What's the bare minimum permission set for Sql Server 2005 services?
Best practices recommend not installing Sql Server to run as SYSTEM. What is the bare minumum you need to give the user account you create for it? ...
system-administration
What technical considerations must a system/network administrator worry about when a site gets onto social bookmarking/sharing sites?
The reason I ask is that Stack Overflow has been Dugg, Slashdotted, and Redditted. First, what kinds of effect does this have on the servers that power a website? Second, what can be done by system administrators to ensure that their sites remain up and running as best as possible? ...
What are the Basics of Networking/Sys-administration Should a Programmer Know?
Like: Learning the basic troubleshooting skills Learning how to configure a network Understanding different types of networks etc. I was configuring a home network between my Windows and Ubuntu machine and I had a tough time doing it. I later figured out that both of them should be configured with the same subnet mask. I don't what t...
Simple free-or-cheap tool for rolling out Windows XP + standardized apps to a small computer lab?
I manage a high-school computer lab with ~40 machines, have old PCs with varying hardware. I need to roll out Windows XP + a standard set of apps and settings for new machines, and to re-format older machines. What tool is available to help with this? It doesn't have to be perfect, but if it minimizes the time I set in front of machine...
Which Desktop Virtualization software runs most smoothly?
Background: I'm running a full-time job and a part-time job in the weekends, and both my employers have supplied a laptop for me to work on. Of course I also have my powerful workstation at home to work from, and sometimes when I'm at the office at my weekend job (it's in another city) I'm working from yet another workstation. Problem:...
Is there a monitoring tool like xentop that will track historical data?
I'd like to view historical data for guest cpu/memory/IO usage, rather than just current usage. ...
Managing the patch level of multiple windows systems
In an environment with multiple windows servers what is the best way to ensure patch compliance accross all systems? Is there a simple tool (some sort of client/server app?) that allows reports to be generated showing the status of all the systems so any that aren't automatically patching themselves can be fixed without having to manu...
Standardizing an IT environment
What useful tips and solutions do people have for taking an office full of various systems (ranging from ancient XP boxes to modern Vista laptops, and a mac thrown in for good measure) with no central facilities or servers and fixing it up as much as possible to reduce maintainence effors from the IT support? Having a complete, rigerous...
Server virtualization: how to avoid, locate and fix bottlenecks?
Server virtualization is a big thing these days, so I'm tasked at work to install some of our software on a virtualized server and see what happens. Long story short: a rsync transfer promptly brings the virtualized server to its knees. The virtualization host is a beefy machine with no other load; I don't think this should be happening....
Apache mod_rewrite RewriteRule question
I have this RewriteRule that works too well :-) RewriteRule ^([^/]*)/$ /script.html?id=$1 [L] The bad thing about this rule is that it also matches physical directories which I don't want. How can I tell the mod_rewrite to ignore physical directories and apply the above rule only when the directory matched does not exist? Thanks in a...
Which book would you recommend for a Linux Sysadmin?
Linux Administration Handbook by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder and Trent R. Hein is the defacto for sysadmins.Any other favorites besides this one. ...
How are permissions inherited on an Ubuntu Server?
Sorry for the second newbie question, I'm a developer not a sysadmin so this is all quite new to me. I hope I can explain myself clearly! Here goes. Here's what I did: Logged into the root account Created the accounts 'richard' and 'austin' Created the group 'developers', and added 'richard' and 'austin' to it Created the directory /s...
Hooking up Reporting Services 2005SP2 to SQL Server 2008
I am trying to configure Reporting Services 2005SP2 on a machine with SQL 2008 on another hosting the ReportServer DB. When I create the ReportServerDB the DB is created as version C.0.9.45: When, afterwards, I try to initialise Reporting Services, I get an error about an incorrect version number. Reporting Services created a ReportSer...
Which Python book would you recommend for a Linux Sysadmin?
Python for Unix and Linux System Administration is aimed at sysadmins. Any other favorites besides this. ...
How to map a network drive to be used by a service
Suppose some Windows service uses code that wants mapped network drives and no UNC paths. How can I make the drive mapping available to the service's session when the service is started? Logging in as the service user and creating a persistent mapping will not establish the mapping in the context of the actual service. ...
How much of Linux should I learn in order to deploy web sites using LAMP?
Being a Windows developer I'm currently working on my own project using LAMP. I understand what I need to know of PHP and MySQL, but Linux looks huge and it's not clear where to start and what is enough given my goals. And my goals are to grasp general concepts, being able to deploy the project to a hosting provider and to be able to mon...
The Neglected Stakeholder a.k.a the System Administrator
Some time ago I came to realize that almost every customer project that I have been working on so far has neglected an important group of stakeholders: the system administrators. These silent heroes are usually only involved at the end of a project and are left with an executable black box of bits that they have to install, support, and...
Growing as a system administrator
The last couple years have placedme in charge of system administrator at a couple of small companies I work at. Mostly on small dev machines running Linux, but a couple of times in the full spotlight of internet facing large scale systems. I am a strong developer, but a weak system administrator. I can run a basic LAMP stack, keep it ...
How can I change features in Windows Vista programatically?
I'm looking for a way to programatically change features ("Programs and Features" -> "Turn Windows Features on or off") in Windows Vista (and newer Redmond OS, e.g. Server 2008). Ideal solution would be in the form of a Powershell script (Get-Features, Set-Features), however any pointers to MSDN/other documentation would be very welcome...
As a developer, what changes or installs, do you make on a vanilla OS X system?
As an example these are some of the things I always do when starting a new machine: Install 'Visor' - gives you an always available HUD style terminal window via F1. Install 'Clix' - run a million system customization command line instructions. Install 'Default App' - self explanatory. Set 'Terminal.app' to open and be hidden automa...