Re: Teaching System Administration with limited hands-on

[Jim Dennis <jimd@starshine.org>]

>> Does anyone out there have ideas, experience or pointers to
>> resources for teaching system administration with little or no
>> hands-on?

	You can have them read Nemeth and Frisch, go through 
	USAIL (web based free training), browse ugu (Unix Guru
	Universe) and geek-girl and all of that.

	However, it just doesn't make sense in this day and age
	to attempt to teach any computer related subject without
	providing full access to suitable computers.  

	It's like suggesting that you train doctors for surgery
	without access to any cadavers or provide training to
	carpenters without the students ever touching a hammer or a
	saw.  (O.K. you said "limited" --- so they get to handle
	hammers and saws --- but not use them to drive nails and
	cut wood).

	At a certain point I'd go to the administration and say:

		This program is a disservice to the students.
		Provide us with the resources that are required
		to effectively teach the topic --- or refer those
		students to some institution that will "do it
		right."
 
> Bad idea.  You learn 10% of what you hear, 30% of what you hear, and 70%
                                                            ^^^^^= see ?

> of what you do.  [Don't quote me on the numbers - my first Instructor
> courses were years or decades ago, I forget which.  ;-)]  Also, with
> system administration (as with many other things), which made the most
> impression on you - the sternest warning you ever heard, or the worst
> blunder you or someone working with you made?

> Get 486's and set them up with a Freenix.  Best thing to do.  And,
> it's recycling!  ;-)
 
	I agree with the general sentiment here.
	Surely you can get someone to donate a few old 386 and
	486 systems with ethernet cards and an 8 or 16 port 
	hub.

	(You can get new machines for less than $500 each ---
	and bare bones 200Mhz Cyrix x86' systems with 32Mb
	for about $200 --- just add hard drive and NIC).

	I'm sure you have monitors and keyboards (presumably
	on Windows workstations) in some computer lab some where.

	So the challenges are:

		1) get these systems 
		2) find a "home" for them (closet with wall power)
		3) provide access to them (telnet from the 
		   other workstations and terminals that you
	           currently use for user/level access to the 
		   other Unix server(s)).
		4) Allay any concerns about students abusing your
		   LAN segment (sniffers, etc).
		5) Have the students install different versions of
		   Linux and FreeBSD onto each of the donated
		   systems, repeatedly.

	... note that last word.  Giving student root access to a 
	testbed system will entail frequent IPLs on that testbed.

	This means that you have to provide at least one console 
	monitor and keyboard (and possibly a KVM switchbox or
	two) to provide that access.  For each of these testbed
	PCs you can leave a CD of the appropriate version of freenix
	"locked in" to the CD drive on that system.  For older
	386 and 486 systems you'll also have to leave a suitable
	boot floppy in place (older PCs didn't have the BIOS 
	routines to boot from CDs).  (All in all a locked closet
	sounds like a bad idea in this case.  Just put them under a
	table in the back of one of your computer labs).

	You can then have every student practice wiping out and 
	re-installing each of the freenix variants you're using.
	They can be encouraged to "have fun" during the "wipe out"
	phase (find out first hand what happens when you trash the
	shared libraries).

	I highly recommend that you have them learn FreeBSD as
	well as Linux.  (There are about 10 million Linux users
	out there --- this hardly looks distinguished on a 
	resume compared to the 1 million or so FreeBSD users.
	Get them both!  With user level experience on Solaris
	--- or HP-UX, AIX, etc your students will then be in a 
	fair position to compete for entry level positions).

	(As a hiring manager I'd be far more interested in the
	candidates that have set up and used such systems at home
	--- particularly if they have it in some sort of
	"production" use as their home LAN to Internet gateway,
	household fileserver etc).
	
	You say you can't "require" these students to have
	and use home computers (fair enough).  However, you can
	tell them the harsh reality.  If they walk into an interview
	or worse an initial day on the job, without some decent 
	hands on experience they're courting disaster (or
	disappointment at the very least).


--
Jim Dennis  (800) 938-4078		consulting@starshine.org
Proprietor, Starshine Technical Services:  http://www.starshine.org