A Skinner Box to teach Unix to an NT admin.

[reddragdiva]

This is the task list I wrote to get competent NT admins quickly up to speed on Solaris. It's not directly relevant to Linux and so on, or, indeed, many of your lives. But I prepared it for posting for zey, so thought I might as well make an entry of it. The idea is to start them on the PFY stuff and show them where the good stuff is.

Unix tasks to learn

1. Backup setup (days and weekends) [as per local procedure]

2. How to deal with simple backup problems (see my doc)

3. Learning to use vi (the Unix text editor) - essential! (Start with a vi cheat-sheet and use it as much as possible. There is also a Windows version available if you want to practice more.)

4. Setting up user accounts [as per local procedure]

5. Installing or changing hardware on Sun workstations (types of hardware, typical tasks, how to tell Solaris about the hardware)

6. Applications - what to ask [app support guy], what to work out oneself - how things work, how things are launched off the [application launcher] menu

7. Go through Solaris OE Guide for New System Administrators - "the 20% that tells you 80% of what you need."

8. Go through Unix documentation folder, read everything at least once [my site-specific notes]

9. Solaris 8 System Administration Guide - bookmark these URLs and skim over the contents pages to get an idea where to look things up - http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/805-7228 , http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/805-7229 , http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/806-0916

10. Look at http://docs.sun.com/ , familiarise yourself with it. Most of what you want is here, you just have to find it (the search is rubbish).

Documentation is listed as a task, because everything on Solaris is documented - you have to learn the basics by reading about them, then trying them, and learn where to look up other problems.

Your suggestions are welcomed. It needs better stuff, rather than more - the list is too long already. (The hardest part is teaching them to learn from those squiggles on a page or command line, rather than bright shiny pictures, ticky boxes and clicky buttons on a screen.) Generalised equivalents of the above, too.

And if they're not competent, the list above is sufficiently eminently reasonable that it'll be readily apparent to your mutual boss in short order.

Edit: Please, less vi flamewar and more useful NT admin herding tips!

Comments

[twicezero.livejournal.com]

One of the earliest things i was taught was how to use man. How to really use it, and understand the different sections you can select. So i completely agree with you on the documentation front.

Do NT people need to know the basic file system differences (soft links, hard links and other stuff... sorry its been a loooong time *grin*)?

[reddragdiva]

Not for these purposes. But the concept isn't hard - Unix links work the way Windows links pretend to.

(Links in Windows are actually a plain old file that the OS reads and knows to treat as a link - so, being at the wrong layer, they don't in fact work transparently or reliably in applications, and are ridiculously fucked up in any practical use beyond the trivial.)

[phelyan.livejournal.com]

3. Make sure they know the basic vi commands, but try and get them to vim, which has a couple of nice features. (ObLink: The VI Reference Mug (http://www.geekcheat.com/products.php))

10. Use google to search on Sun's pages. ;)

[reddragdiva]

3. We don't have vim installed on the Sun boxes (and won't - corporate procedure is now minimal installs). But it was the Windows clone I was thinking of.

10. You are, of course, quite correct. I had to do just that to find the correct link for the 20:80 guide listed in point 7 - it's on BigAdmin, so of course the search on docs.sun.com couldn't find it. ARGH. I left suitable feedback.

[reddragdiva]

And your cheat-sheet link is much better than the one I had before ;-)

[phelyan.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Rumour has it there's also the 'Emacs Reference Coffee Service for 6' ;)

[zenmonkeykstop.livejournal.com]

It would be funnier if they printed it upside down.

[vatine]

Nooo! Noooo! Not vim! Augh! the colours, the colours! I am very firmly in the "trad vi if I can get it, nvi or M-x viper-mode if I cannot."

[phelyan.livejournal.com]

I find the colours actually help when trawling through 1200 lines of java code trying to find your way around the logic. I've only been doing this shit for 8 years, so I guess I'm a later-generation not-quite-geek. You know, the kind that prefers elm to mail ;)

[vatine]

elm? mail? You mean dd isn't the way to read mail? Darn! Saying that, I don't like colourised code at all, it disturbs my (non-colour-honed) discrimination systems. On *paper* I find it useful though. But, then, I am an atavist who started coding C using ed.

[phelyan.livejournal.com]

Ed? Ed? Wasn't that before people started using punch cards, 'cause it's easier? ;)

[vatine]

I like ed. I still use ed in (some) semi-interactive shell scripts (typical example, bung commands that shouldn't be done *too* many times in a row, because they cause load, then simply do ``sed -n "1,6p" file; (echo "1,6d"; echo "wq") | ed file'' and cut&paste). It ain't pretty, but it's damned portable.

[dagwast.livejournal.com]

The reason all sysadmins need to know vi (not vim or viper, real vi) and ed is not because they are superior editors but because you will find yourself in situations where that is all you have. Arguing the virtues of vim vs emacs (hint, vim is better) is something you can do in your spare time, but when you have to rescue a system using only ed, echo and cat as your text editing tools you'll be glad you took the time to learn ed.

