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10 AristotlePagaltzis 1 Stephan Zielinski wrote this back in November 1992, and submitted it to the <tt>rec.humor.funny</tt> UseNet group; it spread from there. Fragments of it sometimes appear in <tt>.sig</tt> files appended to old UseNet posts. Stephan Zielinski can be reached at <tt>stephan at [stephan-zielinski.com | http://stephan-zielinski.com]</tt> (as of November 01 2004), and is willing to answer questions about this.
2 JohnMcPherson 2
3 ----
4
5 AristotlePagaltzis 5 !!! Know Your [Unix] SystemAdministrator <br> A Field Guide
2 JohnMcPherson 6
5 AristotlePagaltzis 7 The __Technical Thug__::
8 Usually a systems programmer who has been forced into system administration; writes scripts in a polyglot of the Bourne [Shell], [SED], [C], [AWK], [Perl], and [APL].
9 The __Administrative Fascist__::
10 Usually a retentive drone (or rarely, a harridan ex-secretary) who has been forced into system administration.
11 The __Maniac__::
12 Usually an aging cracker who discovered that neither the Mossad nor Cuba are willing to pay a living wage for computer espionage. Fell into system administration; occasionally approaches major competitors with indesp schemes.
13 The __Idiot__::
14 Usually a cretin, morpohodite, or old [COBOL] programmer selected to be the system administrator by a committee of cretins, morphodites, and old [COBOL] programmers.
2 JohnMcPherson 15
3 AristotlePagaltzis 16
5 AristotlePagaltzis 17 !!! How To Identify Your SystemAdministrator
2 JohnMcPherson 18
5 AristotlePagaltzis 19 !! Situation: Low disk space.
2 JohnMcPherson 20
5 AristotlePagaltzis 21 Technical Thug::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 22 Writes a suite of scripts to monitor disk usage, maintain a database of historic disk usage, predict future disk usage via least squares regression analysis, identify users who are more than a standard deviation over the mean, and send mail to the offending parties. Places script in crontab(5). Disk usage does not change, since disk-hogs, by nature, either ignore script-generated mail, or file it away in triplicate.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 23 Administrative Fascist::
24 Puts disk usage policy in [MOTD]. Uses disk quotas. Allows no exceptions, thus crippling development work. Locks accounts that go over quota.
25 Maniac::
26 <verbatim>
27 # cd /home
28 # rm -rf `du -s * | sort -rn | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`;
29 </verbatim>
30 Idiot::
31 <verbatim>
32 # cd /home
33 # cat `du -s * | sort -rn | head -1 | awk '{ printf "%s/*\n", $2}'` | compress
34 </verbatim>
3 AristotlePagaltzis 35
5 AristotlePagaltzis 36 !! Situation: Excessive [CPU] usage.
2 JohnMcPherson 37
5 AristotlePagaltzis 38 Technical Thug::
39 Writes a suite of scripts to monitor processes, maintain a database of [CPU] usage, identify processes more than a standard deviation over the norm, and renice offending processes. Places script in cron. Ends up renicing the production database into oblivion, bringing operations to a grinding halt, much to the delight of the xtrek freaks.
40 Administrative Fascist::
41 Puts [CPU] usage policy in [MOTD]. Uses [CPU] quotas. Locks accounts that go over quota. Allows no exceptions, thus crippling development work, much to the delight of the xtrek freaks.
42 Maniac::
43 <verbatim>
44 # kill -9 `ps -augxww | sort -rn +8 -9 | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`
45 </verbatim>
46 Idiot::
47 <verbatim>
48 # compress -f `ps -augxww | sort -rn +8 -9 | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`
49 </verbatim>
2 JohnMcPherson 50
5 AristotlePagaltzis 51 !! Situation: New account creation.
2 JohnMcPherson 52
5 AristotlePagaltzis 53 Technical Thug::
9 CraigBox 54 Writes [Perl] script that creates home directory, copies in incomprehensible default environment, and places entries in <tt>/etc/passwd</tt>, <tt>/etc/shadow</tt>, and <tt>/etc/group</tt>. (By hand, __not__ with passmgmt.) Slaps on [SUID] bit; tells a nearby secretary to handle new accounts. Usually, said secretary is still dithering over the difference between 'enter' and 'return'; and so, no new accounts are ever created.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 55 Administrative Fascist::
56 Puts new account policy in [MOTD]. Since people without accounts cannot read the [MOTD], nobody ever fulfills the bureaucratic requirements; and so, no new accounts are ever created.
57 Maniac::
58 "If you're too stupid to break in and create your own account, I don't want you on the system. We've got too many goddamn sh*t-for-brains a**holes on this box anyway."
