Comments on: I am my own worst enemy sometimes

By: Matt Simmons

Matt Simmons — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:39:48 +0000

@the_angry_angel

Thanks for the support. I know it too, but it’s easy to forget about it when you’re the one that’s on the line

Come back and visit anytime.

By: the_angry_angel

the_angry_angel — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:35:04 +0000

Arr, we’ve all been there and done that dude – even with a checklist you can be having the worst day and still miss something sometimes. It’s, sadly, just human nature. Even sysadmins aren’t infallible!

By: Matt Simmons

Matt Simmons — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:39:42 +0000

@Kaput Please check out today's entry

By: MAS

MAS — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:17:34 +0000

Everyone fall in this, I guess. I falled on it before, As we have almost 55 users in site and from 3-5 users monthly are transfeer or updating.

Checklist was a must to have,
standard software for each users type (Commercial, HR, Decoraion ..etc)
Computer settings (Domain joining, drives installation ..etc) .. and so on.

Good subject to talk in but bad trigger for you Matt to bring it active.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:41:44 +0000

A standard image gets 80% of the work done in 20% of the time. Three cheers.

But in a lot of orgs, there’s more to it in a lot of places than blasting out a fresh windows install. Additionally, we need to set up the user’s phone, a handful of non-LDAPpable accounts, and that sort of thing. Phone provisioning can be difficult to automate because in current practice, it requires a service call, for example.

By: Kaput

Kaput — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:32:09 +0000

The idea of “automate what you can, make a checklist for what you can’t” really appeals to me, if for no other reason than to avoid these sorts of embarrassing mistakes in the future and to at least feel a little bit more organized.

Habits like this are easy to adopt if you’re a “standalone” sysadmin, but here’s my problem: I work in a small team where the boss is just a little bit too laissez-faire about the whole thing, and my coworkers may be a little bit less inclined to do something just because I say it might be a good idea.

We can get these sorts of ideas and improvements to take if we can get invested in it a little bit, like we did by purchasing a monitoring system and training instead of using Cacti. You sink a little money into the project and all of a sudden, there’s some real traction and excitement about it. Can you tell I’ve been burned spending one too many late nights configuring apps (wiki, ticket system, etc) that never REALLY got used by my team or anyone at all?

Matt, where did you originally hear the “script it or checklist” concept? In some particularly interesting talk? That might help…

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to get coworkers excited about getting organized? It truly takes a team effort to keep these sorts of things up to date and working.

By: Matt Simmons

Matt Simmons — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:40:34 +0000

@Anthony – Thanks. I had to look up a “run book”, but yeah, that sounds pretty much like what I’m creating. Just a series of instructions to cover some non-scriptable procedures.

If you can’t script it, use a checklist.

@Chris – I agree, an image will help a lot. Lots of these problems were related to the actual accounts, though, plus the issue that these machines were essentially “one off” installs, since they’re pretty much the last non-standard machines we’ll be getting (hopefully, anyway). When we do get the standard machines in, they will be created using an imaging system. I can’t wait to see the amount of time that will save me.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:42:43 +0000

No need for a check list. Just find some time to create a standard image. It’s definitely worth it.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:12:14 +0000

Yeah Matt certainly been there many a time myself – I think the checklist is the perfect solution, getting a “run book” or at least some sort of documentation makes things so much easier and more organized in the long run. Glad it wasn’t anything serious!

By: Matt Simmons

Matt Simmons — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:42:32 +0000

Thanks AJ. I never try to hide my mistakes on here, just because if someone else can learn from them, then something is gained.

http://despair.com/mis24×30prin.html

By: AJ L.

AJ L. — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:28:21 +0000

Sorry to hear about your troubles….I think anyone that reads this blog has been there before including myself. I guess some comfort can come from that your not alone hopefully.

By: Matt Simmons

Matt Simmons — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:40:44 +0000

@noneck: I can’t wait until my auto-install infrastructure is in place

@Natxo: absolutely. I actually wrote about that not too long ago: http://www.standalone-sysadmin.com/blog/2009/06/windows-desktop-automated-installations/

By: Natxo Asenjo

Natxo Asenjo — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:36:36 +0000

You need an unattended installation routine.

By: noneck

noneck — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:07:28 +0000

Yay, I started with build sheets too, and then as time progressed I turned these into custom images on a Terabyte drive, which soon turned into creating custom Deployement Images for WDS. Now I just PXE and click click and the image is pushed out over the net, super simple, saves me even having to go to the department to do a Fresh install

By: Gleb Reys

Gleb Reys — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:39:05 +0000

Sounds like a bad day alright, but there’s always a lesson. I’m glad you’ve learned yours.

I find checklists very helpful as well!