Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with administration

Looking for good system monitoring / task scheduling software

Nothing — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:09:28 -0800

Looking for good system monitoring / task scheduling software to run on Windows for server monitoring as well as running custom scripts for keeping track application specific metrics. Right now I am using a hand-rolled solution which runs scripts and updates logs / sends emails on output. It's nice because it is easy to add new custom tasks and metrics, but I am looking to migrate the functionality into something a little more robust, possibly with the ability to keep track of tasks running on multiple machines, etc.

Help me choose a technical or trade college for IT administration.

loquacious — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:23:24 -0800

Help me research technical schools/colleges for IT, CS and systems administration. I'm looking for a technical school/college along the lines of ITT or similar schools that are affordable and offer financial aid application assistance.

I want to learn and brush up on computer/IT administration with a focus on systems/server administration. Specifically Windows Server 2008, Macintosh OS X as well as a side course in Vista and Windows 7.

I'm interested both AA and BA programs.

Please feel free to also name programs to avoid like the plague.

(For the record, I have about a decade of real world IT work and I am returning to school as an independent adult.)

Teach em how to fish and they'll give us better cities, or something

stormygrey — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:34:01 -0800

Calling all planners, public admin. types, adult education gurus and other smarty pants: I need to develop a training program or at least a strategy for developing a training program for further planning on the local level, put the hard parts. Our office is charged with further the planning efforts of local (state and county) governments. We laid out the elements needed to successfully developing and implementing a comprehensive plan and then audited it to analyze our gaps. Then we looked at other agencies and they have similar gaps.

How can we train people in the areas of administrative capacity and what we are generally calling "community will" (political will, advocacy, etc.)?

Like, how to read a site plan submitted by developers, how should staff and appointed/elected officals communicate effectively, can a circuit rider type planner work, how would you develop a program like that, how do you do code enforcement with out a dedicated staff member. For the last one, its things like making politically difficult decsions, gaining consensus, or just plain how to implement your plan (what ever that may mean).

I know I am putting a lot of info out there, I don't want to box in the answers here. So have you attended or created training on items similar to these? Are you aware of awesome (perferably free) web based training/podcasts that touch on these issues. Feel free to throw in any new ideas that you see staff or officials messing up all the time. Thank you!

How to centralize adminsitration of multiple Unix machines (and others)?

Imhotep is Invisible — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:45:34 -0800

I'm curious as to what are the current "best practices" when it comes to centralized administration of a network of Unix (primarily Linux, but not necessarily so) machines? Essentially, what is the equivalent of Active Directory for a network with one or more Unix hosts? The immediate answer I come up with would be something like OpenLDAP plus PAM but what I'm looking for is the suite of tools (GUI and CLI apps) for managing the directory, deploying software, centralizing sign-on and security, managing printers, etc. In a perfect world, I would like to centralize administration of Windows, Unix, and OS X machines via a single directory service, though I imagine such a solution would be expensive and/or cumbersome if it even existed. Or is this something Samba 4 will do?

Help me run a focus group.

ricochet biscuit — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:05:30 -0800

Focus group 101: How do I run one of these things, anyway? At work I have suddenly inherited the job of running a focus group in the next couple of days. The person previously responsible didn't leave behind anything that I can find in the way of notes on what I should be asking people. I have taken part as a participant in a few focus groups but have never run one, so I am mildly in a tizzy.

For what it's worth, it will be a group of eight participants from a variety of backgrounds who will be looking over the new wording of several pages on a website to see if it conveys the information they would like to have. The text they will be looking at is about 600 words long. I have in mind to ask:

-- is the overall message is clear?
-- should there be more or less information on A, B, C and D?
-- did they know anything about A, B, C and D before today?
-- would this give them the information they would need to make a choice about using the service supported by A, B, C and D?

The group will be spending 45 minutes to an hour doing this. What else? Is there a website I can peruse for an hour or two to get a better idea of how to do this?

What do I need to know about getting into OS X system administration?

