We are looking for a couple of juniors with at least 1 years experience.
I need some general guidelines/advice- for instance
What is the minimum that they should know?
As in Essential to know?
Nice to know?
Bouns to know?
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Minimum they should know:
User admin (adding/deleting users)
File/Directory Permissions
Networking (Basic configuration)
How to install Patches
Understand VG's and LV's
Environment Modification (.profile, .cshrc, display, etc.)
Nice to know-
Basic DNS implementation (resolv.conf/nsswitch.conf)
Basic SMTP implementation (/etc/mail/sendmail.cf)
Basic NFS implementation (how to mount remote directories and setup dirs to be mounted by other systems)
Essentially you should look for basic skills which should include :
1.Some understanding of Unix concepts .
2. BAckups and recovery.
3. Configruing peripherals.
4. Installating new HP Systems like loading of OS , Ignite etc.
5. Working knowledege of Vi and some scripting experince.
etc , etc
but if I was you I will concentrate of candidates ahving fast learning abilites because most of the knowledeg base is genrally available and also for candidate who has better soft skills in term of interpersoanl communitcations , you can get some hints from :
I agree with Manoj. I would just look for the basic skills in a Junior and concentrate on people who have good people skills and can learn. Our environment changes so fast (hardware, software, applications) that someone who can learn quickly will get up to speed sooner and be able to adapt as things change.
Here is a link to a page on the System Administrators Guild web site which discusses job descriptons for sys admins:
Technical Must-Have
-------------------
o Familiar with all Unix commands at the user level.
o Simple shell script programming.
o Familiar with daily Unix admin tasks (ex: user acct creation, files management, printer management, troubleshooting)
o Had experience shutting down, rebooting, system startup processes at workstation level at least.
Non-Technical Must-Have
-----------------------
o Good attitude and flexible.
o Willing to learn.
Essential Skills
----------------
o Basic networking knowledge (ex: IP, routing, subnet).
o Basic Unix security knowledge (ex: file permission, SUID/GUID, password)
o Basic NFS and NIS know-how.
o Programming knowledge in C and Perl.
o Familiarity with HP hardware (servers or wkstns).
I'd say just minimal user experience on hp-ux, whether workstation or server will go a long way.
What is more important is that they can adapt to your environment quickly - (training/coaching), rather than expert unix knowledge - which of course would be a clear plus..
I'd hire guys/gals you feel you'd like to work with, as everyone ends up knowing it in the end!- especially with the forums around!
(1) They should not pass water in an emergency
(2) have the ability and desire to learn more
(3) have the basic understanding of LOGIC
(4) Not expect a 6 digit salary (that's without decimal points and in US dollars), or even 1/2 of that
(5) goto (1)
Since you are looking for a "junior" I would guess that you need someone to fill a position and you already know what you want that person to do. That being the case put together a list of what you need, want and would like to have. Then screen candidates based upon that list.
HPUX is a pretty generic O/S on the outside, what makes it a very good O/S is the support tools and recovery options like Ignite. So any UNIX/LINUX experience would be beneficial, along with the list of skills put forth by the other people here.
What I see most often is someone that is willing and capable of becoming a great Admin, but doesn't understand what it takes to be in a production environment. There again you have to make sure that you are hiring someone that isn't going to "Play" on the systems and takes the opportunity seriously as a career.
For your last question - I would defenitely say "Yes" to LVM skills. He should have the basic knowledge of how LVM manipulate disks, simple commands (vg, lv, pv commands), file systems, latest FS developments etc. Inorder to understand the system and to support during an emergency, he should have these skills.
I have a Junior Sys Admin here who is looking for a job.... I'll send him on the next boat... Can you meet him at either Lands End or John O'Groats....?
If LVM is required depends on the tasks he will be doing.
Apart from that I would say hire someone who is eager and able to learn and know the difference between a test- and a prod-system.
The biggest thing that I look for when I hire JR admins is that they have a mindset that they dont know everything and that they have the willingness to go out and get the information they need.
Aside from that you might be in a very good position here to groom your own sysadmin based on the fact that you must obviously have a SR admin in place already, you may not have to look at so much the technical area of his knowledge (although some knowledge would be a plus) but more on the personality and go-getter attitude that he will need to get the
job done.
Harry raises some great points, as usual, despite the humorous language:
(1) They should not pass water in an emergency
(2) have the ability and desire to learn more
(3) have the basic understanding of LOGIC
===
In addition to the many good ideas already posted, I would look for someone who has the maturity to stop and THINK clearly before doing anything when the world is blowing up all around them, wants to grow, yet clearly understands the limits of their abilities today.
Real life horror story from a junior sysadmin I once worked with (18 years ago, not on an HP system):
The senior sysadmin had recently created a command 'nu' (new user) much like the HP-UX useradd command, to create accounts. The (very) junior sysadmin wanted to impress the senior sysadmin, but knew he wasn't good enough to write that command yet, so he decided to write a userdel equivalent, which (he thought) was much easier. All it had to do was find the right /etc/passwd entry, find the home directory, rm -rf that directory, and grep -v the right line out of /etc/passwd. Easy. UNIX has lots of tools for those tasks.
Over the next few weeks, he rushed to get the backups (his 'real' job) started, then hid in his office, furiously writing and testing his new script. He didn't want to embarrass himself in front of his boss, so he did lots of extra testing, creating and deleting dummy accounts named foo, bar, ugh, hello, etc.
Finally, he was almost ready. Just one more test and he would proudly show the boss what he had learned and that he could contribute a useful tool to the company, too! He was on his way to being a real UNIX sysadmin and the world would soon respect him! He created a user named 'hi' then ran his new command to delete that account. Oddly, it took much longer than before.
After a few minutes, he started hearing yelling from down the hall. No time for that, he had work to do! After about 10 minutes when it still hadn't finished, he knew something was wrong, typed ^C and tried to debug the problem.
He ran 'ls' and was told 'Command not found.'
He ran 'pwd' and was told 'Command not found.'
In fact, /usr wasn't even there. Oh, no!
Very quickly the lynch mob came looking for the culprit. He said he couldn't have done it, because he had just been running a script and that he had tested it hundreds of times with perfect results each time.
After further questioning, it became clear what he had done. /etc/passwd looked like:
grep for the user name 'hi' matched 'himself' on line 1, found the home directory for root ('/') instead of for 'hi' and did an 'rm -rf /' instead of 'rm -rf /home/hi.' Oops.
He had indeed accomplished his goal of impressing his boss, but not favorably.
His boss decided that his next assignment should be to clearly understand anchored regular expression searches.
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