sysadmin-resources

Here you will find a curated collection of links to aid the weary SysAdmin. I will try and categorize these sanely, and updates will continue through time.

Table of Contents

1. System Management
2. Networking
3. Databases
4. Logs
5. Security
6. Virtualization
7. Misc.

System Management

• Linux Insides - A great free online book to help understand the linux kernel, boot process, and other low-level happenings.

• Effective Shell - "For the newcomer, you'll learn what a shell is, how to use it on your system, and then how to become more effective everyday by integrating the shell into your work. For the experienced professional, there is a wealth of detailed tips and tricks in each chapter that go into advanced topics and techniques to make you even more of a power user."

• Signal(7) man-page - Useful guide for sending proper signals during proc management

• systemd - System and Service Manager - Very nice guide to different features within the systemd suite.

• systemd for Administrators - Collection of the series of posts on 0xpointer dot net, its very useful for in-depth understanding of the newer init system

• Demystifying systemd - Red Hat Summit 2020 presentation slides going over some important functions and features of systemd in <45min.

• Chmod codes cheat sheet - For when you forget about how octal notation and applying specific files/folder permissions works!

• Devops Cheatsheet - Handy list of terminal commands for daily administration

• Strace -- The Sysadmin's Microscope - Introduction to using the system-call tracer strace for low-level troubleshooting

• pure bash bible - Many methods of system tasks without dependencies by solely using bash.

• Gentoo Linux amd64 Handbook: Installing Gentoo - You don't have to install Gentoo to gain some nice low-level details and perspective on things like the linux kernel, sources, partition schemes, filesystems, and other system details. Very helpful for a fresh linux sysadmin.

• Linux From Scratch - The official directory containing the latest "stable" version of the Linux From Scratch .pdf. For taking a deep dive into how a linux system really works from the inside-out.

• The Linux Kernel - "Some remarks on the Linux Kernel" (although that's not giving this compendium enough credit, imo)

• A Beginner's Guide to Salt - Tutorial for using Salt as a system provisioning and maintenance/configuration management tool. Includes a lot of good documentation links to get up and running with.

• Sysinternals Suite - Ever-useful suite of utilities for performing maintenance and troubleshooting on Windows systems.

• Understanding Numbers in PowerShell - A Windows DevBlog article including a very helpful table of numbers types in PowerShell and their limitations.

• Unix System Monitoring and Diagnostic CLI Tools - "An opinionated list of CLI utilities for monitoring and inspecting Linux/BSD systems." - more than enough tools to take a look at for nix admin tasks, as well as examples provided for each one.

Networking

• Diagnosing a Slow Network - Doing greuling network testing using "..three tools that a system admin should routinely use: mtr, iperf, and MTU testing with ping."

• How to SSH Properly - Looking on a good start into getting ssh up and running client and/or server side? Here is a good source for that.

• iptables ArchWiki - The arch linux wiki entry for iptables, which seems to cover the utility thoroughly and provides examples/scenarios

• Tor is a Great SysAdmin Tool A good blog post on using Tor for things like testing and troubleshooting with networks.

Databases

• SQL Quick Reference - a short 'cheat sheet' for SQL commands by W3Schools

• Windows - SQL Server technical documentation - The "motherlode" reference for any Windows SQl Server details.

Logs

• OWASP page - Log review and management - A nice set of guidlines from OWASP on generally handling and maintaining logs. Includes some nice links at the bottom too.

• Syslog : The Complete System Administrator Guide - A pretty comprehensive guide to the Linux Syslog protocol

Security

• Basic Linux Privilege Escalation - Small guide that serves as a tutorial of testing a system to gain elevated access. A Windows equivalent of this guide can be found here

• OpenBSD's AFTERBOOT(8) manual page - While this is specific to the OpenBSD OS, it should serve as a handy "priority" post-install config guide for system administration of Unix/Linux systems across the board

• Basic and advanced configuration of Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) - RHEL's guide for SElinux configuration and management, including sections for basics as well as more in-depth coverage of the access control system

• An Overview of Cryptography - A very long and thorough "book" highlighting the principles and details of several crypto protocols/systems. Lots of math and links.

• DigiCert SSL Certificate Installation Instructions & Tutorials - Some guides to installing SSL/TLS certs (several platforms and OS tutorials). Yes, this is DigiCert's own knowledge base articles, but ti should serve as basics for other CAs as well

• Common Vulnerability Scoring System Calculator - NIST's Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) "calc", useful for prioritizing the severity of known vulnerabilities on systems and building a case(s) for patching/acting accordingly.

• systemd service sandboxing and security hardening 101 - A blog post run-down on how to handle security configs within systemd.

• the cryptopals crypto challenges - "This is a different way to learn about crypto than taking a class or reading a book. We give you problems to solve. They're derived from weaknesses in real-world systems and modern cryptographic constructions."

• Hacksplaining - A very nice visual run-through of common vulnerabilities with services to look out for (and some ways to prevent them)

• all InfoSec news - Sources - a curated list of information security news sources, all shoved into a nice README. This is nice to use with an RSS feed and to keep on top of vulns.

Virtualization

• docker for Beginners - Decent tutorial for getting started with docker and container configuration/management

• FreeBSD Jails Admin - Official FreeBSD introduction and further documentation on FreeBSD Jails for reasonably-secure virtualization.

Misc.

• Enable Sysadmin - Red Hat Enterprise Linux's "community publication" for SysAdmins, featuring articles, tutorials, etc. A nice page to check on from time to time.

• CyberChef, The Cyber Swiss Army Knife - Decode Base64, convert date/time strings, decrypt/disassemble shellcode, and over 250 other operations available from this helpful webpage.

• Systems Administration for Cyborgs - A very nice series of short guides/introductions to SysAdmin principles and duties, including tools and best practices. Serves as a good intro to Linux SysAdmin work in general.

• Servers For Hackers - Mostly hands-on guides and video tutorials for server configuration and management. Many posts are free, but there is a premium group of tutorials as well.

• (Easy) Azure VM Comparison - "Find and compare Azure Virtual Machines specs and pricing on one page across different tiers, payment types, and regions."

• Linux System Administrator/DevOps Interview Questions - Collection of interview questions for SysAdmin applicants - seems useful for preparation

• pkgs dot org - "Does a package exist for this application in the linux distribution I am working with? What repo is it included in? What is it called?" - answers to these and more are a search query away here.

• endoflife.date - "This site maintains quick links for checking End Of Life dates for various tools and technologies."

• Regex For Noobs (like me!) - An Illustrated Guide - Gentle guide to using regular expressions (with illustrations, like it says)

• PowerShell equivalents for common Linux/bash commands - Transitioning from bash to Powershell (or visa-versa) can be somehwat jarring, and this guide might serve as a helping hand.

• "This is what I tell people to do.." - an intensive skill-testing build/config to-do given as a response to an question on how someone could get started with understanding linux system admin work (based on an old version of CentOS but still applicable as far as I can see.)

• Sysadmin Casts - "Simple bite-sized DevOps Screencasts (released weekly)" <I don't think this is maintained anymore, though.>

• "Is Your Internet Up To Date?" - Silly domain name, but good site for birds-eye testing if "..your website, email and internet connection use modern and reliable Internet Standards.." and what actions you mihgt want to take if not.

• The myth of Sisyphus, and other essays - ...a half-jest