[xthlcm.livejournal.com]

Wow, so there are truly-honestly people who prefer coding without syntax highlighting? And not just trying to establish proof-positive that their core is harder than thine? How DO your discrimination systems work (not trolling, truly curious)?

I mean, I started off programming without any kind of tool-based assistance (console emacs). Then I discovered font-lock, and my productivity ratcheted up a notch. About a year ago, IDEs finally reached the point where I would consider them worth the bloat -- context-sensitive completion, COMPLETELY remappable key bindings, and embedded refactoring support. I'd say I'm now probably 2-3 times more efficient when working with larger codebases. I mean, I'll revert to a plaintext editor when throwing together a script or maybe a quickie CGI program. But the thought of doing all my development in such an environment -- it would feel like hacking wearing a straitjacket, with broken toes and my bits tied in a knot.

[vatine]

I prefer coding without highlights of any sort. I find it distracting. I am not disputing that it *could* work for me, but so far I haven't seen a set-up that makes things easier to read (on-screen). I have successfully used syntax highlighting on printed code (by going over the C source to xlisp, highlighting every "start of function" with a high-light pen, I guess further separation between functions could've made it un-necessary) and I've seen printed code (in proportional font) with things like "function declaration" in bold and comments in cursive.

I think part of it is that I tend to edit my code in either "yellow on blue" or "green on black" and no standard highlight scheme works and getting one that works is too much initial effort.

How it works? I look at the "shape" of the code. If that makes any sense? possibly also helped by my C coding conventions (most every function has a massive comment at the start). A typical example, grabbed from dribble:

/*
 * Func: read_action
 * In: (char *name), (Action *) actptr
 * Out: (int) status
 * Descr: Fill in ACTPTR, according to the data for the action with NAME.
 *        Return 0 on success, something else otherwise.
 */
int read_action (char *name, Action *this)
{
  DIR *action;
  char path[MAXPATHLEN];
  struct stat statbuf;
  struct dirent *entry;
  int rv, type = 0;
  Llist *items = NULL;
  Llist *exits = NULL;

It may help that I tend to read my own code, not other people's code (to any large degree, I Am Not A Programmer, I Just Write Code).

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

The colours in vim can be disabled simply:
:syntax off
And on sensible installs they're off by default. Solaris's trad vi is crap; I gave up on expecting it to work after the second time that typing
9p
did The Wrong Thing (it does not paste nine times. It trivially obviously should, just like any other command preceded by the number nine will be repeated nine times). Heck, even Sun's own people think Solaris vi sucks donkey balls (and the chap I'm thinking of likes vi-like interfaces).

[vatine]

Only environment where I regularly stumble on vim rather than nvi/vi is on RedHat and mandrake boxes and they default to "very colourful". I'll probably end up having ":syntax off" in a text file I'm doing a "quick edit" on in emacs any day now. I already have a (setq wq "This is emacs, not vi!") in my emacs init files.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Deadrat and Mandrake in "silly defaults" shocker :)
Debian's default vi is nvi; they also provide elvis and vim and viper.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

heh. As far as I know, "vi" in redhat's still compiled from vim sources.

[reddragdiva]

:set compatible

As already written above, on Solaris they'll be using Genuine SVR4 vi. For Windows, vim is the most available vi clone, with the most extensive documentation (for once they're in the habit).

[poggs.livejournal.com]

I second your "...skim over the contents pages to get an idea where to look things up..." task. You can't learn everything, but the better techies either know where to look, or who to ask.

[dan-lane.livejournal.com]

Love those cheat sheet mugs!

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

ed is the standard editor, hippie.

[reddragdiva]

The whole point of SVR4 is to get people to take tabs of BSD in a corporate environment. All psychedelia shall be strictly controlled and in corporate grey!

[vampwillow]

oooh .... useful!!

(and seeing as how I have Solaris running on an old Ultra1 I really should know most of it, 'cept I am very rusty....)

(I shouldn't stand out in the rain so much)

[reddragdiva]

The 80:20 document, then the Handbook contents list. Gold, that stuff.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Not to mention installing gcc and then stuff like the gnu fileutils. Which is about the first thing that I do to a Solaris box to render it useable.

But in all honesty, the thing that all SAs are worst at, is writing down what they did, but I suspect that's a different problem. :-)

Sigh

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

Oh, the days when I hit reset to exit vi...and pronounced it like the guitarist's surname.

Re: Sigh

[reddragdiva]

Pronouncing it "vai" appears to be standard in the Sun world. Certainly on both Sun courses I did.

Re: Sigh

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

For reference, AIX instructors are rigorous about "vee-aye", as well as "cheh-mode" for chmod and "korn shell" for ksh. "Bourne shell" is mentioned about as often as "Neanderthal".

[hirez.livejournal.com]

11. Buy the 'Unix system administrator's handbook'

(Or watch in amusement as a linux weenie trys 'killall' on a currant-bun box...)

Edit: Please, less vi flamewar and more useful NT admin herding tips!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Boring!