Hello, I'm compiling a collection of stories from the systems administrator trenches. They can be short or long, funny or about a particularly challenging problem or period, or even something that appeared very technically challenging and ended up being something very simple. Stories which are more political would be ok so long as they do not have an agenda or can be interpreted as a public attack. I can't promise money but I can promise 15 minutes of fame. The stories will be accumulated over the next few months and go into a book about real world experiences of Systems Administrators and Systems Engineers. Some of the material may be used in our training classes, as well. All stories will be duly credited and I'll even buy a beer (or other non-alcoholic beverage) for anyone I ever meet in person. Stories may be edited for grammar or clarity. This book is still in the proposal stage so there is no firm target date, yet. If for some reason the book is not published (just like tech projects, books are sometimes cancelled at the last minute) they will go up on our website. Thanks! -Geoff --------------------------------- Geoff Galitz Blankenheim NRW, Germany http://eifel-consulting.biz http://www.galitz.org/ http://german-way.com/blog/
On 6.6.2010 13.19, Geoff Galitz wrote:> I'm compiling a collection of stories from the systems administrator > trenches. They can be short or long, funny or about a particularly > challenging problem or period, or even something that appeared very > technically challenging and ended up being something very simple. Stories > which are more political would be ok so long as they do not have an agenda > or can be interpreted as a public attack. > > I can't promise money but I can promise 15 minutes of fame. The stories > will be accumulated over the next few months and go into a book about real > world experiences of Systems Administrators and Systems Engineers. Some of > the material may be used in our training classes, as well. All stories will > be duly credited and I'll even buy a beer (or other non-alcoholic beverage) > for anyone I ever meet in person. > > Stories may be edited for grammar or clarity. > > This book is still in the proposal stage so there is no firm target date, > yet. If for some reason the book is not published (just like tech projects, > books are sometimes cancelled at the last minute) they will go up on our > website.What will be the intended audience? How much technical detail can be mentioned? Does one assume that the readers know what is grub, initrd, xen, amavisd etc? - Jussi -- Jussi Hirvi * Green Spot Topeliuksenkatu 15 C * 00250 Helsinki * Finland Tel. +358 9 493 981 * Mobile +358 40 771 2098 (only sms) jussi.hirvi at greenspot.fi * http://www.greenspot.fi
On 10-06-06 06:19 AM, Geoff Galitz wrote:> Hello, > > I'm compiling a collection of stories from the systems administrator > trenches. They can be short or long, funny or about a particularly > challenging problem or period, or even something that appeared very > technically challenging and ended up being something very simple. Stories > which are more political would be ok so long as they do not have an agenda > or can be interpreted as a public attack. > > I can't promise money but I can promise 15 minutes of fame. The stories > will be accumulated over the next few months and go into a book about real > world experiences of Systems Administrators and Systems Engineers. Some of > the material may be used in our training classes, as well. All stories will > be duly credited and I'll even buy a beer (or other non-alcoholic beverage) > for anyone I ever meet in person. > > Stories may be edited for grammar or clarity. > > This book is still in the proposal stage so there is no firm target date, > yet. If for some reason the book is not published (just like tech projects, > books are sometimes cancelled at the last minute) they will go up on our > website. > > > Thanks! > > -GeoffUnder the category of "learn from the mistake of others..." About eight years ago, I was working on a program with tight deadlines. I'd worked through the night, only catching an hour or two of sleep in the office. The next morning, one of the servers remounted it's file systems read-only. Being a small shop, I decided to just take the server down to run a quick fsck.ext2. In my sleepiness though, I typed 'mkfs.ext2'. When people say that "root" is god, well, no one asks god "Are you sure?". -- Digimer E-Mail: linux at alteeve.com AN!Whitepapers: http://alteeve.com Node Assassin: http://nodeassassin.org
>Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2010 12:19:30 +0200 >From: "Geoff Galitz" <geoff at galitz.org> >Subject: [CentOS] OT: SysAdmin Stories > >I'm compiling a collection of stories from the systems administrator >trenches. .... > >Thanks! > >-Geoff > >--------------------------------- >Geoff Galitz >Blankenheim NRW, Germany >http://eifel-consulting.biz >http://www.galitz.org/ >http://german-way.com/blog/The internet never forgets - it just loses the thread... This request is similar to one a number of years ago, and the result seemed at the time to be worth keeping. Now with the power of google, you might like to search for "The Unofficial Unix Administration Horror Story" thread. The original requests pop up under:- http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.admin/search?group=comp.unix.admin&q=%22horror+stories%22 My personal favourite is the one re-posted then by Mark Brader concerning a recovery from "cd ; rm -rf *" as root (and long before the days of root having /root as a home directory). Another anecdote which shows the dangers of creeping featureism runs something like:- Script started on Mon 07 Jun 2010 09:31:20 AM BST # rm -i -r * rm: cannot remove `-i': No such file or directory # Script done on Mon 07 Jun 2010 09:31:40 AM BST This is waiting to bite the admin today who aliases rm to "rm -i" and feels safe from their own finger trouble until they start to rely on this and reach an environment where the alias has not been set. Chris Ritson (Computing Officer and School Safety Officer) Room 707, Claremont Tower, EMAIL: C.R.Ritson at ncl.ac.uk School of Computing Science, PHONE: +44 191 222 8175 Newcastle University, FAX : +44 191 222 8232 Newcastle upon Tyne, UK NE1 7RU. WEB : http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/
On 06/06/2010 11:19 AM, Geoff Galitz wrote:> I'm compiling a collection of stories from the systems administrator > trenches.have you considered a wiki for this ? rather than clogging up the lists. People could just post their stories there and you get readily editable content straight out. - KB