Complicated Linux Environments
By Erik Rodriguez
Tags: complex linux servers, poor linux design, bad linux administration, overly-complicated environments, SuSE Linux, Juniper firewall, Fedora Core
This article contains information about my actual experiences with overly-complicated Linux environments.
Introduction
As a consultant, I sometimes have the unfortunate experience of dealing with overly-complicated Linux environments. In most cases, the cause is an over-zealous admin that simply wanted to feel like security expert, programmer, developer, DBA, systems administrator, network administrator, and IT manager. There are 3 parts to the series of complicated Linux environments.
Learning Linux
There are many resources for Linux on this site and the rest of the Internet. Each version varies slighty. Red hat is a little different from Debian. Debian is different than Novell (SuSE). The majority of the logic and operation is the same as they are all versions of Linux. However, some have special ways of doing things like log rotation, location of system files, and more. If you have a solid understanding of how the operating system works, you should be able to work on nearly any distribution of Linux out there. There are some I prefer over others, but at the end of the day, I can administer any distro if someone put a gun to my head. That being said, I would like to get into the meat of this topic. The 3 examples provided below are my real world encounters with complicated Linux environments. The content contained in these examples is very technical and if you do not understand everything, you should at least grasp the magnitude and frustration I had to deal with taking on these two networks.
Contact Us
NOTE: this form DOES NOT e-mail this article, it sends feedback to the author.