Uh...Help....

Ok gents, story time.

Today I go to work, and one of our tech 3's (big deal at my company) out of the blue asked me if I would take over the company (windows worshiping company mind you!) linux box. Its most likely a Dell T3400 a quad core intel with x gigs of ram....probably 4.

This guy is moving onto another company. (sad day! hes one of our best.)

I have several years of mostly passive experience with Mint/ubuntu. I have never managed anything like this, and have usually just used linux as a folding/tinkering machine or as a general purpose computer.

I have exactly zero experience with setting up multiple user accounts, samba, and all the things that come with a Server style installation without a gui.

Dont get me wrong though, I'm looking forward to this experience, and love to learn.

What can I do to make this learning curve more pleasant. And keep in mind that my company SHOULD be on linux. We are a PACS software company, and our customers demand and require 100% up time. Lives very well could depend on it. (not kidding)
We for some gawd awful stupid reason are on windows servers! My days are a constant battle to keep them up and running, with over 1000 sites and easily over 5,000 computers....all running anything from XP to server 2012.

I would really like to make this a good introductory experience for my fellow nerds at work.

So fire away! where can I start? What resources are out there?
I've already googled, but figured i'd ask here as well. Since there is so much out there, and a huge amount of experience here. Why not combine.

Thank you for your help!
-New Linux system admin surrounded by windows power users!

You may get more/better responses if you have a better title than, "uh help".

linux complete from sybex, I had to open my file server to get it out, it's the only way an idiot like me can keep a file server running!!!!!!

ISBN; 0-7821-4036-x.

linuxacademy.com may have some good resources.I have been a member for a while, I often find their courseware very slow paced (but I have been a sysadmin for 8 years and a linux user for 10)... might be worth seeing what they got going on

I just looked at the date of the book i listed, it's old, very old, but hand holds a non programer like me very well.

I would suggest getting a trial copy (or however else you want to procure one) of the OS your running, be it SLES or RHEL or other. Take it home, and boot it up and go through the installation of the OS itself. Once you've done that, start adding services. A quick google search will 99.9% of the times get you (within the top 2-3 hits) a nice guide or document or blog showing how to do whatever it is you want to do.

When dealing with any nix you must make sure to know what version because syntax changes.

Googling helps a lot, far better for unix than for Linux I have found but again version number is important!!!

For instance Googling HP unix 10.2 is not the same as HPU-UNIX 10.20 (or even better B.10.20)

I am also a nix nub, and searching for help often leads to BAD information unless you are asking someone directly (message board) and can provide exact version number and probably some kind of log files.

When dealing with any nix you must make sure to know what version because syntax changes.

Click to expand...

To an extent there are syntax changes. Though most things are pretty stream-lined these days unless we are comparing POSIX to non-POSIX compliant. Outside of some OS's having special flags for commands, you're going to find a lot of them are pretty much the same.

I am also a nix nub, and searching for help often leads to BAD information unless you are asking someone directly (message board) and can provide exact version number and probably some kind of log files.

Click to expand...

This I partially agree with. You can find a lot of GOOD information by searching as well. Like I said, documents and guides. Blogs, yes can have bad information. Forums are also a great source. You can figure out all of the basics with some quick searches and reading. Once you get down into the trouble shooting aspect, where people actually need to see log files to understand what is going on...then I would agree you're going to get farther asking than just searching.

OP, out of curiosity, what version of *NIX are you going to be administering?

Neuromancer said:

When dealing with any nix you must make sure to know what version because syntax changes.

Googling helps a lot, far better for unix than for Linux I have found but again version number is important!!!

For instance Googling HP unix 10.2 is not the same as HPU-UNIX 10.20 (or even better B.10.20)

I am also a nix nub, and searching for help often leads to BAD information unless you are asking someone directly (message board) and can provide exact version number and probably some kind of log files.

Click to expand...

To be fair, HPUX issort of the red-headed stepchild. I wouldn't wish that OS on any sysadmin I know. By and large, in most distros, what worked a decade ago probably works the same way now.


To the OP, the best way to learn is just to get your hands dirty and do it. If this server is a production machine that requires 100% uptime, you should really push to have the company invest in a development box that isn't mission critical. You can always fund the box yourself, but the company probably has some spare hardware laying around. If your server is RHEL, then run a development box with CentOS if they won't buy a dev license. Also, see if your company can pay for any formal training for you (online, local college course, conference, etc). It seems to me that your company is doing it all wrong. Generally a guy on his way out the door (who is a single point of failure for a particular process) doesn't pick his replacement by walking up and saying "hey, you want this job?"

Truth be told, many/most sysadmins still heavily rely on the google (and product documentation [and man!]). I couldn't do my job with any reasonable efficiency if I didn't have access to the web. Don't let your lack of experience or knowledge discourage you! Good luck!