From tanyongj@comp.nus.edu.sg Sat Feb 6 13:00:47 1999 Path: sund.iscs.nus.sg!not-for-mail From: Tim Newsgroups: iscs.comp.others,iscs.rec.humour Subject: alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ Followup-To: iscs.comp.others Date: 6 Feb 1999 04:15:24 GMT Organization: The Fun House Lines: 678 Sender: Tim Message-ID: <79gfks$6u7$3@sund.iscs.nus.sg> NNTP-Posting-Host: decunx-m.comp.nus.edu.sg NNTP-Posting-User: tanyongj User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-981225 ("Volcane") (UNIX) (OSF1/V4.0 (alpha)) Xref: sund.iscs.nus.sg iscs.comp.others:11082 iscs.rec.humour:6623 Archive-name: sysadmin-recovery Posting-Frequency: monthly Version: 0.72 (Nov 1, 1998) URL: http://ugrad-www.cs.colorado.edu/~crosby/asr/faq.html alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ v0.72 (Nov 1, 1998) This is the frequently asked questions for alt.sysadmin.recovery, a newsgroup for practicing and recovering system administrators. 1) ABOUT THE GROUP 1.1) What is alt.sysadmin.recovery? 1.2) Notes on reading ASR 1.3) Special note RE: alt.humor.best-of-usenet 1.4) What is not welcome on alt.sysadmin.recovery? 1.5) What does BOFH mean? How about LART? Cow-orker? 1.6) Where can I find the BOFH? 1.7) The BOFH hierarchy 1.8) Official ASR mottos 1.9) Official anagrams of ASR. 1.10) Hail Eris! Sysadmin Religion 1.11) Songs to drink to 1.12) Man pages 1.13) ASR Mailing lists 1.14) So what's with the INTJ and stuff? 1.15) I hate this group! Where do I complain? 1.16) ASR Luser of the decade 1.17) Hey! This FAQ is 666 lines! Did anyone ever notice that? 1.18) The coat of arms 2) ABOUT OUR FINE PROFESSION 2.1) I want to be a sysadmin. What should I do? 2.2) So, I've just "volunteered" to be a sysadmin. What do I do? 2.3) Where do sysadmins rank as a profession? 2.4) How are new sysadmins made? 2.5) What's a typical day in the life of a sysadmin? 2.6) Why can't I find my sysadmin? 2.7) What sort of music do sysadmins listen to??? 3) OUR LITTLE FRIEND, THE COMPUTER 3.1) Are there any OS's that don't suck? 3.2) How about any hardware? 3.3) Just HOW MUCH does this system suck? 3.4) Where can I find cluefull tech support? 3.5) What can I do to help my computers behave? 3.6) What's with the AOL disks? 3.7) What can I do with all these CD Roms? 4) OUR BIG HEADACHE, THE LUSERS 4.1) Where can I find stories about the little bastards? 4.2) I'm work for tech support. Where can I find cluefull customers? 4.3) General luser interaction 4.4) What is the best way to deal with lusers? 4.5) Revolvers, cyanide and high voltages: The pros and cons of various luser education strategies. 4.6) How can I clean up the mess made by a lusers brain splattered across a monitor? 4.7) What is the penalty for murdering a luser? 4.8) How much should I charge for holding their hands? 5) DEALING WITH BEING A SYSADMIN 5.1) Caffeine and other Recreational Pharmaceuticals 5.2) The excuse server 5.3) The insults server 5.4) Should I slit my wrists across or downwards? 5.5) Sysadmin Tools 5.6) Psychiatric Assistance 6) OK, SERIOUSLY FOLKS! HELP!!!!! 6.1) Serious info about being a sysadmin 6.2) DOODZ!!!!!! W3R3 CAN 1 F1ND SUM K3WL WAREZ??????????? 7) OTHER RESOURCES 7.1) If you like ASR, you'll love... ----- 1) OVERVIEW 1.1) What is alt.sysadmin.recovery? Alt.sysadmin.recovery is for discussion by recovered and recovering sysadmins. It is a forum for mutual support and griping over idiot lusers, stupid tech support, brain dead hardware and generally how stupid this idiotic job is. Think of it as a virtual pub, where we can all go after hours and gripe about our job. Since the concept of "after hours" (or, for that matter, "pubs") is an anathema for your average sysadmin, we have this instead. 1.2) Notes on reading ASR Some have warned that reading ASR while drinking beverages is to be avoided. [due to the effects of beverage on keyboards on computers] ASR, is by its nature a fairly free-wheeling group. Nevertheless, it is also a very busy one. We would like to ask, therefore, that you respect this. Please try and keep subject lines relatively up to date, so people can kill threads. Please avoid 1 line "me toos", yes, we know you are smart, young, old, had trouble in school, enjoyed school, never went to college, use vi, use emacs, hate vi or emacs, read Robert Heinlein, have a cool home page and practice martial and marital arts. Please don't tell us about it. Also, please keep threads out of here that might explode-- hot topics like gun control. (Anyone else start THAT flamewar, I WILL personally ensure that David Rhodes, Robert McElwaine, Canter and Siegel and Serdar Argic _all_ get accounts on your system. I'm serious.) Oh, the "When I was a kid I had to bang two rocks together to get zeros" has got especially old. Give it a rest. 1.3) Special note RE: alt.humor.best-of-usenet Please don't resend things to alt.humor.best-of-usenet. We have nothing against that group itself, but in the past we have averaged a few messages a day there. This has drawn the lusers here like moths to a candle. We also suggest you put "X-No-Ahbou: yes" in your headers. 