From: mhatz@SPAMGUARD.raven.phs.com Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: Unix intervier Date: 13 Jan 1998 04:53:53 GMT Organization: The Unix Fire Base Lines: 13 Sender: Mike Hatz Message-ID: <69es11$7dm$2@jinn.phs.com> References: <34B23743.55AB@pidsoft.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: raven.phs.com X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 unoff BETA 970613; alpha OSF1 V4.0] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!atl-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!mis3!mis2!jinn.phs.com!not-for-mail Vladig wrote: V>Hi everyone ! V>I am a UNIX beginner.I'm about a week I am going to have V>ajob intervier for a UNIX Administrator. V>Do you have any advise for me ? Any tips ? Tell the truth. Be candid in what you know and don't know. I have a list of about 20 questions I use to ferret out the "users/developers" from the sysadmins. Mike ========== 24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not! ###### From: "Dr. Dolphin" Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: Unix intervier Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 23:32:05 -0500 Organization: Hoss Still Sucks, Inc. Lines: 19 Message-ID: <34C03445.A0464B45@usa.net> References: <34B23743.55AB@pidsoft.com> <69es11$7dm$2@jinn.phs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: octans14.wco.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (WinNT; U) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!solaris.cc.vt.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!peerfeed.ncal.verio.net!news.ncal.verio.com!not-for-mail Can we see those 20 questions? DD mhatz@SPAMGUARD.raven.phs.com wrote: > > Vladig wrote: > V>Hi everyone ! > V>I am a UNIX beginner.I'm about a week I am going to have > V>ajob intervier for a UNIX Administrator. > V>Do you have any advise for me ? Any tips ? > > Tell the truth. Be candid in what you know and don't > know. I have a list of about 20 questions I use to ferret > out the "users/developers" from the sysadmins. > > Mike > ========== > 24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not! ###### From: cmbrown@AAntispam.NET (Daniel Brown) Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: Unix intervier Date: 18 Jan 1998 03:10:28 GMT Organization: Alternate Access Inc. Lines: 19 Message-ID: References: <34B23743.55AB@pidsoft.com> <69es11$7dm$2@jinn.phs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.157.220.252 X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.3.2 UNIX) Cache-Post-Path: slave1.aa.net!unknown@cust12.max6.seattle-k56.aa.net Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.229.87.25!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!206.63.63.70!nwnews.wa.com!ixa.net!news.aa.net!cmbrown In article <69es11$7dm$2@jinn.phs.com>, mhatz@SPAMGUARD.raven.phs.com wrote: >Vladig wrote: >V>Hi everyone ! >V>I am a UNIX beginner.I'm about a week I am going to have >V>ajob intervier for a UNIX Administrator. >V>Do you have any advise for me ? Any tips ? > >Tell the truth. Be candid in what you know and don't >know. I have a list of about 20 questions I use to ferret >out the "users/developers" from the sysadmins. Out of curiosity, what are those questions? -- Daniel Brown | Linux: The choice of a GNU generation # cmbrown at aa.net | Real Hackers are Zen programmers: # Seattle, Washington | http://www.ccil.org/jargon/ # ====================^=======================================~ NOTE!!! Change the FROM: address when sending mail! ###### Message-ID: <34C22944.C3965752@toad.net> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 11:09:40 -0500 From: "Gary L. Burt" Reply-To: glburt@toad.net Organization: Burt Computer Applications X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: Unix intervier References: <34B23743.55AB@pidsoft.com> <69es11$7dm$2@jinn.phs.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.49.30.52 Lines: 37 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsfeed.icanect.net!newsfeed.kcdata.com!news6.kcdata.com!209.49.30.52 I would also like to see the questions. I teach UNIX System Administration and would like to make sure that my students have learned enough to compete in the job market. Those questions could be a standard to measure my objects. TIA. Gary Burt Adjunct Associate Professor Prince George's Community College ------------------------------------ Lecture UMBC Daniel Brown wrote: > In article <69es11$7dm$2@jinn.phs.com>, mhatz@SPAMGUARD.raven.phs.com wrote: > >Vladig wrote: > >V>Hi everyone ! > >V>I am a UNIX beginner.I'm about a week I am going to have > >V>ajob intervier for a UNIX Administrator. > >V>Do you have any advise for me ? Any tips ? > > > >Tell the truth. Be candid in what you know and don't > >know. I have a list of about 20 questions I use to ferret > >out the "users/developers" from the sysadmins. > > Out of curiosity, what are those questions? > > -- > Daniel Brown | Linux: The choice of a GNU generation # > cmbrown at aa.net | Real Hackers are Zen programmers: # > Seattle, Washington | http://www.ccil.org/jargon/ # > ====================^=======================================~ > NOTE!!! Change the FROM: address when sending mail! ###### From: hagan@cih-gw.cih.com (Craig I. Hagan) Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: Unix