The Server Administrators is responsible for setting up and maintaining the server farm. Server administrators
may be members of an information technology department.
The duties of a server administrator are wide-ranging, and vary widely from one organization to another. Server
admins are usually charged with installing, supporting, and maintaining servers or other computer systems,
and planning for and responding to service outages and other problems. Other duties may include scripting or
light programming, and project management for systems-related projects.
The system administrator is responsible for following things:
- User administration (setup and maintaining account)
- Maintaining system
- Verify that peripherals are working properly
- Quickly arrange repair for hardware in occasion of hardware failure
- Monitor system performance
- Create file systems
- Install software
- Create a backup and recover policy
- Monitor network communication
- Update system as soon as new version of OS and application software comes out
- Implement the policies for the use of the computer system and network
- Setup security policies for users. A server admin must have a strong grasp of computer security
(e.g. firewalls and intrusion detection systems).
The root account has full (unrestricted) access, so he/she can do anything with servers. For example, the root account can
remove critical system files. They can also change any of the servers settings, or reconfigure anything the server was set up for.
Many tasks for system administration can be automated using perl or shell scripts. For example:
- Create new users
- Resetting user passwords
- Lock/unlock user accounts
- Monitor server security
- Monitor special services, etc.
Most important skill to a system administrator? Problem solving, period. This can some time lead into all sorts of
constraints and stress. When workstation or server goes down, you are called to solve the problem. You should able
to quickly and correctly diagnose the problem. You must figure out what is wrong and how best it can be fixed in
small amount of time.