6 сommon mistakes that junior system administrators make

The only way to never make mistakes is to never do anything — let’s look at the kinds of mistakes system administrators make at the beginning of their careers and how to deal with them.

Not trying to solve problems on your own

Beginners often forget that search engines and product documentation tend to have the answers to most questions. It’s better to ask colleagues for help after you have found a solution and just need some extra advice. Otherwise, you’re likely to hear “RTFM” =)

Not making backups

Backing up is vital if you are working on a large project. Even if the project is small, you should still make backups. If you doubt whether a backup is needed or not, just do it, and put your mind to rest.

Without a backup, if the code breaks or a critical error occurs, you’ll have to waste time fixing everything. That is, of course, if you can still do anything about it =)

Placing too much trust in your colleagues

Even if a senior colleague gives great advice, it’s better to take the first recommendation from this article to heart and look for info online or in the documentation. There are situations when a senior might want to play a joke on a new employee by suggesting they run the command rm -rf/ — and the “hilarious” consequences of such a “joke” are irreversible.

Sometimes it’s best not to trust people – Littlefinger approves

Not regulating permissions or always working as root

If certain commands are used incorrectly, files and directories may become inaccessible to the users or applications that need them, or conversely, exposed to everyone. This creates a major security risk for the server.

For example, if you give all the users write permissions chmod 777 to the configuration files, this can expose the system to unauthorized access, or websites and other services may stop working.
Besides, we don’t recommend working as superuser all the time — if you are unsure of your actions or commands, it’s better to rein yourself in and log in as a regular user. This reduces the chances of making mistakes that you’ll have to waste time fixing =)

Not thinking about the consequences of your actions

Thoughtless copy-pasting has never led to anything good. For example, if you find a new command and want to use it at work — go back to the first point of this article and figure out what the command does and what it might cause. It’s better to get a thorough understanding of it than to fix the consequences of the command later.

Thinking you know everything

Sometimes a junior goes through a brief course and thinks they know everything about Linux. It’s better to keep learning, always be a little skeptical of yourself, double-check your work, and read the documentation and manuals. For example, we publish useful recommendations for working with Linux for both beginners and experienced users — check out our blog at ispmanager →

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