WYNTK: UNIX System Admininistrator

Administrators have many responsibilities; user support is only one of them.

Although administrators need to address user problems, individual users can’t always be their highest priority. Administrators need to take care of systemwide issues before they can spend time on problems that only involve a single user. For example, if the system is nearly out of space or the network connection is down, an administrator shouldn’t stop working on that problem just to help a user print a memo.

Moving to UNIX from a Mac or PC

	Mac users have a steeper learning curve coming to UNIX than DOS users do. DOS users are at least familiar with a command-line interface: putting spaces before options, piping output of commands, and a tree-like structure of files. DOS users are used to pathnames. Mac users have folders, but they don’t tend to think of them in that hierarchical manner.
	--Mary Jane Caswell-Stephenson

Some office environments have a squad of administrators who are happy to help you with your every move. More commonly, however, offices have a handful (or fewer) of overworked administrators, whose responsibilities include:

• Maintaining hardware, including computers, terminals, printers, modems, and sometimes even the phone system

• Maintaining software, including the operating system, applications, servers, etc.

• Maintaining the network, not only the physical network, but also the configuration of servers

• Maintaining computer security

• Ordering new hardware, software, etc. (which means spending a lot of time talking with salespeople)

• Installing new hardware, software, etc.

• Doing backups

• Training users

• Problem solving

When there are multiple administrators at a single site, the administrators are likely to break up these responsibilities among each other, each becoming a “specialist” in a certain area. Think of it like health care: like the human body, computer networks are complex, and a single practitioner can’t always fix a problem without consulting others with more expertise. At one site, you may have a Macintosh administrator, a PC administrator, a hardware expert, someone else who works primarily on network configurations, and someone who performs printer support. The nature of a problem may overlap several different fields — so if you have trouble printing from your PC, it may involve PC, printer, and network expertise.

There may also be an administrator dedicated to user support. If so, then you should probably look for the user support person before you consult anyone else, the same way you often have to see a primary care doctor before you make an appointment with a chiropractor.

How did you feel learning UNIX?

	I learned UNIX by the kindness of strangers. I learned who knew something about the system and who wouldn’t growl at me if I asked.
	--Joan Callahan

	I hated UNIX when I first met it. The hardest part was knowing how to find information. And there are so many ways of doing things that you never know which is the best way. Later on, I found I liked UNIX. But I didn’t realize that I liked it until I went back to my old system and found myself saying, “Where are my directories? Where’s the grep command?”
	--Ellen Siever

	The way I learned stuff was asking more knowledgeable people in the office. Or sometimes someone watches me do something and they say “I can’t believe you do it this way,” and they show me a better way to do it. I keep a notebook by my computer now with all sorts of notes about things to do. If it’s in my notebook, then I feel that I know it, or at least can do it.
	--Nicole Gipson

	I first encountered UNIX at Columbia University. The college computer center had literally thousands of users. There was no chance of ever finding a system administrator. The university would hire students as consultants, who were supposedly available over email. If you sent mail to a consultant, you would either get no response or occasionally, after waiting days or weeks, an “I don’t know.” We were thrown back on our own resources.
	--Arsenio Santos

	The calculator was the most complicated thing I had ever used before I came to work here. And it was one of the really simple ones—it didn’t even have a cosine button. I don’t program a VCR, and I don’t have an answering machine. I’m the least technical person. I had never used a computer before. Well, actually, I did. I used my friend’s computer in college to type papers. But when I needed to change anything, like even to fix a typo or something, he would have to do it for me. Now I really like UNIX. I can do things. When I have a problem now, I try to see if I can figure it out myself.
	--Jane Appleyard