What Is System Administration

Rules of Thumb: What Is System Administration?

Rule of Thumb 1: System administration is the combination of system support and user support.

Rule of Thumb 2: The Network Paradox: System support is a subset of network support. Network support is a subset of system support.

Rule of Thumb 3: There’s a difference between system support and user support. There may be overlap in the two positions; sometimes both are done by the same person. But the two tasks are distinct and sometimes have conflicting goals.

Corollary 1: Great system support people often make lousy user support people and vice versa.

Corollary 2: The person good enough to do both system support and user support will usually be hired away by a shop where the combined tasks are too large for a single person.

Rule of Thumb 4: System administration is all the stuff with computers in it that nobody with another clear purpose wants to do.

Rule of Thumb 5: Paranoia is a job requirement for system administrators.

Rule of Thumb 6: The only thing more frightening than a programmer with a screwdriver or a hardware engineer with a program is a user with a pair of wire cutters and the root password.