System administration Rules To Live By

(Learned the hard way)

1. Diff before you install.
2. Never install version X.0 or 0.X.
3. Use the source motel.
4. Gonzalez' maxim (aka The Friday Rule): Never make big changes on Friday.
5. Don't sweat minor revisions and patches.
6. Wrapper scripts are like Bondo and a coat of primer.
7. "make -n" is your friend.
8. Unverified backups are evil.
9. Backwards-compatable dump and restore programs aren't.
10. Emacs is great for patching binaries.

The Top 10 things That Make Us Not Go

(Also learned the hard way)

10) Replacing mv and rcp with dynamically linked versions.
9) Forgetting to refreeze the sendmail config file after shared library changes.
8) Restoring files onto a new partition and not doing a level 0 dump.
7) Deleting shared library files while programs have them mapped.
6) Making changes to /etc files without checking the changes in.
5) Forgetting to diff /etc/blurfletab against the one you're about to install.
4) Testing user programs as root.
3) Typing ``make'' without typing ``make -n'' first.
2) Deciding to leave the sysmod for tomorrow.

And in honor of Mike, the number one thing that will make us not go...

1) Write protecting the swap disk.