59 Idiot::
60 <verbatim>
61 # cd /home; mkdir "Bob's home directory"
62 # echo "Bob Simon:gandalf:0:0::/dev/tty:compress -f" > /etc/passwd
63 </verbatim>
2 JohnMcPherson 64
5 AristotlePagaltzis 65 !! Situation: Root disk fails.
2 JohnMcPherson 66
5 AristotlePagaltzis 67 Technical Thug::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 68 Repairs drive. Usually is able to repair FileSystem from boot monitor. Failing that, front-panel toggles microkernel in and starts script on neighboring machine to load binary boot code into broken machine, reformat and reinstall OperatingSystem. Lets it run over the weekend while he goes mountain climbing.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 69 Administrative Fascist::
70 Begins investigation to determine who broke the drive. Refuses to fix system until culprit is identified and charged for the equipment.
71 Maniac, Large System::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 72 Rips drive from system, uses sledgehammer to smash same to flinders. Calls manufacturer, threatens pets. Abuses field engineer while they put in a new drive and reinstall the OperatingSystem.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 73 Maniac, Small System::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 74 Rips drive from system, uses ball-peen hammer to smash same to flinders. Calls Requisitions, threatens pets. Abuses bystanders while putting in new drive and reinstalling OperatingSystem.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 75 Idiot::
76 Doesn't notice anything wrong.
2 JohnMcPherson 77
5 AristotlePagaltzis 78 !! Situation: Poor network response.
2 JohnMcPherson 79
5 AristotlePagaltzis 80 Technical Thug::
81 Writes scripts to monitor network, then rewires entire machine room, improving response time by 2%. Shrugs shoulders, says, "I've done all I can do," and goes mountain climbing.
82 Administrative Fascist::
7 AristotlePagaltzis 83 Puts network usage policy in [MOTD]. Calls up Berkeley and [AT&T], badgers whoever answers for network quotas. Tries to get xtrek freaks fired.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 84 Maniac::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 85 Every two hours, pulls [Ethernet] cable from wall and waits for connections to time out.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 86 Idiot::
87 <verbatim>
88 # compress -f /dev/en0
89 </verbatim>
2 JohnMcPherson 90
5 AristotlePagaltzis 91 !! Situation: User questions.
2 JohnMcPherson 92
5 AristotlePagaltzis 93 Technical Thug::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 94 Hacks the code of [Emacs]' doctor-mode to answer new users questions. Doesn't bother to tell people how to start the new "guru-mode", or for that matter, [Emacs].
5 AristotlePagaltzis 95 Administrative Fascist::
96 Puts user support policy in [MOTD]. Maintains queue of questions. Answers them when he gets a chance, often within two weeks of receipt of the proper form.
97 Maniac::
98 Screams at users until they go away. Sometimes barters knowledge for powerful drink and/or sycophantic adulation.
99 Idiot::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 100 Answers all questions to best of his knowledge until the user realizes few [Unix] systems support punched cards or JCL.
2 JohnMcPherson 101
5 AristotlePagaltzis 102 !! Situation: __Stupid__ user questions.
2 JohnMcPherson 103
5 AristotlePagaltzis 104 Technical Thug::
105 Answers question in hex, binary, postfix, and/or French until user gives up and goes away.
106 Administrative Fascist::
107 Locks user's account until user can present documentation demonstrating their qualification to use the machine.
108 Maniac::
109 <verbatim>
110 # cat >> ~luser/.cshrc
111 alias vi 'rm \!*;unalias vi;grep -v !BoZo ~/.cshrc > ~/.z; mv -f ~/.z ~/.cshrc'
112 ^D
113 </verbatim>
114 Idiot::
115 Answers all questions to best of his knowledge. Recruits user to system administration team.
2 JohnMcPherson 116
5 AristotlePagaltzis 117 !! Situation: Process accounting management.
2 JohnMcPherson 118
5 AristotlePagaltzis 119 Technical Thug::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 120 Ignores packaged accounting software; trusts scripts to sniff out any problems and compute charges.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 121 Administrative Fascist::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 122 Devotes 75% of disk space to accounting records owned by root and chmod'ed <tt>000</tt>.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 123 Maniac::
124 Laughs fool head off at very mention of accounting.
125 Idiot::
126 <verbatim>
127 # lpr /etc/wtmp /usr/adm/paact
128 </verbatim>
2 JohnMcPherson 129
5 AristotlePagaltzis 130 !! Situation: Religious war, [BSD] vs. System V.
2 JohnMcPherson 131
5 AristotlePagaltzis 132 Technical Thug::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 133 [BSD]. Crippled on [SystemV] boxes.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 134 Administrative Fascist::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 135 [SystemV]. Horrified by the people who use [BSD]. Places frequent calls to DEA.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 136 Maniac::
137 Prefers [BSD], but doesn't care as long as __his__ processes run quickly.
138 Idiot::
139 <verbatim>
140 # cd c::
141 </verbatim>
2 JohnMcPherson 142
5 AristotlePagaltzis 143 !! Situation: Religious war, System V vs. [AIX]
2 JohnMcPherson 144
5 AristotlePagaltzis 145 Technical Thug::
146 Weeps.
147 Administrative Fascist::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 148 [AIX] -- doesn't much care for the OperatingSystem, but loves the jackboots.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 149 Maniac::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 150 [SystemV], but keeps [AIX] skills up, knowing full well how much Big Financial Institutions love [IBM]...
