Chapter 1: What Is the Role of a System Administrator?

Few things in our industry sound like they should be simpler to answer than this one, simple question: what is a system administrator? And yet, ask anyone and you'll get some widely differing opinions. Everyone seems to have their own take on what the title or role of System Administrator implies, including and possibly most varying in people who use this title for themselves or from the companies that hand it out!

Welcome to system administration and specifically Best Practices of Linux Administration. In this chapter we are going to dive into understanding the job, role, and functions of a real system administrator and try to understand how we, in that role, fit into an organization.

Get Linux Administration Best Practices now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.