1.4) What is not welcome on alt.sysadmin.recovery? Not welcome on alt.sysadmin.recovery are: holy wars, advocacy, user questions, users (unless you are a sysadmin in another life), David Rhodes or general cluelessness. Particularly not welcome is ANY real sysadmin related stuff. We are here to escape! Warning: If you are a user, you may well see your sysadmin posting messages about how stupid YOU are. You have been warned. 1.5) What does BOFH mean? How about LART? Cow-orker? BOFH: Bastard Operator From Hell. Our role model. (The Bastard Operator from Hell was originally a series of stories written by Simon Travaglia, s.travaglia@waikato.ac.nz. See 1.6.) LART: Luser Attitude Re-Adjustment Tool. Something large, heavy and painful-- See the sysadmin tool section. Cow-Orker: Those people who live at the same office as you do. (WARNING: Orking Cows is dangerous, and illegal in the state of Utah) Copro-grammer: literally, "writer of feces" C|N>K: This, along with variants, is similar to ROFL in other less cultured groups. (hint: C is coffee, N is nose, K is keyboard.) 1.6) Where can I read about the BOFH? http://prime-mover.cc.waikato.ac.nz/Bastard.html A UK mirror may be found at http://pertinax.gp.umist.ac.uk/bofh/ A US mirror may be found at http://www.jungle.com/msattler/culture/humor/geek/bastard/index.html or http://www.pinhead.com/bofh.html Newer adventures of the BOFH may be found at http://www.networkweek.com/bofh/ 1.7) The BOFH hierarchy ASR is such a cool newsgroup, we even have our own hierarchy! Try that, soc.singles. This is the bofh.* hierarchy. For more information, see http://dehouse.on.default.net/bofh.html 1.8) Official ASR mottos The official ASR motto, our catch phrase, is the immortal: "Down, not Across" It is our mantra. We recite it to ourselves as we deal with the day to day realities of a life that is far more nasty, brutish and short then even Hobbes could have ever imagined. Some other mottos include: "What was your username?" *clickety click* "I need a drink." AAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Bring out yer dead! *DONK!* Bring out yer dead! *DONK!* The official asr position: Hiding in a corner, under a desk, in fetal position, arms covering head and quietly whimpering. The official asr luser position: 6 foot under. 1.9) Official ASR anagrams Every now again, some luser will come in and ask for an explanation of ASR anagrams. I haven't the faintest idea why. Here's some good ones: alt sysadmin recovery rancid mystery loaves steady micron slavery comedy striven salary trendy mosaic slavery convert already missy scary devil monastery misty adversary clone mail covers dysentary discover anal mystery discovery alerts many 1.10) Hail Eris! Sysadmin Religion By popular acclaim, Eris has been declared patron goddess of ASR, with Murphy as patron saint. The Illuminatus Trilogy (Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea) will tell you more of her secrets. Of course, don't let this put you off. ASR is a very tolerant group, and we will accept anything you worship, provided your beliefs fit the requirements for a good sysadmin god, the most important one being that sacrifice of lusers be an integral part of worship. (The Aztec gods are very nice in this respect). 1.11) Songs to drink to ASR has many talented budding creative artists who have come up with a collection of deep, heart wrenching statements on the nihilism of this sysadmin existence. Including such gems as the cynical "I'm a sysadmin and I'm OK", and the reflective "My favorite things", _The Best of ASR_ will be coming out real soon now on Sony, 14.99 CD, 7.99 Cassette. Until this happens, you can find these songs at http://ugrad-www.cs.colorado.edu/~crosby/asr/songs.html 1.12) Man pages The ASR man page collection is a comprehensive reference to many of the things we have to deal with in our profession. See http://www.winternet.com/~eric/sysadmin/manpages.html 1.13) ASR Mailing lists There are a number of local ASR mailing lists, dealing with organizing local ASR gatherings. They include: ASR New York: To subscribe: Mail danj@3skel.com List address is asrny@lists.3skel.com ASR Boston: To subscribe: lists@mathworks.com (it's a majordomo list, name is asr-boston) List address: asr-boston@mathworks.com ASR Melbourne: (Oz, not Florida) To subscribe: asrmel-request@netizen.com.au List address: asrmel@netizen.com.au Also see //www.netizen.com.au/lists/asrmel/ ASR London: To subscribe: asrlon-request@bofh.org.uk List address: asrlon@bofh.org.uk ASR Israel: To subscribe: asr-il-request@cs.huji.ac.il List address: asr-il@cs.huji.ac.il The Twin Cities: List address: asrmeet@winternet.com ASR DC: To subscribe: majordomo@lists.netset.com Listname is "asr-dc" ASR Bay Area: To subscribe: ba-asr-request@lists.cap.gov 1.14) So what's with the INTJ and stuff? These are Myers-Briggs scores. See http://www.keirsey.com/cgi-bin/keirsey/newkts.cgi 1.15) I hate this group! Where do I complain? Probably you want the guys who run the net. Address mail to: Usenet Central Administration 1060 W. Addison St Chicago, IL 60613-4305 They should be willing to help you out. 1.16) ASR Luser of the Decade Yes, the awards are just in. Luser of the decade goes to Judith Kraines, county controller in Reading, PA. From News of the Weird: * Reading, Pa., county controller Judith Kraines complained at a commissioners' meeting in January about having to type letters and do other business on a typewriter because her computer was old and no one had been able to get it to work for two years. "If we had a computer," she said, "letters would go out faster." Three days later, she announced that the computer she was complaining about in fact had not been plugged in to any electrical outlet and that when the plug was inserted and the computer was turned on, it worked fine. (This was luser of the year, but no potential replacement has come in for this year.) 1.17) Hey! This FAQ is 666 lines! Did anyone ever notice that? Nope. I suggest you post to the group pointing that out, so we all end up admiring your powers of observation. 1.18) The coat of Arms While the college of heralds are still sitting on our application (bastards... I think a disk crash is in order), you can see the potential ASR coat of arms at http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~djc/asr/ ----- 2) ABOUT OUR FINE PROFESSION 2.1) I want to be a sysadmin. What should I do? Seek professional help. 2.2) So, I've just "volunteered" to be a sysadmin. What do I do? See 5.4 2.3) Where do sysadmins rank as a profession Somewhere below janitors. 2.4) How are new sysadmins made The devil probably has something to do with it. 2.5) What's a typical day in the life of a sysadmin For an excellent, if somewhat optimistic, picture of a sysadmins life, see http://lynx.dac.neu.edu:8000/~tfarrell/writings/life.of.a.sysadmin.html Perhaps Abby Franquemont summarised the life of a sysadmin the best, when she described us as: "disgruntled, disenchanted with things we used to really get a kick out of, foul tempered, hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, overworked, with no real social life to speak of." 2.6) Why can't I find my sysadmin? Would you want to be found? 2.7) What sort of music do sysadmins listen to? This gets asked a lot. Probably all I can say is "loud", and even that isn't a given. A survey of the readership of ASR was taken, which may be found at http://ugrad-www.cs.colorado.edu/~crosby/asr/music ----- 3) OUR LITTLE FRIEND, THE COMPUTER 3.1) Are there any OSs that don't suck? No. 3.2) How about any hardware? The PDP-10 was pretty nice. Pity they aren't made any more. 3.3) Just HOW MUCH does this system suck? The ASR standard unit of suckiness is the Lovelace (Ll). This is defined as: One Lovelace is the amount of force (measured in dynes) it takes to draw a round ball weighing e Troy Ounces down a tube it fits exactly (in air) at a speed of pi attoparsecs/microfortnight. Like Farads, this is a rather large measurement. Thus, Plan 9 sucks a few mLl, for instance, while your average Microsoft product achieves many Ll. 3.4) Where can I find clueful tech support? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Basically, I think there is some device the telco puts on the phone that ensures that whoever is on the other end of a service call is always a drooling moron with the IQ of a potted plant. Note that this applies both ways (see 4.2) 3.5) What can I do to help my computers behave? Some go for the carrot approach, others the stick, others both. If you favour the carrot, try offering memory upgrades or faster processors. For sticks, try bullwhips. Many computers are easily fooled, so placing a picture of yourself in front of a computer will often cause it to think you are watching and it will be too scared to misbehave. Remember that if computers are networked, they can talk to each other. That is useful in that you can make an example of one and the others will watch (and hopefully learn). 