That said, I haven't actually backed up to tape in a while. These days, the "offline" backup just means "online via a different protocol."
It still runs the risk of a disgruntled employee logging into the backup NAS or the cloud provider and deleting everything, but the usual threats of ransomware and malware can't get to it.
Yeah, I use tape (which gets sent to the bank) because I try to think of what I could theoretically do if I was disgruntled.
I hate to admit it, but I called FiOS customer service a couple weekends back when our home box was acting like it was on battery power. The recording said to check power backups and I was going to be on the phone for a while, so fuck it. Sure enough, the GFCI breaker it was connected to had tripped. Which should never happen, but, hey...
At least I didn't have to actually talk to someone.
We have an admin here who re-forwards administrative emails to our department but changes the email subject because otherwise, people here use filters and rules or just outright delete those emails without reading. And as a result, they'd miss, for example, that our contract processing system (that uses an SAP backbone) will be down for a Friday-through-Monday in the near future. It's also how timecards are handled, so there has been more than the requisite bitching to "get your hours in on time!"
And, yet, I guarantee that people will bitch, and say there was no email.
I have mulled over adding lines to contract-type documents, just to see if anyone actually reads them (i.e. "[X Department] shall perform all work dressed in pink bunny pajamas from A Christmas Story"). I have yet to actually follow through and then demand compliance after the document is signed, but I would be fully within my rights if I did.
"Other duties as assigned."
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Sure yeah you can have 2 instances of SQL server on a machine with 6 gigs of RAM, third party IT company.
Oh things are slow and it's timing out? That's super interesting, and a result I absolutely didn't expect.
Sure yeah you can have 2 instances of SQL server on a machine with 6 gigs of RAM, third party IT company.
Oh things are slow and it's timing out? That's super interesting, and a result I absolutely didn't expect.
We have SQL servers running multiple instances on 4Gb and a few with 8Gb.
Just depends on load.
We've got one app that needs it's own dedicated server because it has some stupid hardcoded queries that just hammer the DB. Not quite as bad as "SELECT * FROM *" but pretty close.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Sure yeah you can have 2 instances of SQL server on a machine with 6 gigs of RAM, third party IT company.
Oh things are slow and it's timing out? That's super interesting, and a result I absolutely didn't expect.
We have SQL servers running multiple instances on 4Gb and a few with 8Gb.
Just depends on load.
We've got one app that needs it's own dedicated server because it has some stupid hardcoded queries that just hammer the DB. Not quite as bad as "SELECT * FROM *" but pretty close.
Yeah if your table is smaller than like 2 gigs you should be okay.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
if you don't feel like making a boot USB, you could always log in as the local admin, delete your user folder (what so your files are mostly gone), then be all del /f /s /q c:\windows
mostly because it's fun to watch a computer slowly eat itself
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Just being lazy and going DBAN. Since I don't know what the preferred OS of the final user is, even though I'm 99% sure it's Win10, so I'm just going to nuke it to the foundation.
Just saw a job req for security types that I only half followed, but the half I did sounded cool, so thought I'd share.
The requirements are niche, to say the least, but if you've got an interest in living in Colorado amd remoting into satellites, and have a beefy clearance and a unique set of skills*, shoot me a PM and I'll pass you a link.
*(Certified CSSP Analyst and Incident Responder)
You might also find a remarkably similar job posting (different company) by googling those certs and Colorado, if you don't want to imply anything about your hypothetical clearance status to an internet rando. I wouldn't!
Special Colorado note: You will have to pee clean once for the hiring process. No idea about ongoing DoD oversight of your immersion in the region's cultural nuances.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Sure yeah you can have 2 instances of SQL server on a machine with 6 gigs of RAM, third party IT company.
Oh things are slow and it's timing out? That's super interesting, and a result I absolutely didn't expect.
We have SQL servers running multiple instances on 4Gb and a few with 8Gb.
Just depends on load.
We've got one app that needs it's own dedicated server because it has some stupid hardcoded queries that just hammer the DB. Not quite as bad as "SELECT * FROM *" but pretty close.
Yeah if your table is smaller than like 2 gigs you should be okay.