Chris4d — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:06:04 -0800

What do I need to know about getting into OS X system administration? This is phrased broadly, so please feel free to give any advice. I'm coming at this as a potential career path, but I don't have a lot of professional knowledge. I am self-taught on PCs and Macs from a young age and have fiddled around behind the scenes a little (played with mysql, macports, apache, etc.) but don't have a lot of experience in a unix environment. I read slashdot and daring fireball and etc. Basically I am loosely plugged in to the IT world, but no more so than the next guy, so I need help developing expertise and finding out if this is worth pursuing. Originally trained in architectural design, urban planning and real estate, so those aren't going to be a huge help, except that I use computers a lot and I am the de facto fix-it guy wherever I go. Questions:

I know OS X isn't a big market (right now), but I look at it as a stepping stone/complimentary skill to unix administration and I like working in the OSX environment. is this a valid direction?

Is there job potential for a 20-something guy with intelligence but not professional experience? Job security? Money? What does the job market look like going forward? If you must know my secrets, I'm looking especially toward higher education and potentially design firms (when autodesk gets around to an OSX version of autocad)

Is it worthwhile to pursue the apple professional certifications? What other professional networks/certs/etc. knowledge should I be checking out? who/what should I know? What should I read? What should I focus on?

If you have personal experience in the field, what other advice would you give? What's the career like?

Thanks in advance!

Advice On Outsourcing Database Management

spicy_sockpuppet — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:58:53 -0800

Remote DBA services - has anyone used one of these for their business to outsource database administration? Could use some advice or references. Currently looking at a service like BlueWolf to handle database optimization, performance testing, monitoring and alerts, support, and basic on-going maintenance/tuning. I do not currently have and cannot afford an on-staff DBA or server admin. My servers are dedicated but unmanaged by the host so no support there. I have an urgent need to get some handle on this stuff so I can sleep a little better and concentrate on driving revenue.

Has anyone used this kind of outsourcing before? Is it more trouble than it's worth? Is it a life-saver? Is it a money pit? Looks like my first pass at a quote was 500/month, minimum 12 month contract.

Most secure PDF viewer?

benzenedream — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:58:47 -0800

In light of the increasing number of PDF security exploits, what is the most secure PDF viewer for Windows? I would prefer a minimal viewer that will handle encrypted PDFs but doesn't have a javascript engine built in, nor any of the other multimedia junk that exists in Adobe products. I'm aware of Foxit and some of the open source offshoots from Ghostview. I know you can turn off Javascript execution via registry hacks but would prefer to minimize the attack space by not having features that are rarely used.

Port logging on a Linux/Mac home network

plaidrabbit — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:39:46 -0800

Looking for a program for Linux (or Mac) that will record what ports I'm using during a given period of time. About to switch from a basic home router to a Debian router/DHCP box using IPRoute as the firewall - problem is, I'm not 100% sure what ports I'm using with different programs. I know that I could look for a standard port listing, and just highlight which ones are used by programs I have, but I'm sure I'd either forget one, or find that it's not using a standard port. The opposite thinking, which is to block everything, and start opening them as needed, will cause me to have to SSH into the box every single time something doesn't work for the next week or so; not a pleasant thought either.

Is there anything out there that will simply watch and record the port usage of my home network for a given period of time? Since this is not mission critical, and more about me learning Linux server administration than a need for home network security, I was planning to leave the process up for a week (or so), thinking that most everything that I might use would get used at some point in that period of time. Then, I could simply print out the port list, make sure that those ports are properly forwarded and/or open in my configuration, and have no issues when I made the switch-over.

I'm happy to put something (a linux box) between my current router and the net in order to get this info, but I'd rather just be able to sniff things as they're set up now (if only out of laziness). I'm also willing to install something on each computer, as long as it doesn't take up too many resources.

I gotta think something's out there, but my Google-fu is failing me today. Thanks in advance!

How to become and IT administator for dummies?

kitcat — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:11:18 -0800

I am at my wit’s end. Can anyone point me to some resources that would help me figure out how to administrate (in the secretarial sense) a haphazard pile of IT projects? Or lay out how to build an administration system from scratch? I have become the lone administrator of about twelve IT projects, ranging from hardware upgrades to disaster recovery and everything in between. These projects are contracted out to about six different companies. They are individually managed by about four project managers and overseen by one. Appallingly, there is currently no administrative framework in place.