5 AristotlePagaltzis 151 Idiot::
152 [AIX].
2 JohnMcPherson 153
5 AristotlePagaltzis 154 !! Situation: Balky printer daemons.
2 JohnMcPherson 155
5 AristotlePagaltzis 156 Technical Thug::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 157 Rewrites lpd(8) in [Forth].
5 AristotlePagaltzis 158 Administrative Fascist::
159 Puts printer use policy in [MOTD]. Calls customer support every time the printer freezes. Tries to get user who submitted the most recent job fired.
160 Maniac::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 161 Writes script that kills all the daemons, clears all the print queues, and maybe restarts the daemons. Runs it once a hour from crontab(5).
5 AristotlePagaltzis 162 Idiot::
163 <verbatim>
164 # kill -9 /dev/lp ; /dev/lp &
165 </verbatim>
2 JohnMcPherson 166
6 AristotlePagaltzis 167 !! Situation: OperatingSystem upgrade.
2 JohnMcPherson 168
5 AristotlePagaltzis 169 Technical Thug::
170 Reads source code of new release, takes only what he likes.
171 Administrative Fascist::
172 Instigates lawsuit against the vendor for having shipped a product with bugs in it in the first place.
173 Maniac::
174 <verbatim>
175 # uptime
176 1:33pm up 19 days, 22:49, 167 users, load average: 6.49, 6.45, 6.31
177 # wall
178 Well, it's upgrade time. Should take a few hours. And good luck on that
179 5:00 deadline, guys! We're all pulling for you!
180 ^D
181 </verbatim>
182 Idiot::
183 <verbatim>
184 # dd if=/dev/rmt8 of=/vmunix
185 </verbatim>
2 JohnMcPherson 186
5 AristotlePagaltzis 187 !! Situation: Balky mail.
2 JohnMcPherson 188
5 AristotlePagaltzis 189 Technical Thug::
190 Rewrites <tt>sendmail.cf</tt> from scratch. Rewrites SendMail in SNOBOL. Hacks [Kernel] to implement file locking. Hacks [Kernel] to implement "better" [Semaphore]s. Rewrites SendMail in assembly. Hacks kernel to...
191 Administrative Fascist::
192 Puts mail use policy in [MOTD]. Locks accounts that go over mail use quota. Keeps quota low enough that people go back to interoffice mail, thus solving problem.
193 Maniac::
194 <verbatim>
195 # kill -9 `ps -augxww | grep sendmail | awk '{print $2}'`
196 # rm -f /usr/spool/mail/*
197 # wall
198 Mail is down. Please use interoffice mail until we have it back up.
199 ^D
200 # write max
201 I've got my boots and backpack. Ready to leave for Mount Tam?
202 ^D
203 </verbatim>
204 Idiot::
205 <verbatim>
206 # echo "HELP!" | mail tech_support.AT.vendor.com%kremvax%bitnet!BIFF!!!
207 </verbatim>
2 JohnMcPherson 208
5 AristotlePagaltzis 209 !! Situation: Users want phone list application.
2 JohnMcPherson 210
5 AristotlePagaltzis 211 Technical Thug::
212 Writes [RDBMS] in [Perl] and SmallTalk. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
213 Administrative Fascist::
214 [Oracle]. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
215 Maniac::
216 Tells the users to use flat files and grep(1), the way God meant man to keep track of phone numbers. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
217 Idiot::
218 <verbatim>
219 % dd ibs=80 if=/dev/rdisk001s7 | grep "Fred"