Our databases total usually run in the 5-600GB range, and usually need to access any of them at any time. Our Checkimaging tables usually run 100+ gigs apiece.
The places we have that just let their SQL instances go unfettered will take 15+ GB of RAM.
Add to that the 7-800 megs SSRS usually takes up and whatever W3WP needs.
Ok, maybe Boston isn't so bad. At least it's pretty ok when you've found a good sports pub during a Bruins game. I still hate driving here, especially after a sports pub during a Bruins game.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Ok, maybe Boston isn't so bad. At least it's pretty ok when you've found a good sports pub during a Bruins game. I still hate driving here, especially after a sports pub during a Bruins game.
Driving in Boston convinces you that the streets hate you.
ThegreatcowLord of All BaconsWashington State - It's Wet up here innit? Registered Userregular
Hey folks would it be better to ask about It career roles in here or the H/A forum? Mainly I ask because I'm a long time Tier1/2 helpdesk weenie debating how to better move further into a sysadmin/devops role, but I'm struggling how to go about it. (Also seriously considering moving from California to Seattle to get away from the horrid 9 months of summer).
Hey folks would it be better to ask about It career roles in here or the H/A forum? Mainly I ask because I'm a long time Tier1/2 helpdesk weenie debating how to better move further into a sysadmin/devops role, but I'm struggling how to go about it. (Also seriously considering moving from California to Seattle to get away from the horrid 9 months of summer).
We're just going to crush your spirit.
Naw, here's a pretty good place to ask. There are a lot of folks in the thread who've made that transition, I think.
Hey folks would it be better to ask about It career roles in here or the H/A forum? Mainly I ask because I'm a long time Tier1/2 helpdesk weenie debating how to better move further into a sysadmin/devops role, but I'm struggling how to go about it. (Also seriously considering moving from California to Seattle to get away from the horrid 9 months of summer).
You need to learn stuff in your spare time. It's actually as easy advice as that, I think. Start being an admin nerd in your spare time and devote yourself to a set of skills.
What is this I don't even.
+4
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Hey folks would it be better to ask about It career roles in here or the H/A forum? Mainly I ask because I'm a long time Tier1/2 helpdesk weenie debating how to better move further into a sysadmin/devops role, but I'm struggling how to go about it. (Also seriously considering moving from California to Seattle to get away from the horrid 9 months of summer).
You need to learn stuff in your spare time. It's actually as easy advice as that, I think. Start being an admin nerd in your spare time and devote yourself to a set of skills.
You'd be surprised how impressive it is if you set up a home network.
Especially if you get different operating systems to work together.
The concept of a homelab is kinda of anathema to me because outside of work hours, I no longer want to *see* a computer. Hell unless i'm on call between when I get off work and start the next day I try not to touch a computer, and usually succeed. even my PC gaming has dropped off because of that. Do lots of you guys who aren't just still starting out bother with that? My work gives unlimited education/learning days so if there's a new tech or something i'm going to need to use I typically just block off a couple of days for learning and do it @ work.
The concept of a homelab is kinda of anathema to me because outside of work hours, I no longer want to *see* a computer. Hell unless i'm on call between when I get off work and start the next day I try not to touch a computer, and usually succeed. even my PC gaming has dropped off because of that. Do lots of you guys who aren't just still starting out bother with that? My work gives unlimited education/learning days so if there's a new tech or something i'm going to need to use I typically just block off a couple of days for learning and do it @ work.
I mostly agree with this and feel a lot the same way. I don't spend nearly as much time tinkering around with my own PC as I used to. I've spent most of the last 2 days staring at powershell and the absolute last thing I want to do when I get home is do anything close to that. Not every employer gives employees the opportunity to have a lot of learning time at work though, so that's what makes it tough for a lot of people. There are a few things here and there that I've had to force myself to pay attention to/keep up on outside of work, and it just isn't nearly as fun as it was 10+ years ago.
man I wish I got to spend the mosts of my days staring at powershell
my company needs to fire some of the useless fucks up at the sysadmin tier and get me in there
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I think the home lab is to learn things that perhaps you want to learn but don't do at work.
So if you're in help desk and you want to get into programming, or networking, or whatever, you need to set up a place you can do that.