I have no idea how to handle all of this, especially given that I have no real knowledge of the processes and stages involved in completing an IT project. I know that it all starts with RFPs and Statements of Work and ends with the contract closure… There will be no training. Hell, I can’t even get 10 minutes out of the senior PM so that she can explain what’s going on. Please help!

PS. I know about GTD and have found it somewhat helpful. It's just that in this case, I'm not entirely sure what needs to get done...

Learning how to lead a professional school?

parmanparman — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:56:58 -0800

Can you tell me about graduate programs in higher education administration that focus on leadership and administration of vocational/applied sciences colleges (like Hogescholen or polytechnic universities) and applied arts institutes (like California College of the Arts or the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design)? Location can be anywhere but teaching must be in English. Thanks! Let me just add: I do not want to teach at any level after graduate school.

Help me find a career!

state fxn — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:40:03 -0800

Careerfilter: Tell me all about going into healthcare administration... I'm 24. Graduated with a BS in Biochemistry. Have taken about 2 years off after graduation. During that time, I have figured out what I don't want to do. Now, I'm thinking of going into healthcare administration. So I have a few questions regarding this:

1. What is it like? What are some of the challenges and rewards? What's an average workday like?

2. I have to get a degree right? What should I get a degree in? Which schools do you recommend?

If you can't answer these questions, can you point out some resources to me?

Right now, I'm working at a job that's completely unrelated to my field of study, banking. But I like working with people and I would like to go into management. I really want to get started on my career now, if only I can figure out what that will be!

admins: intelligent rate-limiting of error notifications?

zippy — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:55:28 -0800

I have a web service that generates errors. Currently, each time there's an error, it gets sent to an admin mailing list. Is there an open-source tool that will summarize repeated duplicate errors, rather than generating a separate notification for each? For example, say there are 100 'service foo threw exception bar' errors in a 15 minute window.

What I'd like to see is one initial 'service foo threw exception bar' notification, followed by a single second notification 'service foo threw exception bar repeated 99 times.'

This seems like it must be a solved problem, where there's a single 'sink' for all of the notifications from various services that can summarize duplicates and in doing so prevent alert fatigue (and enormous pager/SMS bills).

So I turn to the collective wisdom of ask.mefi - does this exist?

Working in Higher Ed Administration

lagreen — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:42:57 -0800

I'd like to know more about positions in higher education administration. I graduated with an MPA degree and a concentration in health policy in 2004, and have been working in grants management in the federal government (HHS) ever since. I've gotten it into my head that I'd like a career (for a little while, at least) in higher ed administration, maybe in career services because I'd love something where I could interact with lots of different people and help them think through career decisions. I've looked on Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle for positions and I'm a little intimidated. My question is, how do you get into this field? I'm unsure that my experience, which consists of doing mainly data analysis (but not really rigorous analysis, more running numbers and the like) and "training and technical assistance" (a government term), won't transfer to other sectors. But I don't really know where I can go to build skills to get into the field. Additionally, I work with the American Indian population, and while it's really interesting work, I'm worried also that people won't think that is relevant. Basically, I'm a big ball of worries! Can anyone lend any insight?

Your victories and woes as a unix/linux sysadmin

Myles — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:36:17 -0800

What were your greatest victories and punishing woes as a unix/linux system administrator? I've been learning both unix and linux recently from a desire to use Solaris on a home server, and then the whole system administration thing hit me. So, I wanted to throw this one out there for the real world sysadmins out there: For those who are or were Unix or Linux system administrators, whether for a small company or large enterprise, what were some of the unique challenges or obstacles you encountered while working on the job? Not limited to just technical challenges, but it can be anything.