220 </verbatim>
2 JohnMcPherson 221
5 AristotlePagaltzis 222 !!! Other Guidelines::
2 JohnMcPherson 223
5 AristotlePagaltzis 224 !! Typical root .cshrc file
2 JohnMcPherson 225
5 AristotlePagaltzis 226 Technical Thug::
227 Longer than eight kilobytes. Sources the output of a [Perl] script, rewrites itself.
228 Administrative Fascist::
229 Typical lines include::
230 <verbatim>
231 umask 777
232 alias cd 'cd \!*; rm -rf ching *hack mille omega rogue xtrek >& /dev/null &'
233 </verbatim>
234 Maniac::
235 Typical lines include::
236 <verbatim>
237 alias rm 'rm -rf \!*'
238 alias hose kill -9 '`ps -augxww | grep \!* | awk \'{print $2}\'`'
239 alias kill 'kill -9 \!* ; kill -9 \!* ; kill -9 \!*'
240 alias renice 'echo Renice\? You must mean kill -9.; kill -9 \!*'
241 </verbatim>
242 Idiot::
243 Typical lines include::
244 <verbatim>
245 alias dir ls
246 alias era rm
247 alias kitty cat
248 alias process_table ps
249 setenv DISPLAY vt100
250 </verbatim>
2 JohnMcPherson 251
3 AristotlePagaltzis 252
5 AristotlePagaltzis 253 !! Hobbies, Technical
2 JohnMcPherson 254
5 AristotlePagaltzis 255 Technical Thug::
6 AristotlePagaltzis 256 Writes entries for Obsfuscated [C] contest. Optimizes [INTERCAL] scripts. Maintains ENIAC emulator. Virtual reality.
5 AristotlePagaltzis 257 Administrative Fascist::
258 Bugs office. Audits card-key logs. Modifies old TVs to listen in on cellular phone conversations. Listens to police band.
259 Maniac::
260 Volunteers at Survival Research Labs. Bugs office. Edits card-key logs. Modifies old TVs to listen in on cellular phone conversations. Jams police band.
261 Idiot::
262 Ties shoes. Maintains [COBOL] decimal to roman numeral converter. Rereads flowcharts from his salad days at Rand.
2 JohnMcPherson 263
5 AristotlePagaltzis 264 !! Hobbies, Nontechnical
2 JohnMcPherson 265
5 AristotlePagaltzis 266 Technical Thug::
8 MikeBeattie 267 Drinks "Smart Drinks." Attends raves. Hangs out at poetry readings and Whole Earth Review events and tries to pick up Birkenstock [MOTAS].
5 AristotlePagaltzis 268 Administrative Fascist::
269 Reads ''Readers Digest'' and ''Mein Kampf''. Sometimes turns up car radio and sings along to John Denver. Golfs. Drinks gin martinis. Hangs out in yuppie bars and tries to pick up dominatrixes.
270 Maniac::
8 MikeBeattie 271 Reads ''Utne Reader'' and ''Mein Kampf''. Faithfully attends Dickies and Ramones concerts. Punches out people who say "virtual reality." Drinks damn near anything, but favors Wild Turkey, Black Bush, and grain alcohol. Hangs out in neighborhood bars and tries to pick up [MOTAS] by drinking longshoremen under the table .
5 AristotlePagaltzis 272 Idiot::
273 Reads ''Time'' and ''Newsweek'' -- and *believes* them. Drinks Jagermeister. Tries to pick up close blood relations -- often succeeds, producting next generation of Idiots.
2 JohnMcPherson 274
5 AristotlePagaltzis 275 !! 1992 Presidential Election
2 JohnMcPherson 276
5 AristotlePagaltzis 277 Technical Thug::
278 Clinton, but only because he liked Gore's book.
279 Administrative Fascist::
280 Bush. Possibly Clinton, but only because he liked Tipper.
281 Maniac::
282 Frank Zappa.
283 Idiot::
284 Perot.
2 JohnMcPherson 285
5 AristotlePagaltzis 286 !! 1996 Presidential Election
2 JohnMcPherson 287
5 AristotlePagaltzis 288 Technical Thug::
289 Richard Stallman -- Larry Wall.
290 Administrative Fascist::
291 Nixon - Buchanan.
292 Maniac::
293 Frank Zappa.
294 Idiot::
295 Quayle.
2 JohnMcPherson 296
5 AristotlePagaltzis 297 !! Compound System Administrators
2 JohnMcPherson 298
5 AristotlePagaltzis 299 Technical Fascist::
300 Hacks kernel and writes a horde of scripts to prevent folk from ever using more than their fair share of system resources. Resulting overhead and load brings system to its knees.
301 Technical Maniac::
302 Writes scripts that __seem__ to be monitoring the system, but are actually encrypting large lists of passwords. Uses nearby nodes as beta test sites for worms.
303 Technical Idiot::
304 Writes SuperUser-run scripts that sooner or later do an <tt>rm -rf /</tt>.
305 Fascistic Maniac::
306 At first hint of cracker incursions, whether real or imagined, shuts down system by triggering water-on-the-brain detectors and Halon system.
307 Fascistic Idiot::
308 <verbatim>
309 # cp /dev/null /etc/passwd
310 </verbatim>
311 Maniacal Idiot::
312 Napalms the [CPU].
2 JohnMcPherson 313
5 AristotlePagaltzis 314 ----
315 Part of CategoryFunny

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