Advice on becoming a systems admin.

[tieflingrogue]

Hi. I'm looking for advice on making a career change. Currently, I'm a statistical analyst at an insurance company.

I'm been using linux at home for 10+ years and really enjoy tinkering with it, so I've decided to try and make a career out of it. As far as formal education goes, I have a masters degree in mathematics. I live in the Silicon valley area so there are tons of community colleges and training programs available.

I'm looking for advice on how to become a systems administrator: schooling, certifications....any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[tech_man]

Do you still have your sanity?

[tieflingrogue]

No, I'm afraid I lost that along time ago.

[tech_man]

Great! You can jump right in!

[anomie]

tieflingrogue,

If you're planning to become a Linux sysadmin, be prepared to take a pay cut and start at the junior level. (On the other hand, I don't know what you make now and I actually don't want to know -- maybe it won't be such a big cut.)

The best course of action, IMO, will be to express interest within your own organization. If you're valued there, someone may be able to open some doors and put you on the right track.

Be prepared to explain and demonstrate all the steps you've taken to become competent in the skills. As for schooling, that will obviously depend on what you know and how much of it you're comfortable with.

At a minimum you should probably be familiar with:

• Network protocols: tcp, udp, icmp
• Common services: apache, sshd, sendmail/postfix, bind, mysql, postgresql, cups
• Scripting / automating: bash + python or perl
• iptables/netfilter
• System startup and configuration peculiarities among the various prominent server distros -- namely, RHEL/CentOS and Debian.
• Troubleshooting a variety of workstation and server level problems.

If I could suggest one book as required reading, it'd be:
Linux Administration Handbook
by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Trent R. Hein

That should help get you up to speed on some important areas.

Anyway, good luck!

[the bassinvader]

Do you still have your sanity?Well somebody has to bite........ why did you ask that?

[tieflingrogue]

Thanks for the info. I'll check that book out.

I'm going to talk to a few people I know in IT but my gut feeling is that I should not express my interest to my boss. She always reacts negatively when people leave and usually says not so good things about them, so I don't want to shoot myself in the foot by talking to her at the onset. With that said, I'm not sure what my chances are at my current organization.



What about certifications: Linux+, LPIC, or Redhat engineer or others? Would anyone recommend doing certifications,.....can't hurt right? Which certifications carry the most weight?

[tech_man]

Do you still have your sanity?

Well somebody has to bite........ why did you ask that?

Phone rings at 3 in the morning, and the voice on the other end says, "Uh, the servers down. Can you have it up in a half an hour?"

[anomie]

Would anyone recommend doing certifications,.....can't hurt right? Which certifications carry the most weight?

There are a number of threads about certs on this forum.

Certainly, certifications can't hurt but they are also not particularly easy or inexpensive to acquire. Personally I'd recommend trying to get into a situation where your employer will pay for (or at least partially subsidize) the training + cert.

[likwid]

Practice shell scripting and/or a scripting language like python or perl. This skill is essential even for junior admins.
On the topic of certs: My phone started ringing and email piling up after I got LPIC and RHCT (was putting it off for years, doh!) and put it on my resume on dice and monster. RHCE would probably have been about double the calls; RHCE carries the most weight. Even though I had all this knowledge and experience to complete these certs probably by the time I was 17, employers don't stop on your resume without seeing some kind of certification. The certs catch their eye! On top of this, within a couple months I was offered a job by a huge open source provider. Know your stuff, get your certs, and post your resume. AND you have a masters in math. That is uber stuff right there, you'd have a pretty killer resume with all that.