intervier Date: 19 Jan 1998 13:03:38 -0500 Organization: MediaOne -=- Northeast Region Lines: 124 Message-ID: References: <34B23743.55AB@pidsoft.com> <69es11$7dm$2@jinn.phs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: eggs.ne.mediaone.net X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.4.66/Emacs 19.34 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!24.128.1.125!chnws03.mediaone.net!24.128.1.107!chnws04.ne.mediaone.net!not-for-mail cmbrown@AAntispam.NET (Daniel Brown) writes: > In article <69es11$7dm$2@jinn.phs.com>, mhatz@SPAMGUARD.raven.phs.com wrote: > >Vladig wrote: > >V>Hi everyone ! > >V>I am a UNIX beginner.I'm about a week I am going to have > >V>ajob intervier for a UNIX Administrator. > >V>Do you have any advise for me ? Any tips ? > > > >Tell the truth. Be candid in what you know and don't > >know. I have a list of about 20 questions I use to ferret > >out the "users/developers" from the sysadmins. > > Out of curiosity, what are those questions? I can't speak for him, but, i'll gladly drop some of my questions onto the floor. I prefer very general questions which allow the candidate to go with it and demonstrate jack-of-all trade knowledge. I prefer to have scrap paper handy so that pictures and other errata can be drawn or written down. whiteboards work, too, but are 'more formal'. I'm going to state that I dislike questions like "what are the 5 lowercase flags not allowed in the BSD ls command?", "explain in excruciating detail the difference between sysV printing and BSD printing", "what is the difference between and 's implementation of " I dislike minutia. if the person knows their shit, then they can read and grok the manpage -- and save those brain cells for learning the next crazy tech wave. I'm going to restrict myself to unix. personally, i like asking across the board, unix, IP, etc. as a function of how people respond to questions - if they show knowledge in a specific direction, then i'd like to explore it -- who knows, that unix person might be an awesome net engineer, too. first, my favorite. this often can be the only "primary" question as you can go nearly anywhere with it. "Explain what happens, with as much detail as you can, what happens when someone tries to telnet to a typical unix box" I usually continue this in quasi-discussion to see how low i can get the person. I'm looking for everything from the client resolving the address, reverse lookups on the server, inetd, telnetd forking, login being run, tty permissions, authentication, low level ethernet stuff, IP networking (basic sockets, sockets programming: connect/bind/accept), yp/NIS, etc perhaps i'll go into adding/deleting the service from inetd, how to secure it, etc as a function of the discussion. For fun, i can ask for an explanation to be given assuming that I knew nothing. This gives me an idea of how well the person can present information to the average user. And, yes, even IP sockets can be explained to joe six-pack (think about how the 1950's telephone operator worked, analogies can then start flowing). my next favorite "If you had a sufficient budget and no political problems, what would be your ideal environment? how would you set it up? how would you design it to handle a very large userbase (10000+), with hundreds to thousands of workstations running both windows and unix" this almost sounds like a setup. there really isn't a correct answer, which is the point. I know what i would say (things like distributed filesystems, common login, etc), but, other people have different opinions -- and their opinions in this sort of environment have much to do with both where they have been and what they have done. Since it is something that people don't usually get asked (i have backups for this :) ) most people haven't really prepared except for "wishing" when on the job. I can ask where compromises could be made, why specific technologies would be used (and how they work). Gotta have a problem solving one: "We've got a unix server which crashes partway through bootup, how would i go about fixing it?" looking for the basics here, nothing fancy. single user mode, putting the disk on another box, etc. comments like "the os disk should be separate from the data disk" are noticed. Another interesting one. This is mostly to see how much the candidate has been around the block with installation stuff as well as basic system security. "If you were tasked with installing a cluster of unix servers running to run as internet servers, how would you prefer the hardware configured? How would you configure the OS? What criteria would you use to choose the server software? How would you setup the machine to reduce the chance of crackers getting into it?" Again, very open ended. another lots of fun one where things like packetfiltering, proxies, revieable sources, known vendor things, patches, suid code, tripwire, etc all come into play. -- craig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig I. Hagan "It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to back it up" hagan(at)cih.com "True hackers don't die, their ttl expires" "It takes a village to raise an idiot, but an idiot can raze a village" Stop the spread of spam, use a sendmail condom! http://www.cih.com/~hagan/smtpd-hacks In Bandwidth we trust