About your interests with UNIX

[bhupesh m]

admins,
i am just few months with hpux and i am interested to ask you few questions about your unix interests.

1. i am seeing lot of things to learn in hpux or any unix. i like to know as much as possible and master few things like LVM, Ignite etc.. what u like actually with unix or hpux? ie, what u like to do? (take this question like "what is your field of interest in UNIX")
2. u invented something for UNIX? ie, any utilities u created that is ported in any UNIX or hpux?
3. what is your AIM? what u like to acheive in UNIX? any specfic interests?

Thanks. points given.

[bhupesh m]

take little bit time for analysing 1 and 3 questions. no need of a "fast response". but "good response" is needed.

[Ramaprasad N]

My answers in their order.
1 I would like to work on configuring and administering clusters on Unix. I am also interested to do SCM activities.
2 No inventions.
3 Mastering all of the HP Unix hardware.

-Ram

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom.

1. This is a good place to learn how to master things. I wouls suggest you really need to know LVM and I try and always do it from the command line. Ignite is complex, but is your freind. Its important for HP-UX to be well versed in SD/UX

2. I've taken other peoples work and improved it into a decent performance measurement package, http://www.hpux.ws/system.perf.sh

3. My aim is to be a craftsman. To build systems that are reliable and never go down during production hours.

SEP

[Jaime Bolanos Rojas.]

Bhupesh,

Certainly nobody will be able to know everything in unix, is too much, lvm is a good thing to learn, if you know nothing about, a sand box with 3 or 4 drives and a lot of practice building and destroying will give you what you want or even better a boot camp from HP. Ignite, hugh product but people uses it the most to recover systems.
I like resolving problems in HP-UX ( but I think that's because I work for a Solution Center ).
Field of interest, well a lot, right now getting into performance.

2- Not quite of an inventor ( let's say that nature did not give me that particular way to think )

3- Being good at what I do, sometimes even beyong my own expectations, I want to become really really really good at security or performance.

Regards,

Jaime.

[Doug O'Leary]

Hey;

Some suggestions for you before answering your questions:

1. Learn the command line; use sam if you must, but ensure you take the time to ID how to do the same things from the command line.

2. ID how HPUX systems boot - all the way from the ISP through runlevel 3.

3. Undersstand SD/UX; HP's method of distributing software. This will save you *LOTS* of time.

4. Understand LVM - particularly at the command line.

5. As you progress in your knowledge, learn scripting (ksh at a minimu, add perl later). The ability to automate complex tasks is what separates true senior admins from wannabes. Remember, a good script will make an admin's day - a bad one will ruin it.

Now, to answer your questions:

1. Security, scripting, performance monitoring and tuning.

2. I've written a rather large number of scripts - most of them tend to be inline, single use things.

3. I'd like to go deeper into security and possibly learn more about ldap.

Doug

[Michael Steele_2]

1. What do I like about UNIX: The command set grows and grows every year.

HP-UX is the most reliable of the different flavors.

Regarding mastering a few things: Ignite. Ignite will cover your job when that outage comes around with a recovery tape. Also fibre channel adapters, or, HBA's. HBAs are how you talk to disks in a SAN environment and everythings SAN.

2. Inventions? Many of my scripts and programms are still in use by previous employers from years ago. This is the agreement made with admins and programmers and employers; Employers get to keep what you invent.

3. AIM? I've reached my AIM. Programming isnt' where its at, administration is.

[Rick Garland]

UNIX in general is a career that allows you to constantly learn. As opposed to an assembly line job (as an example) where you do the same thing over and over again.

As I like to think, the day you stop learning is the day you die.

[Jan van den Ende]

Bhupseh.

Those are HARD questions for someone who is mainly active in VMS!

So, I will try to describe them from my perspective.

1. However much I know, I only keep learning that there is sooo much more I should know and which I want to learn.
What I specially like (in VMS), is the possibilities to set up a good, consistent, expandible system that "just" runs and gives me my undisdurbed sleep at night.

Like SEP wrote,"a reliable system that never gets down during production hours". Even if those production hours are 365.25 * 24.

