Wil Cooley wrote:
> It's difficult to describe the exact 
> scenarios when it will not work; there is so much time between each 
> session when I try to understand it that I forget things and end up 
> nearly starting over each time. 

This doesn't help your current situation (but I see Arno is on the case 
;-) ).

Anyway, keep a log book. Write down what you do.

As a sysadmin managing a bunch of servers for two departments, I keep a 
separate bound log book for each server. I write down everything I do. 
If I want to know the steps I went through to upgrade spamassassin on 
sendmail 6 months ago, I can look it up. I can see what difficulties I 
had and how I resolved them. If I do the same thing for multiple 
servers, I may write something like "see page 53 in marlin's book for 
details". I use a highlighter to mark the keyword at the top of each 
session where it might matter, so I can flip through many pages quickly 
looking for "spamassassin".

It is especially indispensable in my case, because there is another 
sysadmin who also sometimes does things on the servers, and he and I 
need to know what was done. So, we talk to each other, but he also will 
borrow a book from me when he is going to do something and needs to 
write down the details.

The previous admin didn't keep very good records. One of the first 
things I did when I moved in was to cross out several pages of his work, 
format the server he was building, and start over.

Anyway, just thought I would throw this in as general advise for serious 
sysadmins.


---------------

Chris Hoogendyk

-
   O__  ---- Systems Administrator
  c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geology Departments
 (*) \(*) -- 140 Morrill Science Center
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst 

<hoogendyk AT bio.umass DOT edu>

--------------- 

Erdös 4



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