3.6) What's with all the AOL disks? There is a large amount of speculation on this subject. Some have suggested that AOL is a secret alien plot to use up all the resources and overwhelm the earth with disks, to make mankind easier to conquer. Whatever the reason, they are useful as coasters and as scratch floppies, if nothing else. 3.7) What should I do with all these CD Roms? Shove them in a microwave for a minute or so, and watch the fun! ----- 4) OUR LITTLE ENEMIES, THE LUSERS 4.1) Where can I find stories about the little bastards? [The stories are currently offline, as a result of the sysadmin who had them on his web site recovering] 4.2) I'm on tech support. Where can I find cluefull customers? See 3.4 A cluefull luser is an oxymoron. 4.3) General User Interaction Some tips for general luser interaction: -lusers, bless their little hearts, have simple minds. Even if you think that a lobotomized flatworm could understand your instructions, your luser probably won't. -since lusers will neither read nor understand any docs you write for them, just don't even bother. -NEVER anthropomorphise lusers. -lusers are much easier to deal with if they aren't breathing. 4.4) What is the best way to deal with lusers? 240v across the heart, a revolver round through the head, or even a simple little broadsword thrust into their abdomen will improve your interactions wonderfully. See 4.5 4.5) Revolvers, cyanide and high voltages: The pros and cons of various luser education strategies. There has been a great deal of debate on a.s.r about the best way of dealing with lusers, and at this time no consensus has been reached. What we can suggest, however, is to be sure it is painful, clean, and doesn't harm the computer. That unfortunately leaves a lot of options out; you can't just throw a grenade at them; it will hurt the machine. 4.6) How can I clean up the mess made by a lusers brain splattered across a monitor? Be careful. While cluelessness is not contagious, there are some nasty things that can be picked up from lusers. Blood transmitted diseases, you name it. (watch out for Creutzfeldt-Jacob syndrome, aka mad cow disease. Of course, we are all mad anyway.). Be sure to wear gloves. Otherwise, luser guts will usually clean up with warm water and soap. I've found a little bleach sometimes helps. Be careful with the keyboards; I've found that blood causes the keys to get very very sticky; Again, you can try gently washing it with soap and water. To get rid of the body, people have suggested using several garbage bags and a large quantity of duct tape. If you have to keep it for a while, try and remove the guts; that will keep the smell down.. Alcohol and formalin works just fine as a preservative. 4.7) What is the penalty for murdering a luser? Unfortunately, in the eyes of the law, lusers are treated like humans. I therefore recommend you be discreet in your luser era^H^Hducation campaigns. 4.8) How much should I charge for holding their hands? See the official ASR price list, at http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~moose/sysadmin/pricelist.html ----- 5) DEALING WITH BEING A SYSADMIN 5.1) Caffeine and other Recreational Pharmaceuticals Caffeine: Much information about this can be found on alt.drugs.caffeine See http://homepage.seas.upenn.edu/~cpage/caffeine/FAQmain.html Booze: See rec.food.drink.*. Myself, I prefer coding after a six-pack of Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout, but you are welcome to your beverage of choice. Booze, particularily in large quantities, often makes dealing with lusers much more interesting. Ciders have been spoken of highly; myself I stick with Woodchuck (at $3 for a 1.5 Litre bottle, it can't be beaten), but there are various other choices. Unfortunately, really good cider is hard to find in many places. We had an informal survey into the ASR booze of choice, and the only thing was resolved in terms of ASR beer preference is that yes, there is indeed a lot of choice. (Oh, and that ASR readers have excellent taste and drink like crazy) There are lots of net resources for this. I recommend alt.drunken.bastards. Try http://www.mindspring.com/~jlock/ for beer info. For more interesting things, rec.drugs.