IS IT TOUGH TO BE A GOOD SYSTEM ADMIN :( ????

[withu]

HI, to all the great guns firing on all cylinder with their quality arsenal....

I, just joined as a System admin without any experience and now I have given a SUN SOLARIS SERVER Ver 2.5 on sparc to manage and configure all the security policies , mail account maintenance + Upgradation of existing ver to SUN solaris 9,without any training.

So, I need the help of u all to accomplish this task.
Query ..1. The important files to take care of
2. Taking the backup
3. Primary and secondary DNS conf and maintenance..
4.The security aspect ...

Hope to hear soon from u all
So,

this is Junk "WITHU" , Signing out now, trying to come at par with the great mind out there in due course of time provided u help & guide...
Thanks in advance..

 

[roubes]

Hi
I think the newsgroups will be wasting your time in this case, you would better start reading and attend some advanced courses to know what are you going to do!
If I were you I won't take this job and I won't miss a thing without preparation.
good luck

 

[Serbtastic]

I think it is ridiculous for your upper management to expect you to configure/maintain a Solaris machine without any training. Get them to send you on some basic Solaris admin training, or get another job.

My 2 cents.

 

[Whoheard]

You might want to check under the correct forum. That and a book would be my first stop. RTFB for now.

bob

 

[polymath5]

When you say 'without experience' do you mean no experience with networks and admin jobs in general or only with Solaris?

I agree with the other posters about your needing to take classes in Solaris and if you are lite in general Network concepts, you better bone up on them with some formal training.

I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for some others here when I say that we are here to help as much as we can with specific questions. BUT, we can't give you years of experience and study in a few messages (or more than a few!). Each of the areas you mentioned require a fair amount of study to get a handle on.

It would be a good thing for management to fund your training. They would have a more valuable employee, and unless you have no loyalty, they wouldn't be in danger of loosing that training.

Not to be unkind, but it is unlikely that you would be able to succeed without some structured formal training. Sure it's possible to learn everything on your own. But it takes a lot longer than being shown in a hands on environment.

Good Luck!

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Mens et Manus
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[spi200]

Hi

I feel for you and I now how management is sometimes. I would do a review of the existing infrustructure, then recommend that the upgrade be completed by a consultant. Without training or previous experience upgrade Sun stuff then the risks are enormous and management must be prepared to take the HIT and not you.
In our company the Admin maintains the existing structure and would be only the point-man on a large upgrade of this nature. Some valuable tips could be learned from a consultant being On-Site.
The old trick is to say we don't have the money for consulting, well that is the fault of the person who did the budget(not yours) and if a job is not worth doing properly then it is not worth doing at all.
Even if you get upto speed then who is going to support it when your away - What's needed is a minimum of two guys who's upto speed - again should have been budgeted for.
If all else fails then take a long holiday and look for another job.

Regards

David

 

[withu]

Dear SPI 200, Polymath5,roubes,serbtastic,,,,,,,


Thanks alot to all of u who responded to this. In short, I am in this networking field for 5 years and just shifted to server admin .So, I think I have some idea of networking side. Added to this, I installed successfully SUN SOLARIS 9 with help from the documentation. and the DNS is also up...

Now, I wanted help from you people for the
mailservices.
1)Which all the files to be checked ?


2) MY mailservices are up but I am getting mails from
outside world with tooo much delay. and in the server
log messege i.e in /var/log the "syslog" file is having
this two info :

##########
/ETC/MAIL/ALIASES.DB OUT OF DATE

starting daemon ( 8.12.2+sun) : queueing@00.15.00
starting daemon(8.12.2+sun) : SMTP+queueing@00.15.00

########
I think that 00.15.00 is resulting in the delay or what ?


Excuse me for my silly query and inexperience .
Hope to hear from you soon in this.

With best regards
WITHU