And if the user- and application environment are rather dynamic, that involves a lot of self-correcting and pro-active routines, and automating just about everything that tends to be repetitive.
The best SysAdmin is (s)he who is seldom noticed.

My "inventions" (oh, what a BIG word for it) are the framework and the modules to enable this.

And my aim? Keeping track of new devellopments, getting deeper into what I am good at, and getting broader knowledge of bordering areas. In short, I want to keep improving myself until my retirement.
And if I must name a specific interest, perhaps a should mention to keep our cluster running, like it has for the last 9.5 years.

hth.

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[inventsekar_1]

1. Kernel configuration i like the most. LVM, SD-UX next.
2. Not yet.
3. inventing a technology(or utility) like VxFS or Ignite-UX.

[bhupesh m]

Jan van den Ende,

"Have one on me" means one point or something else?
and wat is meant by proost? i dont know the meaning of it.

[spex]

"Proost" means "cheers" in Dutch. "Have one on me" means have a drink (presumably of alcohol) on me.

PCS

[Pupil_1]

1. LVM and MCSG.
2. Nothing yet. But Unix has always given me something to learn everytime try out something new !! (So does this forum)
3. Master Unix and achive 100% uptime :)-

[Sp4admin]

Hi Bhupesh,


1. I use command line for all my LVM stuff. I belive the best way is command line. However when I need to rebuild the kernel I will use SAM for that. I have just finish setting up MCSG clustering for a 2 node cluster. This has been a good learning experience.

2. I haven't invented anything. But I would like to strengthen my scripting skills which are weak.

3.I would like to be a well rounded UNIX Admin. Be able to do a littls of everything.

Sp,

[Geoff Wild]

1. I like Unix. Period.
What I really like, is the "political" battles between differnet vendors and admins on which OS is better, etc. IMHO (and many others) HP-UX is a better well rounded OS and support is second to none.
Even community support (via these forums) is vastly far superior to anything from any other vendor.

I have been working with HP-UX since 1993 and have had many roles since then. I really like working with ServiceGuard and SAP. Lately I'm more involved with Security and Access and SOX.

2. I don't know if you would say invented - but I have written hundreds of scripts (unlike the thousands that Bill has probably done). Recently I helped get this patch punched through HP:

http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/patch/patchDetail.do?patchid=PHCO_34993&sel={hpux:11.11,}&BC=main|search|
My request was to be able to disable email notification when cancelling print jobs.

3. I would like to see world domination by HP-UX! Seriously, it would be nice to have the main Unix vendors work towards a same goal - a standard posix Unix which behaves the same no matter the platform.

Rgds...Geoff

[Rita C Workman]

1. My field of interest in UNIX changes all the time. This week it was performance, and working with HP Performance folks on what was causing a CPU problem. Next week it will something else....that is what I like about UNIX-how much there is to still learn !
2. One of my two favorite things is our webpage for nearly every document or note I ever typed that we have running on one of our UNIX boxes. It was noticed and now the DBA's have one they use for central repository of documents & you name it...
The other was a couple forms I created. Like the form that I use to do cold installs or vg-things for our MC/SG. Both have every little detail of files and tips so I don't forget a thing. Still keep the master, and still use them.
3. I'd like to get my CSE certification for MC/SG. But for me it's more important that I do some fairly hefty cluster work, so the certification would just be a 'nice to say I got it'. So it's secondary. I'd like to build another DR site someday from the ground up again - Now that was hard brain breaking work - but fun.
And another thing I'd like...to improve scripting skills. I am truly lousy at scripting. I can do it....but I am 'ace' at it like the folks around here. I have to crack a book everytime..

Enjoy UNIX - it's the only platform that makes any sense. Maybe that's why I like it so much !

Rgrds,
Rita

[bhupesh m]

but spex, we like your response too.

Proost.

[sajeer_2]

1.To have deep knowledge in areas like shell scripting,clusters,lvm,vxvm and hardware trouble shooting.
2.No invention
3.To become an expert in hp-ux.

