On Thu, Mar 17, 2005 at 11:32:03PM -0500, Mikel King wrote:
> So now that we've got a handle on the semantics issue what say we throw
> some ideas around for what Jr should know and be able to do?
<snip>
> My thought process here is I've just hired this kid, what do I expect
> him to be able to do with minimal supervision, the moment he walks
> through the door (ok after he's done with all the paperwork, and
> introductions, maybe after lunch sometime in the afternoon...and had the
> tour of the facilities).
I like the idea of focusing on what /tasks/ a junior admin is likely to
need to be able to perform, and from there descend into what tools they
require knowledge of to be able to perform them. Listing tools feels
like it has a high potential to be a bikeshed issue (I think /all/ Unix
users ought to know LaTeX, after all *grin*). I think that if we focus
on tasks, the required tools become obvious. It might also help us avoid
the "memorized man page" exam syndrome.
Pulling from the SAGE II crib sheet, here's what I think a junior admin
ought to be able to do:
* Able to administer a small site alone or assist in the administration
of a larger system.
* Familiarity with most basic system administration tools and processes;
for example, can boot/shutdown a machine, add and remove user accounts,
use backup programs and fsck, maintain system database files (groups,
hosts, aliases)
* Fundamental understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; for
example, understands job control, soft and hard links, distinctions
between the kernel and the shell.
* High skill with of most UNIX commands/utilities
If we go with a single cert level, I think we should aim a bit higher.
Here's the SAGE III crib sheet:
* Administers a mid-sized site alone or assists in the administration of
a larger site. Initiates some new responsibilities and helps to plan for
the future of the site/network. Manages novice system administrators or
operators. Evaluates and/or recommends purchases; has strong influence
on purchasing process.
* Is comfortable with most aspects of UNIX systems administration; for
example, configuration of mail systems, system installation and
configuration, printing systems, fundamentals of security, installing
third-party software.
* A solid understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; understands
paging and swapping, inter-process communication, devices and what
device drivers do, filesystem concepts ("inode", "superblock").
* Familiarity with fundamental networking/distributed computing
environment concepts; can configure NFS and NIS, can use nslookup or
dig to check information in the DNS, understands basic routing
concepts.
* Ability to write scripts in some administrative language (Tk, Perl, a
shell).
Substituting the word "BSD" for "UNIX" and making our questions
BSD-specific, I think those high-level topics make for reasonably good
exam material. For example, under filesystem concepts, questions about
softdeps, async mounting, FFS amd FFSv2 would all be relevant. And
rather than being tools-focused, it would be /usefulness/ focused. For
example:
UFS2 is preferred over UFS1:
A. If you want the highest possible performance in all cases
B. For avoid hard limints in UDS1 in filesystems over 1TB in size
C. If you need a higher maximum inode limit
D. At all times on the swap partition
E. None of the above are correct
Another feature I like is that it lets us avoid the minor differences in
the toolset between the BSDs -- the concepts should remain the same (and
details are what man pages are for ;-)).
-T
--
"Who would have suspected that life was all going to turn out well?"
-- Robert Allen
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