The concept of a homelab is kinda of anathema to me because outside of work hours, I no longer want to *see* a computer. Hell unless i'm on call between when I get off work and start the next day I try not to touch a computer, and usually succeed. even my PC gaming has dropped off because of that. Do lots of you guys who aren't just still starting out bother with that? My work gives unlimited education/learning days so if there's a new tech or something i'm going to need to use I typically just block off a couple of days for learning and do it @ work.
I understand this feeling. I really do.
I also think that everybody who works in this profession needs some kind of sandbox environment to fuck around in.
Maybe your job has an isolated test environment and you have ample time to play in it. Then you don't need a home lab.
But if your work isn't giving you some VMs where you can install new OSes/containers/apps then you need to cowboy up and build one yourself.
Otherwise you're either learning in production, or you're not learning at all, and neither of those is a recipe for success.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
+3
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ThegreatcowLord of All BaconsWashington State - It's Wet up here innit? Registered Userregular
Interesting. Thank you for all the advice posted so far. So I take it, things like certs and bootcamps don't hold as much weight when it comes to interview time I take it? I mean I kind of feel like a lot of the folks have mentioned here that after 10+ hours of managing active directory policies, cleaning up terminations/setting up new accounts and general help desk buggery, it's damn draining to get myself motivated to tinker with things outside of fear of career/living mortality.
Honestly my biggest fear right now is my struggles with programming languages. I started learning Programming back in college on C++ and Java and it was such a nightmare that I ended up focusing on my business degree with a minor in IT technology. Now however it seems that was a stupid move on my part because most of the higher level stuff outside of Tier 1/2 helpdesk stuff requires some aptitude with programming/scripting. I mean hell, even trying to learn powershell on my own is frustrating me at this point. I feel like there's no avenue to further myself in this role without hunkering down and bashing my head against the keyboard until I can get the process to stick. I'm great from a end-hardware perspective, and can handle large hardware deployments/basic server maintenance and upkeep (backups, drive swaps etc) but my interest in Devops/SysAdmin roles seems to be cut off to me from my perspective due to my struggles in learning how to code.
Interesting. Thank you for all the advice posted so far. So I take it, things like certs and bootcamps don't hold as much weight when it comes to interview time I take it? I mean I kind of feel like a lot of the folks have mentioned here that after 10+ hours of managing active directory policies, cleaning up terminations/setting up new accounts and general help desk buggery, it's damn draining to get myself motivated to tinker with things outside of fear of career/living mortality.
Honestly my biggest fear right now is my struggles with programming languages. I started learning Programming back in college on C++ and Java and it was such a nightmare that I ended up focusing on my business degree with a minor in IT technology. Now however it seems that was a stupid move on my part because most of the higher level stuff outside of Tier 1/2 helpdesk stuff requires some aptitude with programming/scripting. I mean hell, even trying to learn powershell on my own is frustrating me at this point. I feel like there's no avenue to further myself in this role without hunkering down and bashing my head against the keyboard until I can get the process to stick. I'm great from a end-hardware perspective, and can handle large hardware deployments/basic server maintenance and upkeep (backups, drive swaps etc) but my interest in Devops/SysAdmin roles seems to be cut off to me from my perspective due to my struggles in learning how to code.
Sorry for the ramble.
Is Devops the only place you want to go? Security side of things shouldn't be a hard move over, I wouldn't think. Also start going to those meetups related to profession. Knowing someone is a shit ton better than throwing skills at the resume and hoping some HR person is interested.
Slight plug but Tenable has a home feed for free that gets you a good idea of the tool and that tool is used pretty widely. Also they're hiring and I can get your resume in to the internal system.
Interesting. Thank you for all the advice posted so far. So I take it, things like certs and bootcamps don't hold as much weight when it comes to interview time I take it? I mean I kind of feel like a lot of the folks have mentioned here that after 10+ hours of managing active directory policies, cleaning up terminations/setting up new accounts and general help desk buggery, it's damn draining to get myself motivated to tinker with things outside of fear of career/living mortality.
