Am I a SysAdmin?

Last Updated on July 15, 2024 by David Both

Photo by Ruca Souza from Pexels

Most of my books and articles are intended to help you become a SysAdmin. So it would be useful for you to know whether you might already be one, whether you are aware of that fact or not, or if you exhibit some propensity towards system administration. Let’s look at some of the tasks a SysAdmin may be asked to perform and some of the qualities one might find in a SysAdmin.

Wikipedia defines a system administrator as “a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multiuser computers, such as servers.¹” In my experience, this can include computer and network hardware, software, racks and enclosures, computer rooms or space, and much more.

The typical SysAdmin’s job can include a very large number of tasks. In a small business a SysAdmin may be responsible for doing everything computer related. In larger environments, multiple SysAdmins may share responsibility for all of the tasks required to keep things running. In some cases, you may not even know you are a SysAdmin; your manager may have simply told you to start maintaining one or more computers in your office – that makes you a SysAdmin, like it or not.

There is also a term, “DevSecOps,” which is used to describe the intersection of the formerly separate development, security, and operations organizations. In the past this has been primarily about closer cooperation between development and operations — DevOps — and it included teaching SysAdmins to write code and teaching programmers how to perform operational tasks.² With DevSecOps, the staffs of all three departments are intended to have knowledge of the other two.

Attending to SysAdmin tasks makes those folks SysAdmins, too, at least for part of the time. While I was working at Cisco, I had a DevOps type of job. Part of the time I wrote code to test Linux appliances and the rest of the time I was a SysAdmin in the lab where those appliances were tested. It was a very interesting and rewarding time in my career.

I created this short list to help you determine whether you might have some of the qualities of a SysAdmin. You know you are a SysAdmin if…

1. People frequently ask you to help them with their computers.
2. You check the servers every morning before you do anything else — except maybe put the dog out or feed the cat.
3. You write shell scripts to automate even simple tasks because — automate everything.
4. You share your shell scripts.
5. Your shell scripts are licensed with an Open Source license.
6. You know what Open Source means.
7. You document everything you do.
8. You have hacked the wireless router to install Linux software.
9. You find computers easier to interact with than most humans.
10. You understand :(){ :|:& };:
11. You think the command line is fun.
12. You like to be in complete control.
13. You are root.
14. You always say “no” when someone asks whether something can be done or not.
15. After discussion and discovering what the person really wants to accomplish, you know it can be done in 30 seconds with a shell script you already have written, but you tell them it will be “a few days” before you can get to it.
16. You understand the difference between “free as in beer,” and “free as in speech,” when applied to software.
17. You have installed a computer in a rack enclosure.
18. You have replaced the standard CPU cooling fan with one that dissipates more heat.
19. You build your own computers.
20. You use liquid cooling for your CPU.
21. You install Linux on everything you can.
22. You you have a Raspberry Pi connected to your television.
23. You use a Raspberry Pi as a firewall for your home network.
24. You run your own Email, DHCP, NTP, NFS, DNS, and/or SSH servers.
25. You have hacked your old computer to replace the processor with a faster one.
26. You have upgraded the BIOS in a computer.
27. You leave the covers off your computer because you replace components frequently.
28. The router provided by your ISP is in “pass through” mode.
29. You use a Linux computer as a router.
30. …etc…

You get the idea. I could list a lot more things that might make you a good candidate to be a SysAdmin but I am sure you can think of plenty more that apply to you. The bottom line here is that you are curious, you like to explore the internal workings of devices, you want to understand how things work – particularly computers, you enjoy helping people, and you would rather be in control of at least some of the technology that we encounter in our daily lives than to let it completely control you.

If you ask me a question about how to perform some task in Linux, I am the Linux guy that explains how Linux works before answering the question – at least that is the impression I give most people. My tendency is to explain how things work and I think that it is very important for SysAdmins to understand why things work as they do and the architecture and structure of Linux in order to be most effective. So I explain a lot of things in detail in my books and articles. The explanations I provide will sometimes include historical references because the history of Unix and Linux is illustrative of why and how Linux is so open and easy to understand.

UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity.

– Dennis Ritchie³

The preceding Ritchie quote also applies to Linux because Linux was designed to be a version of Unix. Yes, Linux is very simple. You just need a little guidance and mentoring to show you how to explore it yourself. Part of the simplicity of Linux is that it is completely open, knowable, and you can access any and all of it in very powerful and revealing ways. The articles here at Both.org contain many experiments and examples which are designed to explore the architecture of Linux as well as to introduce you to new commands.

If this applies to you, you are a SysAdmin

1. Wikipedia, system administrator, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_administrator ↩︎
2. Charity, “Ops: It’s everyone’s job now,” https://opensource.com/article/17/7/state-systems-administration ↩︎
3. Wikipedia, Dennis Ritchie, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie ↩︎