You are in: > Home > Systems Administration
System Administration Tasks
In future articles we will discuss how a systems administrator performs these tasks. But for now here is a list of the most basic tasks a sysadmin has to perform.
Automation
A priority for a Systems Administrator must be to automate any task that will be performed regularly. Initially automation may take some additional time, effort and resources but in the long run it will pay off. The benefits of automation include
- no need to reinvent the wheel, Everytime you need to perform the task you don't have to remember how to do it.
- it is much simpler
- it can be delegated
System monitoring
This responsibility entails keeping an eye on the state of the computers, software and network to ensure everything is working efficiently. Characteristics of the computer and the operating system that you might keep an eye include
- resource usage,
- what people are doing,
- whether or not the machines normal operations are working.
Resource usage
The operating system and the computer have a number of different resources including disk space, the CPU, RAM, printers and a network. One indication of problems is if anyone person or process is hogging one of these resources. Resource hogging might be an indication of an attack.
What are people doing?
As the Systems Administrator you should be aware of what is normal for your site. If the managing director only ever connects between 9 to 5 and his account is currently logged in at 1 in the morning then chances are there is something wrong.
Its important not only to observe when but what the users are doing. If the secretary is all of a sudden using the C compiler then there's a good chance that it might not be the secretary
Normal operations
Inevitably there will be problems with your system. A disk controller might die, a user might start a run away process that uses all the CPU time, and a mail bounce might result in the hard-drive filling up or any one of millions of other problems.
Some of these problems will adversely effect your users. Users will respect you more if they don't have to tell you about problems. Therefore it is important that you maintain a watch on the more important services offered by your computers.
You should be watching the services that the users use. Statistics about network, CPU and disk usage are no good when the problem is that the users can't send email because of a problem in the mail configuration. You need to make sure that the users can do what they normally do.
Related articles
- SSH Tunnels - [18th Feb 2008]
- FreeBSD : Adding fortunes to appear after MOTD - [03rd May 2007]
- FreeBSD : Adding users and groups - [03rd May 2007]
- Linux File Permissions - [05th Jan 2006]
- System Administration Tasks - [16th Dec 2005]
- Systems Adminstrators Knowledge - [16th Dec 2005]
- Managing Hardware and Software - [16th Dec 2005]
- Users - [16th Dec 2005]
- Systems Administration Introduction - [16th Dec 2005]
