Why aren’t our systems setup properly?
In my line of work I’ve had to come into a number of different companies and take up roles as the newest member of the technical team. Sometimes I’ve had to take roles that are junior to existing staff members until I prove myself and other times I’ve taken up roles where I’ve been the senior guy from the word go.
No matter what my role is there is inevitably something in the existing configuration that makes me go WTF? “Didn’t the last admin know what they were doing?” Let me give you some examples of weird things I’ve found so far.
- A mail server with a DHCP-configured network adapter. The existing administrators were wondering why their mail server would sometimes not respond.
- A Microsoft Active Directory where Domain Users was part of the Domain Admins group.
- A Microsoft Active Directory where the CEO was a member of Enterprise Admins.
- An ‘administrator’ wondering why users couldn’t access any files. I found that he’d denied access to all files by granting his account and ONLY his account access to the files in question.
- A network folder containing payroll information being open to every person in the organisation.
- Testing a new configuration in the production environment and then wondering why things aren’t working anymore.
It’s things like this that make me wonder how some people get jobs as system administrators. My experience is almost entirely Microsoft-based so I know a thing or two about how to configure Active Directory and the bits that go with it. I’ve asked myself why this sort of thing happen and I’ve come up with a couple of theories. In all the points below I’m referring to ‘we’ as the collective technical population – don’t take any of it personally.
We simply don’t care.
Why, then, don’t we apply the same level of dedication to the configurations we’re responsible for in our corporate environments every day?
A Microsoft Tech-Ed a couple of years ago, Steve Riley, arguably one of if not Microsoft’s top security guru, posed a similar question to the audience. My answer was simply that we don’t own the networks and in most cases we have nothing to lose if they stop working. For this reason we can afford to slack off a bit without causing too much trouble.
In other words, it’s simple social engineering that causes us to care at home but not at work.
I worked with a guy a while ago who had his home system locked down so tight that he locked himself out … oh the joys of not knowing how to configure iptables properly. Unfortunately his work ethic left a bit to be desired and he ended up being the guy responsible for point #6 above.
We think we’re good at what we do …
I’ve been involved in the hiring process many times throughout my career and it’s shocking how many people embellish their CV to the point of sounding like they could take Ed Harris’s place in the movie ‘Apollo 13’ – they make it look like they’re good enough to work for N.A.S.A. All too often this ends up coming around full circle and they do something silly that makes their CV look like 5 or 6 pages of rubbish.
Don’t get me wrong, nobody is perfect. If you know how to do something and you’re good at it – GREAT. If you really don’t understand something then please have the guts to admit it or at least go away and research it before saying you’re the authority on the topic. I certainly write about things that I’m not the authority on … hopefully I don’t sound like I think I am though.
If we deserve to get paid ‘the big bucks’ shouldn’t we all be aware of what we do and don’t know?
What do YOU think?
2 Responses to “Why aren’t our systems setup properly?”
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What do I think? HAH I think:
Where exactly are these ‘big bucks’ you speak of?
And also a quiet *giggle* at some of the examples you posted above
domain users as part of domain admin, heeheehee 
Also, it’s so frickin easy to pass MS exams by memorising the answers to questions, that’s why companies are hiring more and more idiots. ALSO companies like to upgrade to new systems, but aren’t so keen on paying the small bucks to upskill their existing staff, so people might be seriously switched on in legacy systems, but they’ve also turned into legacy administrators / engineers.
Caro: The big bucks people like you get paid … go on admit it … I know you got ‘em.
Seriously though, sometimes it’s frustrating to find that complete muppets have been hired to do a serious job. It’s a shame so many companies put so much stock in people with MCSE etc – it’s unavoidable sometimes but personally I think experience speaks volumes (easy for me to say that though because I’m not so good at exams but I know what I’m doing in my job … I hope!)