Honestly my biggest fear right now is my struggles with programming languages. I started learning Programming back in college on C++ and Java and it was such a nightmare that I ended up focusing on my business degree with a minor in IT technology. Now however it seems that was a stupid move on my part because most of the higher level stuff outside of Tier 1/2 helpdesk stuff requires some aptitude with programming/scripting. I mean hell, even trying to learn powershell on my own is frustrating me at this point. I feel like there's no avenue to further myself in this role without hunkering down and bashing my head against the keyboard until I can get the process to stick. I'm great from a end-hardware perspective, and can handle large hardware deployments/basic server maintenance and upkeep (backups, drive swaps etc) but my interest in Devops/SysAdmin roles seems to be cut off to me from my perspective due to my struggles in learning how to code.
Sorry for the ramble.
Yes, having certs and no experience doesn't really get you anywhere unless you can explain how you've actually been using the tech somewhere.
Interesting. Thank you for all the advice posted so far. So I take it, things like certs and bootcamps don't hold as much weight when it comes to interview time I take it? I mean I kind of feel like a lot of the folks have mentioned here that after 10+ hours of managing active directory policies, cleaning up terminations/setting up new accounts and general help desk buggery, it's damn draining to get myself motivated to tinker with things outside of fear of career/living mortality.
Honestly my biggest fear right now is my struggles with programming languages. I started learning Programming back in college on C++ and Java and it was such a nightmare that I ended up focusing on my business degree with a minor in IT technology. Now however it seems that was a stupid move on my part because most of the higher level stuff outside of Tier 1/2 helpdesk stuff requires some aptitude with programming/scripting. I mean hell, even trying to learn powershell on my own is frustrating me at this point. I feel like there's no avenue to further myself in this role without hunkering down and bashing my head against the keyboard until I can get the process to stick. I'm great from a end-hardware perspective, and can handle large hardware deployments/basic server maintenance and upkeep (backups, drive swaps etc) but my interest in Devops/SysAdmin roles seems to be cut off to me from my perspective due to my struggles in learning how to code.
Sorry for the ramble.
Yes, having certs and no experience doesn't really get you anywhere unless you can explain how you've actually been using the tech somewhere.
one annoying caveat to that is that certs are more likely to get you through the HR screening process. Lots of companies have HR screen the applicants first, and HR loves their certs/education.
Once you actually get past that and get talking to the right people in the interview process, certs are generally useless.
Interesting. Thank you for all the advice posted so far. So I take it, things like certs and bootcamps don't hold as much weight when it comes to interview time I take it? I mean I kind of feel like a lot of the folks have mentioned here that after 10+ hours of managing active directory policies, cleaning up terminations/setting up new accounts and general help desk buggery, it's damn draining to get myself motivated to tinker with things outside of fear of career/living mortality.
Honestly my biggest fear right now is my struggles with programming languages. I started learning Programming back in college on C++ and Java and it was such a nightmare that I ended up focusing on my business degree with a minor in IT technology. Now however it seems that was a stupid move on my part because most of the higher level stuff outside of Tier 1/2 helpdesk stuff requires some aptitude with programming/scripting. I mean hell, even trying to learn powershell on my own is frustrating me at this point. I feel like there's no avenue to further myself in this role without hunkering down and bashing my head against the keyboard until I can get the process to stick. I'm great from a end-hardware perspective, and can handle large hardware deployments/basic server maintenance and upkeep (backups, drive swaps etc) but my interest in Devops/SysAdmin roles seems to be cut off to me from my perspective due to my struggles in learning how to code.
Sorry for the ramble.
Yes, having certs and no experience doesn't really get you anywhere unless you can explain how you've actually been using the tech somewhere.
one annoying caveat to that is that certs are more likely to get you through the HR screening process. Lots of companies have HR screen the applicants first, and HR loves their certs/education.
Once you actually get past that and get talking to the right people in the interview process, certs are generally useless.
Right. I have to have my certs to have my job, but my certs would never get me a job.
Still, the easier way to do things is to learn a thing in your spare time, then get the related cert, rather than try to get the cert and afterwards learn to do the thing.
So hey if you guys aren't aware of VMWare Hands On Labs, you totally fucking should be. You can either start on that guided website to find a lab that suits or just pick and choose out of the huge lab catalog. The entire thing is free and done through the web interface. VMWare is going full html5 for management so this totally makes sense.
