Re: [SAGE] Unix sys admin "run book" documentation standards andtemplates

[Robert Haskins <rhaskins@wn.net>]

I don't have my copy handy, but I believe Tom Limoncelli and Christine 
Hogan's EXCELLENT book, _The Practice of System and Network 
Administration_ addresses this topic, to some degree at least.

Bruce Hamilton wrote:
> My department, which has nearly 20 Unix sys admins running about as many 
> distinct administrative domains*, needs to put together some sort of 
> "run book" documentation so that any admin can come quickly up to speed 
> in any other admin's domain.
> 
> We already have a pretty good database with detailed records per server 
> giving stuff like OS version, serial#, and lots of detailed hardware 
> configuration information. We need to go far beyond that to document how 
> various hosts interact, where accounts get added, where and how various 
> system databases are maintained, etc.
> 
> A cursory search of Google (Web and USENET) doesn't seem to come up with 
> much. Surely every major consulting company and large in-house IT shop 
> has encountered this problem.
> 
> We need standards and templates that are comprehensive but that at the 
> same time can be broken into manageable chunks so that a sys admin with 
> an hour here or there can produce something useful toward the goal.
> 
> Any pointers or discussion would be most welcome. Might this be a good 
> topic for a SAGE "Short Topics in System Administration" booklet?
> 
> I can get some inspiration from the SAGE Job Descriptions, the Evi 
> Nemeth Handbook, or the BOK efforts, but I'm looking for something a lot 
> less encyclopedic and more focused, starting with the most important 
> day-to-day questions, e.g.:
> 
> - Who are the key customers? What are their requirements? Who controls 
> their funding?
> - How are requests tracked?
> - How are new accounts created?
> - How are new hosts added? (procuring network drop, creating host table 
> and/or DNS entries, ...)
> - How are backups performed? Describe offsite procedures, retention, and 
> media rotation.
> - How are outages scheduled?
> - ...
> 
> --Bruce (Bruce Hamilton, Redondo Beach, CA)
> bhami@pobox.com
> http://bhami.com/
> 
> *  What would be a better term than "administrative domain" for "the 
> stuff one person admins"? It typically would include multiple subnets 
> and may or may not correspond to a DNS domain.
> 
> 


-- 
Robert D. Haskins
WorldNET Internet Services
mailto:rhaskins@wn.net
http://www.ziplink.net/~rhaskins