Online Education

pearlybob — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:48:42 -0800

Can anyone suggest a good Online degree program to further my education career? I currently hold a bachelor's with a t-4 teaching certificate. I plan to stay home with my son for another 4 years but would like to go back into education at the administrative level when he enters full time kindergarten. Can anyone suggest a good, online Masters or Specialist in Education Administration program? Or, give me some guidelines on what to look for in a good program. I'm not really looking for the cheapest. I've been googling but I have no idea how the programs measure up or the best way to tell. Thanks in advance for any help!

Which IT/Network Certs are most valuable on a resume.

huxley — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:53:44 -0800

Which IT / Network Certifications are most valuable on a resume? In my search I'm finding mostly uninformed articles and 3rd party sites trying to sell me Certifications. Specifically I'm looking for certs involved in Network Administration, Network Engineering. Which have the best cost/time vs value in the workplace ratio. Thanks!

Help me learn to be the sysadmin I need to be!

Reverend John — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:34:00 -0800

What do I need to know and how should I learn it? I am the "IT" guy at my company, a small supplier of building materials, with an office staff of about 10, and a warehouse crew of about the same. Problem is I'm underqualified. Before I arrived here the network and all workstations were set up and supported by an outside consultant. When I arrived my primary responsibility was maintaining our web site, hosted elsewhere, and minor IT support when I could answer or fix immediate problems without having to call the consultant. I was A+ and Network+ certified around 4 years ago, but obviously thats not all that impressive, and really I haven't done much in depth there, haven't been building or fixing machines or doing significant network administration.

Unfortunately over the past year or so the consultant has gradually become less accessible to the point of being essentially useless, and I have recurring nightmares about something disastrous happening to our server or network and not being able to fix it, losing all of our business data, etc. I chatted with my bosses, the owners, last night and they've OK'ed me to upgrade my skills in order to make sure everything here is working well and secure.

Currently we have a single server running Windows 2000 server. The workstations are an amalgamation of Win XP pro and Win 2000 workstation. We have a 24 port switch tying it all together, and some networked printers, and a DSL connection to the internet. The server provides a shared directory, Active Directory services, DHCP, and hosts our business application server.

Given what we have my current plan is to self-study towards becoming an MCSA on Windows 2000 server. Some of the win 2k tests are discontinued, but since thats what we're running I figured I would work first on the tests which aren't discontinued yet, like 70-270 Admining Win XP, then working thru the self study books on Win 2k Server like 70-215 Adminning Win 2k server and 70-218 Managing a Win 2k Server network, as if I was going to try to take those exam. Then after I was up to speed on what we're currently running I might want to learn more on what we might want to move to in order to make sure our network is not too obsolete or insecure.

So, what I want to know from you technical mefites is, is my plan reasonable? Am I being foolish to consider studying for obsolete tests in order to fill out my knowledge of the stuff we already have? Is there a better way I should approach this?

Help! I feel overwhelmed and I live in constant fear that I'm going to come in one day and be told "nothing works, fix it" and not be able to.

Linux admin course needed

diode — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:34:06 -0800

I need to get up to speed on running Linux MySQL database servers so I can do a credible job of managing them. What are some resources I can access to do this? I've applied for a job which would utilize my Mac consulting background. It would be a terrific position except there are some servers to oversee that are Linux boxes running MySQL. From an administrative standpoint, I don't know diddly squat about Linux aside from the usual installing and mucking about. I've got a smattering of command line chops, know TCP/IP and get the general overview.

What resources could I use to get some administrator chops going with Linux and MySQL? I know that real administrative expertise is not something you just do an overnighter and set up shop but there are probably training tools I can use that will help me be effective within a few days or weeks of study.

Any tips appreciated.

Constant corruption - and I'm not even talking about the government!

twiggy — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:42:44 -0800

I have a few mysql tables that keep repeatedly getting corrupted - help! I'm running a website that uses OSCommerce, though that in particular may not be relevant to my problem. The sessions and whos_online tables both seem to keep getting corrupted. I run myisamchk -r on them (even after stopping mysql server altogether in order to do so, just in case) and they're fine for a very short while (measured in minutes, not even hours) and then both keep getting corrupted again.

I've rebooted the server (Red Hat linux), I've tried dropping the tables and recreating their structure, and I'm now at my wit's end.

