Time Management for System Administrators

this chapter reveal how to parse command-line options and even how to write a small malware detector!

When writing a long command line, test each part as you write it.

When writing code for other people, the user interface becomes more important. There are tricks and techniques to creating useful user interfaces. You can avoid the issue by shifting all data entry to a program like MS Excel or by providing a menu system or web interface that lets people access higher-privileged systems.

When writing code to let users do privileged operations, be extremely careful. Build on security tools that already exist and have good credibility, such as sudo. Use a permission table to explain to management who will have access to what. It is their job to manage risk and your job to help them understand the issues. Get approval before you deploy the system.

As you move through your career, you will find yourself automating more and more tasks. It is a good idea to learn a programming language suited for system administration functions, such as Perl, Python, Ruby, or Shell, as well as operating-specific techniques like those featured in the O'Reilly Cookbook series mentioned previously in this book.

Appendix A. Epilogue

Congratulations. You've made it all the way to the end of the book. So now what?

First, I recommend you reread the book. We learn through repetition. If you reread (or skim) the book while the topics are fresh in your mind, it will have a strong impact.

Second, practice makes perfect. The more you practice the techniques in this book, the better you will get at them. Suddenly, you'll find yourself knowing the techniques so well that you'll be able to customize them and improve them in ways that make sense for your particular lifestyle or situation. One reader found that he was better able to manage his daily to do lists when he swapped the sides of his organizer where he put his schedule and to do items. Who knew? Whatever floats your boat! I just recommend you try my way first to get a sense of the system.

Third, accept slippage. Sometimes you will lapse into your old habits. That's OK, as long as you recognize it and get back to using the techniques as soon as you can. It might be helpful to reread the appropriate chapter for some inspiration.

Fourth, you might consider reading some traditional time management books, ones not written for system administrators in particular. This book focuses on the things specific to the system administration lifestyle and leaves a lot of general topics to the other books that cover them very well. I recommend Getting Things Done by David Allen (http://www.davidco.com).

What to Do with All Your 'New' Free Time?

The techniques in this book may save you hours, if not days, each week. If you save a little more than an hour per day, you can get the same amount of work done in a four-day workweek .

So, what will you do with all this free time ?

Please don't squander it. I beg you. When I first started applying time management techniques to my life, I used all the new free time I gained on my then-current addiction: reading more Usenet NetNews. I guess the contemporary equivalent is to spend it reading RSS feeds, blogs, web sites, and such. Many such things are time wasters. Please don't use your new-found free time to pack more time wasters into your life.

I have a better idea.

Use this new-found free time to fight injustice.

The most common injustice that I see every day is the way corporations steal our lives away from our families. We wake up one day to find that our children have grown up hardly knowing us, or that our significant others are leaving because they hardly see us. 'How did the time pass so quickly?', we wonder to ourselves.

There used to be the so-called 'implied social contract.' We work for a company 40 hours a week and in return we are paid enough to live plus a pension to retire on. It was a fair deal. However corporations now expect more and more of our time with no increased benefit to us. Geeks typically work 60–70 hours a week only to be laid off en masse due to the bad business decisions of clueless CEOs that are paid hundreds, if not thousands, times our salary. When I was at AT&T/Lucent in the 1990s, we were constantly reminded that we should expect less job security from the company whether or not we did a good job. We were told to praise the shift from guaranteed pensions to 'every man for himself' 401(k)s. And yet, in my final years working there, the management was shocked and dismayed to find less loyalty from the employees. Loyalty is a two-way street.

Want to do something radical? Revolutionary? Use the techniques in