System and Network Administration
What Is a Sysadmin?
• In a “small company” the Sysadmin may be the entire
information technology staff.
– The Sysadmin may do everything from telephone,
to fax, to computer management.
– Sysadmin may have to order supplies, deal with
users, develop software and repair hardware
• In a large company the Sysadmin may be one member
of a large group.
– May be responsible for one aspect of the data
center operation.
• Programmers
• Database Administrators
• Network Administrators
• Operators
Common Sysadmin Traits
• A Sysadmin is a customer service agent!
• The Sysadmin must be able to communicate with
technical and non-technical users.
• The Sysadmin should be patient, and have a sense of
humor.
• The Sysadmin must be able to solve difficult technical
problems.
• The Sysadmin must be able to work in a group setting.
• The Sysadmin must document activities in order to
reproduce the results.
What Does a Sysadmin Do?
• Plan and manage the machine room environment
– design machine room; specify cooling, cabling, power
connections, and environmental controls (fire alarm,
security)
• Install and maintain operating system software,
application software, and patches.
• Determine hardware and software pre-requisites,
which patch to install, which services to provide, and
which services to disable.
• Schedule downtime to perform upgrades/patches, and
test devices and schedule downtime to manage
devices.
• Install and maintain user accounts; develop acceptable
use policy and login-name policy; determine password
change policies; install/configure/manage name
services; and manage licenses.
• Determine disk quota, police/manage disk space, and
monitor log files.
• Train users on software and security.
• Ensure that users have access to documentation.
• Help users and provide help-desk support and
problem tracking system to answer user questions.
• Configure network services:
• Printing, file sharing, name service.
• Determine file sharing needs and printing policies.
• Manage security for shared resources.
• Install/maintain system devices, hardware/drivers;
specify supported devices; determine spares practices.
• Install/configure/manage web servers, configure web
access agents
• Configure and maintain business applications
• web agents
• e-mail
• calendar software
• order/problem tracking software
• Install/configure/manage e-mail software
• Mail transfer agents.
• Mail readers.
• Configure and manage system security
• security for business applications,
• install/configure "firewall" software to limit
intruder access,
• collect evidence in case of successful intrusion
and clean up after intrusion
• Configure and maintain connectivity between hosts
• monitor connectivity
• troubleshoot connectivity problems
• investigate complaints of poor response
• Configure and maintain system backups,
• determine backup strategy and policies, and
• configure backup software
• perform backups
• determine disaster survival plans
• perform restores
• Troubleshoot and repair system problems; and
determine, locate, and repair/replace problem
components
• Document the system, and develop and maintain
documentation on local setup and local policies
Skills Required
• Delegation and Time Management
• Ethics
• Ability to create/follow Policies and Procedures
• Desire to learn
• Customer Service Attitude
• Knowledge of technical aspects
• Hardware
• Software
• Problem Solving
Active Directory
Just as the combination of a database and a database
management system collects and organizes
information about an institution/company/… as well
as manages access to that information, Active
Directory collects, organizes and manages access to
information about network “objects” – such as
computers, servers, printers, users, groups, etc.
For instance, one component is a Directory Service
Often likened to a phone book which one to look
up numbers (from names) or services (yellow
pages)
Active Directory is often just called AD
For example AD-DS is active
Standards
Active Directory is based upon some of the following
standards (though not fully compliant with all of them)
DNS – AD needs DNS to work, follows its
organization and naming conventions
X.500 – directory service protocol based on the
OSI model (AD does not use the full X.500
standard)
LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol ) –
part of the X.500 standard was Directory Access
Protocol – LDAP is a scaled down, easier version of
that
Kerberos – network authentication protocol – adds
the security to AD
Hierarchical Arrangement
Whereas a database has a “relational” structure, the
objects in AD have a hierarchical, tree-like structure.
Thus there is a root
Every object other than the root has one and only
one parent.
However, it can get complicated in that there are
various levels (domains, organizational units,
groups) as well as distinctions between logical
separations and physical separations.
Domain
A domain is one of the main organizational units in
Active Directory.
It collects resources and manages access to them for a
set of users.
For instance users being logged in the same
domain typically implies that those users will for
the most part have access to the same resources
and follow the same policies
In Active Directory diagrams, domains are
represented by triangles.
Domain Controller
An AD domain must have at least one AD domain
controller.
The domain controller manages the authentication of
users granting them access to the domain and the
resources it contains.
Best Practices suggests that there are at least two
domain controllers in a domain so that access to the
domain can still be granted if one controller is down.
Tree
A tree is a set of domains that obey a DNS-type
hierarchical naming structure. They belong to the
same “namespace”.
Forest
As the name suggests a forest is a collection of trees.
Each tree has a its own namespace, but the different
trees in the forest have different namespaces. However
you may want them to be connected in some way –
have some kind of trust relationship, some sharing of
resources or just want to administer them as a unit.
The first tree is the root
The trees in a forest still share a common root.
The first tree in the forest serves as the root.
Trust
If two domains have a trust relationship, it means that
users from one domain can access resources from
another domain.
That way an administrator does not have to give
users accounts in both domains.
The domain with the resource is said to be
“trusting” and the domain with the user is said to
be “trusted”. Trust can be but doesn’t have to be
a two-way street.
Organizational Unit
Before we were moving up in the hierarchy from the
original concept of a domain, an organizational unit on
the other hand is lower in the hierarchy (farther from
the root)
It is a container within a domain – resources like
printers and file shares organized into smaller
containers.
Example within the student.lasalle.edu domain,
science students may be access to different shares and
different printers from business students, etc.