You can take labs for anything from virtualization basics to trying out all the shiny newest enterprise level features. It's all in completely disposable labs with fully destructible terrain. Break it all you want, they'll revert to snapshot when you're done.
They also have challenge labs where they regularly release new challenge environments where there's something broken or an end goal that you have to make major configuration changes to enable.
Also, one of my clients, a bank, frantically called us last week because they were completely offline.
They had changed the IP address of their domain controller.
After some investigation, it turns out they did this at the behest of their fucking HVAC guy.
Apparently some of his shit wasn't getting DNS and rather than change the DNS servers in his equipment, he had them change the fucking IP address of the DC that was doing DNS.
Words failed me.
You made a change to your domain controller..... because the furnace repair guy told you to.
If your HVAC vendor told you to stick your finger up your ass would you fucking do that too?
If you want to learn some devops go grab the Puppet Learning VM.
It's a great way to start learning Puppet.
Yeah even beyond the VMware stuff itself, some of those lab VMs run Linux and such. You could totally snag one of the labs just to dick around with one of the servers.
There's an archive section too, so the amount of labs in there is ridiculously huge.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I've been at a company and found an HVAC device somewhere in the building, running a little webserver open to the Internet via a port forward in the firewall, still running default usernames and passwords.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Also, one of my clients, a bank, frantically called us last week because they were completely offline.
They had changed the IP address of their domain controller.
After some investigation, it turns out they did this at the behest of their fucking HVAC guy.
Apparently some of his shit wasn't getting DNS and rather than change the DNS servers in his equipment, he had them change the fucking IP address of the DC that was doing DNS.
Words failed me.
You made a change to your domain controller..... because the furnace repair guy told you to.
If your HVAC vendor told you to stick your finger up your ass would you fucking do that too?
I think my favorite part of this is how they only had one domain controller.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Posts
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.
"Other duties as assigned."
Oh things are slow and it's timing out? That's super interesting, and a result I absolutely didn't expect.
We have SQL servers running multiple instances on 4Gb and a few with 8Gb.
Just depends on load.
We've got one app that needs it's own dedicated server because it has some stupid hardcoded queries that just hammer the DB. Not quite as bad as "SELECT * FROM *" but pretty close.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Yeah if your table is smaller than like 2 gigs you should be okay.
What did you end up doing? Nuking it?
heh, I was gonna say
if you don't feel like making a boot USB, you could always log in as the local admin, delete your user folder (what so your files are mostly gone), then be all del /f /s /q c:\windows
mostly because it's fun to watch a computer slowly eat itself
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Just being lazy and going DBAN. Since I don't know what the preferred OS of the final user is, even though I'm 99% sure it's Win10, so I'm just going to nuke it to the foundation.
Secure socket layers, am I right?
Just saw a job req for security types that I only half followed, but the half I did sounded cool, so thought I'd share.
The requirements are niche, to say the least, but if you've got an interest in living in Colorado amd remoting into satellites, and have a beefy clearance and a unique set of skills*, shoot me a PM and I'll pass you a link.
*(Certified CSSP Analyst and Incident Responder)
You might also find a remarkably similar job posting (different company) by googling those certs and Colorado, if you don't want to imply anything about your hypothetical clearance status to an internet rando. I wouldn't!
Special Colorado note: You will have to pee clean once for the hiring process. No idea about ongoing DoD oversight of your immersion in the region's cultural nuances.
Our databases total usually run in the 5-600GB range, and usually need to access any of them at any time. Our Checkimaging tables usually run 100+ gigs apiece.
The places we have that just let their SQL instances go unfettered will take 15+ GB of RAM.
Add to that the 7-800 megs SSRS usually takes up and whatever W3WP needs.
Yeeeeeeeeah.
Driving in Boston convinces you that the streets hate you.
Wud yoo laek to lern aboot meatz? Look here!
We're just going to crush your spirit.
Naw, here's a pretty good place to ask. There are a lot of folks in the thread who've made that transition, I think.
You need to learn stuff in your spare time. It's actually as easy advice as that, I think. Start being an admin nerd in your spare time and devote yourself to a set of skills.