I figured a reboot would run fsck to see if it was a disk issue. I must plead ignorance here -- I'm an amateur when it comes to being a sysadmin, and I built this box so long ago I don't remember if it ran fsck on boot automatically, or if some other job checks first if it should run fsck, or what... Anway, I looked a boot.log and see no record of fsck being run.

Anyone know what might be causing this, or what else I can look into? My understanding is that I can't run fsck on a mounted file system so I'm not sure what to do.

Best forums/groups/resources for windows administrators?

the ghost of Ken Lay — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:00:45 -0800

Best forums/groups/resources for windows administrators? I'm starting to do a lot more windows admin stuff and am looking for some really good forums where I can search for and ask questions about everything from group policy to software deployment. I found the technet forums to be ghost towns. Although, the newsgroups seem pretty active. Where are some of the best communities for this kind of thing? Thanks in advance.

How to set up group permissions in Windows XP?

Khalad — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:23:21 -0800

In Windows, how can I set up a group that has permission to create/edit/delete user accounts? I'm trying to lock down a Windows XP Pro machine as tightly as possible. What I want to do is have a user called 'admin' who users can log in as. This is not a real administrator account; the only thing it should be able to do is create, edit, and delete other user accounts. 'admin' should not have any other extra abilities. The permissions need to be as fine-grained as possible.

This is to meet DoD Navy requirements. My approach until now had been to simply make 'admin' a member of 'Power Users'. But that is not a viable approach since power users can do a whole lot more than just create and delete accounts. The DoD's automated security tool produces gobs of findings about this abuse of 'Power Users'.

So, what I'd like to do is have a group called 'User Administrators', add 'admin' to that group, and set it up so that group has the ability to manage user accounts. This Windows machine is not on a domain and does not have network access, so I only need to (can only) do this using local security policies.

Pipe command output, but keep the error code

ChrisR — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 14:55:15 -0800

How do I get the correct return code from a unix command line application after I've piped it through another command that succeeded? In detail, here's the situation writ small:

# mycmd_that_fails | postprocesor_that_succeeds

# echo $?

0

And, what I'd like to see is:

# mycmd_that_fails | postprocesor_that_succeeds

# echo $?

1

The obvious solution was to capture the output of mycmd_that_fails into a file and then pipe it through the postprocesor_that_succeeds, but since my command is a build script it's nice to see the progress as it runs. I'd rather have the postprocessor operate on the command as it runs than after the fact.

Does anyone know how to accomplish this?

How do I know if medical school is a good environment for me?

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:29:23 -0800

Med school is considering kicking me out - what should I do? I am a first year student doctor. The medical school administration is seriously having doubts about allowing me to continue medical school. I have generally been doing very well academically. The major concerns the administration have include the fact that I failed one test, and my psychiatrist informed the school that I missed two psychiatric appointments (I had previously given my psychiatrist permission to converse with the school to verify that I was attending regular psychiatric appointments). I can truly say that I failed my test because I didn't study for it while I was in the middle of changing psychotherapeutic medications, and I missed the psychiatric appointments because of normal human error. Now I'm working very hard to prevent myself from making these mistakes in the future. More importantly, I can see myself as eventually becoming a good physician, and if I were to be kicked out of medical school, I have no idea what I would do with my life. The administration is questioning whether medical school is the right environment for me right now. I think it is. What should I do?

Please help me disable ClearType!

bonaldi — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:21:11 -0800

How can I turn off ClearType by nefarious methods? Help mine poor eyes A recent update to university PCs to XP Pro has set the screen res to way less than our new flat panels' optimum, and turned on ClearType. Are our IT people blind?

I can't fix this easily, because they've locked down the Control Panel -- the folder comes up as empty. I managed to fix the screen res with a driver thing I found in the SysTray, but have had no luck with turning off ClearType.

I can't install the ClearType tuner or go into the advanced tab in IE to turn it off there.

Any ideas?

Note for indignant SAs: yes, you are quite within your rights to do such things, and a reasonable request may possibly get this fixed, sometime, in the future. I'm impatient.