[Sean Dale]

1. Omniback/Data Protector, LVM, SAM, and scripting (mostly perl). These (among others) are the areas I learned first and probably use the most, with perl being my favorite. I use scripts to monitor filesystems, remove applied archive logs, update tables, query active directory and the list goes on. Since perl is cross-platform, web, etc. I would strongly suggest learning some perl to automate and monitor various things.

2. I haven't created anything for unix other than the many scripts I use.

3. I would like to be more proficient with HPUX. Like anything else, the more I learn, the more I see there is left to learn. I can't possibly know everything about hpux, but, the more the better. I also want to learn more about the hardware and continue to improve my scripting abilities. And, of course, learn even more vi commands!

[Sean Dale]

1. Omniback/Data Protector, LVM, SAM, and scripting (mostly perl). These (among others) are the areas I learned first and probably use the most, with perl being my favorite. I use scripts to monitor filesystems, remove applied archive logs, update tables, query active directory and the list goes on. Since perl is cross-platform, web, etc. I would strongly suggest learning some perl to automate and monitor various things.

2. I haven't created anything for unix other than scripts I use.

3. I would like to be more proficient with HPUX. Like anything else, the more I learn, the more I see there is left to learn. I can't possibly know everything about hpux, but, the more the better. I also want to learn more about the hardware and continue to improve my scripting abilities. And, of course, learn even more vi commands!

[Ralph Grothe]

What I like about Unix is its philosophy of "small is beautiful".
It gives you hundreds of mostly small utilities (i.e. commands) which may not be bloated with features but do precisely what they were written for.
The great miracle happens when you combine them intelegently in a pipeline.
Thus, the most complex task may be broken down to little blocks and solved in combination in a single command line.
And the best (but probably most confusing in the beginning) is that only your imagination of useful combinations is restricting you.
(i.e. the There Is More Than One Way To Do It principal)
It is such a great invention of the creators of Unix to let most programs when used in pipelines read from standard input and write to standard output.
The other ingenious invention was to treat almost everything in Unix as a file that you can direct your input from or direct your output to.
I am always reminded of how rotten other operating systems' design is compared to Unix, whenever I am forced to have a seemingly simple task (e.g. like copying a CD image to a file) achieved on my Windows PC (sorry, I am heavily biased)

No I didn't invent anything.
My abilitities are too limited for that.
As I do like scripting very much (Perl and shell) I have produced quite a few scripts to automate many tasks.

My aims are firstly to provide to our users a good service without any outages, or even data loss, and keep them satisfied.
But at the same I am a bit selfish in that I wish to constantly expand my Unix knowledge and skills.
The wonderful thing is that Unix is like an unbounded universe which always has some corner you haven't discovered yet.
I really enjoy my job.
Sometimes it looks to me as if I have some kind of model railway that I can continiously work on and lay new tracks, solder new circuits, and form new landscapes.
And the best thing, I am paid for what I am doing.
How many poor souls are out there these days who either don't even have a job, or are forced to do a mundane, dull, and boring labour.

I consider the rewarding second aspect of my aim a bit as a justified compensation for all the extra work at undue times one often is required to fulfill, and for the low social esteem and appreciation one is often receiving ;-)

[GBR]

I enjoyed this thread. It was nice to hear what everyone had to say, and what each aspires to do.

1. Since I'm new to HP-UX, my answer at this point is that I'm just enjoying learning experience.

2. No inventions.

3. I would like master HP-UX, or at least become an asset to my organization, with respect to administering HP-UX boxes.

My advice to anyone trying to learn HP-UX is to join this forum, read as much HP-UX documentation as possible and wrap your hands around a sand box and practice.

Have a great week,
GBR

[sanwin]

Even I am a beginner in this, my goal is also to master the concepts of unix.

Currently i am doing those routine sysadmin jobs. i just want to explode out of that shell.
But i don't know how to start?
:(

[Sunny Jaisinghani]

Hi Bhupesh,
even i am new to hpux. so i am trying to find a field of interest for me. however
1. LVM, scripting
2. nothing
3. i would like to do a lot of scripting.

sunny