You'd be surprised how impressive it is if you set up a home network.
Especially if you get different operating systems to work together.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
It's true tho
YNAH
(You Need a Homelab)
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I mostly agree with this and feel a lot the same way. I don't spend nearly as much time tinkering around with my own PC as I used to. I've spent most of the last 2 days staring at powershell and the absolute last thing I want to do when I get home is do anything close to that. Not every employer gives employees the opportunity to have a lot of learning time at work though, so that's what makes it tough for a lot of people. There are a few things here and there that I've had to force myself to pay attention to/keep up on outside of work, and it just isn't nearly as fun as it was 10+ years ago.
my company needs to fire some of the useless fucks up at the sysadmin tier and get me in there
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I still use my PC a lot.
So if you're in help desk and you want to get into programming, or networking, or whatever, you need to set up a place you can do that.
I understand this feeling. I really do.
I also think that everybody who works in this profession needs some kind of sandbox environment to fuck around in.
Maybe your job has an isolated test environment and you have ample time to play in it. Then you don't need a home lab.
But if your work isn't giving you some VMs where you can install new OSes/containers/apps then you need to cowboy up and build one yourself.
Otherwise you're either learning in production, or you're not learning at all, and neither of those is a recipe for success.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Honestly my biggest fear right now is my struggles with programming languages. I started learning Programming back in college on C++ and Java and it was such a nightmare that I ended up focusing on my business degree with a minor in IT technology. Now however it seems that was a stupid move on my part because most of the higher level stuff outside of Tier 1/2 helpdesk stuff requires some aptitude with programming/scripting. I mean hell, even trying to learn powershell on my own is frustrating me at this point. I feel like there's no avenue to further myself in this role without hunkering down and bashing my head against the keyboard until I can get the process to stick. I'm great from a end-hardware perspective, and can handle large hardware deployments/basic server maintenance and upkeep (backups, drive swaps etc) but my interest in Devops/SysAdmin roles seems to be cut off to me from my perspective due to my struggles in learning how to code.
Sorry for the ramble.
Wud yoo laek to lern aboot meatz? Look here!
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Is Devops the only place you want to go? Security side of things shouldn't be a hard move over, I wouldn't think. Also start going to those meetups related to profession. Knowing someone is a shit ton better than throwing skills at the resume and hoping some HR person is interested.
Slight plug but Tenable has a home feed for free that gets you a good idea of the tool and that tool is used pretty widely. Also they're hiring and I can get your resume in to the internal system.
Yes, having certs and no experience doesn't really get you anywhere unless you can explain how you've actually been using the tech somewhere.
one annoying caveat to that is that certs are more likely to get you through the HR screening process. Lots of companies have HR screen the applicants first, and HR loves their certs/education.
Once you actually get past that and get talking to the right people in the interview process, certs are generally useless.
Right. I have to have my certs to have my job, but my certs would never get me a job.
Still, the easier way to do things is to learn a thing in your spare time, then get the related cert, rather than try to get the cert and afterwards learn to do the thing.
You can take labs for anything from virtualization basics to trying out all the shiny newest enterprise level features. It's all in completely disposable labs with fully destructible terrain. Break it all you want, they'll revert to snapshot when you're done.
They also have challenge labs where they regularly release new challenge environments where there's something broken or an end goal that you have to make major configuration changes to enable.
This is pretty fucking cool.
They had changed the IP address of their domain controller.
After some investigation, it turns out they did this at the behest of their fucking HVAC guy.
Apparently some of his shit wasn't getting DNS and rather than change the DNS servers in his equipment, he had them change the fucking IP address of the DC that was doing DNS.
Words failed me.
You made a change to your domain controller..... because the furnace repair guy told you to.
If your HVAC vendor told you to stick your finger up your ass would you fucking do that too?
It's a great way to start learning Puppet.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Yep.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/02/target-hackers-broke-in-via-hvac-company/
Yeah even beyond the VMware stuff itself, some of those lab VMs run Linux and such. You could totally snag one of the labs just to dick around with one of the servers.
There's an archive section too, so the amount of labs in there is ridiculously huge.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I think my favorite part of this is how they only had one domain controller.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.