* can help you. See http://www.hyperreal.com/drugs/ for more info (for educational use only, etc) 5.2) The excuse server This is an important net resource, that lets you give the exact reason why you can't do something yesterday. See http://www.engr.wisc.edu/~ballard/bofhserver.html Or telnet bofh.engr.wisc.edu 666 5.3) The insults server Once you have got rid of your lusers, you will probably want to tell them what they really are. For this, the insults server is useful. telnet insulthost.colorado.edu 1695 5.4) Should I slit my wrists across or downwards? Downward. I used to suggest that you see the alt.suicide.holiday faq for more info, but that seems to have been emasculated. Oh well. An old version may be found at: http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/~ingvar/methods/ 5.5) Sysadmin Tools There are a number of tools that make being a sysadmin important. Most important are chemical by nature; see 5.1. A particularly useful tool, revered by many of ASR, is the noble chocolate covered coffee bean. A partial list of places where these fine things may be found is at http://ugrad-www.cs.colorado.edu/~crosby/cceb.html You can also make your own. Melt some chocolate, place some coffee beans in it, and Bjorn Stronginthearm's your uncle! For a stronger caffeine hit, try D&E Pharmaceuticals & Nutritionals 206 Macopin Road Bloomingdale, NJ 07403 USA 1-800-221-1833 Next in line is a good LART. A 2x4 works fine, but a real professional needs something a little more effective. Unfortunately, this is a very personal thing, and no consensus has yet been reached on the group. Everything from a simple, 7.65mm Walther (for the Bond fans only, it's not a very good gun) to a 155mm with depleted Uranium rounds has been suggested, some even going for exotic things like Thermite, nukes or flamethrowers. For further info, look at the rec.guns home page (http://recguns.com) You can find a lot of cool stuff at Military Surplus stores. (Sadly, they don't sell the _really_ interesting surplus stuff like tanks or F16s) Try US Cavalry, 1-800-777-7732. (or www.uscav.com) When you can't use the LART (eg, you don't want to damage a computer), water pistols and Nerfs are excellent substitutes. Nerfs, for those of you outside the US, are a range of foam weapons. Don't leave ~ without it. The leatherman is another useful tool. The Perl of swiss army knifes, this shouldn't be too hard to find. Finally, there are some tools a sysadmin is forbidden from having. Adequate computing power is first on this list, but the most important is called a "life". [ FAQ maintainers note: could someone send me some info on this? I've heard of it, but never had one. I have been told it is a simulation environment of cellular automata.] 5.6) Psychiatric Assistance If you are reading this, you need it. Contact your health insurance, and look at the Mental health net. http://www.cmhcsys.com/welcome.htm ----- 6) OK, SERIOUSLY FOLKS! HELP!!!!! 6.1) Serious info about being a sysadmin Well, if you REALLY need help, don't ask here. Go over to whatever group is appropriate for what you are adminning (eg: comp.unix.admin), and ask there. 6.2) DOODZ!!!!!! W3R3 CAN 1 F1ND SUM K3WL WAREZ??????????? Sounds like you want the Warez-net. Here are a list of some participating sites: warez.satanic.org pcwarez.compumedia.com warez.phantom.com ftp.warez.org warez.internetmci.com warez.compulog.org These places also have a good collection of gifs. (You need to log in with _your own_ name and password) For more information, look at the Warez-Net home pages at http://www.cetis.hvu.nl/~koos/warez.html http://www.afn.org/~riffer/warez.html http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~mcawolf/warez.html ----- 7) OTHER RESOURCES 7.1) If you like ASR, you'll love... ...alt.folklore.computers Once a wonderful place, where great hackers strove to discuss mighty deeds done on real computers, this newsgroup has sadly decayed somewhat in recent years. With the advent of the minions of the Dark Lord and the even Darker Lord fighting over their respective toy OSs, the flames have overcome the real discussion. Though the fight is still going on, many of the eldar hackers have despaired of the net, fleeing the shores of AFC for good. (some have come here). Sic transit gloria mundi. Still worth a read, just be sure to have a kill file. ...comp.society.folklore The moderated version of afc, this is actually alive now, and seems active. ...the jargon file Not _particularly_ sysadmin related, this is rather a document on the general computer lore. May be found at http://www.ccil.org/jargon/jargon.html ...alt.fan.pratchett For some reason, there seems to be a large amount of synergy between the followers of the eternal Mr. Pratchett and ourselves. You be the judge. ...alt.fan.mailer-daemon "a hillariously poorly propogated newsgroup that hardly anybody is ever likely to read." ..."Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet" An often-amusing cartoon about a female BOFH (and yes, they do exist, I used to work for one). See http://www.peterzale.com/ ...alt.suicide.holiday Name says it all, really. -- Matthew Crosby crosby@cs.colorado.edu Disclaimer: It was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead. -- Tim ------------------ Web : http://come.to/funhouse ---------------------- E-mail : ttimothy@mailhost.net Living on Earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun.