User:Fostermarkd/SysAdminTips

This page is a collection point for system administration tips. I've been doing sysadmin since '95.

Do

Use DNS, /etc/hosts does not scale and will quickly become a nightmare.
Keep your hostnames short as possible (so they're easy to type) and abstracted (see service-name abstraction)
- In other words, if you build a host that will be a nameserver, don't assign it a hostname of ns1 because ns1 is a service-name
Use a consistent naming scheme
Maintain a system catalog once you get beyond managing a handful of systems
- Categorize into Server, Switch, Router, Desktop, Laptop, Printer and so on
- RT Asset Tracker works nice for this if you add the custom fields for RAM, CPU, Make, Model and so on
- A spreadsheet will work too on a smaller scale
Use LDAP to centralize system accounts, mailboxes and so forth. Utilize phpLDAPadmin or gq to manage this data.
Use monit but judiciously & in moderation
Monitor using combination of nagios (alerting) & cacti (trending) or something the integrates the two like zabbix or opennms.

TBD