan:
2-9 are generally just variations of #1.
I can't tell you how many times I wanted to say to a user:
"Which part of 'no such file or directory' didn't you understand?"
Is it wrong that I was reading through that and taking mental notes on proper Unix usage for future reference?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
The component responsible for this behavior is called the "Authority Detection Module" (ADM). Standard equipment from almost every electronics manufacturer, the ADM detects the proximity of someone who knows how the device should behave so that the device can revise its behave appropriately.
Unfortunately, the ADMs installed in young children are not nearly as high quality as those used by electronics manufacturers and have a tendancy to malfunction.
I do not have a good explanation for coding errors that do not cause any problems but, once found, could never have worked and, oddly, don't, even in old compiles that used to be fine. I suspect quantum mechanics is involved.
Very often, people asking me for technical help have problems that refuse to manifest themselves when I am present.
Lots of people in IT find this. Generally, it's because most vaguely complicated electronics is sufficiently sentient to know when it's in the presence of a Higher Power, and that it Must Obey.
Fortunately, they're not that sentient. I have found an extremely good way to maintain system reliability is to place a photo of myself in the server room.
I have a friend with the opposite aura.
He is a geek, and has been for years, degree in CS, programmer, hardware, networking, blah blah. He knows his way around computers, and generally knows more than me.
HE BREAKS ALL KINDS OF SHIT.
Its not his fault, he knows what he is doing, but all kinds of devices decide to crash, die, fault, whatever, whenever he touches them. Routine stuff (like deleting a cache, increasing virtual memory size, hitting enter) will conjure the most horrible data losing crash possible.
This is why I believe in magic. All of the technical expertise and "This is how it works." type stuff is moot when the computer gods decide to cancel your luck subscription. As mentioned by the parent, the luck will instantly return when a mojo geek enters the equasion and candels the anti-mojo geek.
Geeks...mojo...does...not...compute...*boom*
|plastic....or gasoline?|