Crunch Tools

Reading Ted Dziuba’s article Monitoring Theory article, I was reminded of several conventions that I have developed over the years to help with monitoring servers, network devices, software services, batch processes, etc. First, break down your data points into levels so that you can decide how to route them. Second avoid interrupt driven technology like email, it lowers your productivity and prohibits good analysis techniques.

This tutorial provides guidance on best practices and configuration of OpenSSH/Keychain, but also includes some important troubleshooting techniques for which documentation is somewhat lacking. These techniques took me several years to develop and I have tried to compile them here in one concise post so that others do not have to suffer through the arduous learning process

Background An ethnography is a holistic study of another culture conducted by an anthropologist. During the study, the anthropologist lives among the members of the foreign culture, takes notes, and collects data. From this data, the anthropologist develops theories and tests them cross culturally to determine if the source is genetic/biological in nature or enculturated. [...]

Recently, I listened to an O'Reilly webcast called "The Myths of Innovation" where Scott Berkun discussed the concept of a lab. He showed a picture of Edison's lab which showed wooden tables, lamps, and beakers. Systems administrators are also inventors.  We are required to script, program, and configure exotic servers and equipment. To discover new solutions, we need a lab. This is especially true with cloud computing and virtual infrastructure where machines are created and destroyed in a very transient manner.  You need a lab to track all of the successful and failed experiments.