RE: Interview Questions for a Unix Solaris System Admin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen Lee [mailto:Stephen.Lee_at_DTAG.Com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2003 1:14 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: RE: Interview Questions for a Unix Solaris System Admin
>

<snip>
> > 13) Why is NIS bad?
>
> Answer: It isn't. Depending on how your department operates,
> it might be
> very useful. If somebody wants to ypcat my encrypted
> password, go for it.
> You won't be able to crack it. I don't care what you do with
> Joe Stupid's
> password; that's Joe's problem.

<snip>

But the sysadmin has to care what you do with Joe Stupid's password, if it will allow access to a machine through Joe Stupid's account that you wouldn't otherwise have.

On the whole, I agree with the gist of your response. A list of questions like that can be very useful as starting points for an experienced sysadmin to interview for another sysadmin - but they can be anywhere from useless to dangerous in the hands of someone who only knows what is on the piece of paper in front of them.

I wonder if there are any consulting groups that will handle tech interviews - seems like a market niche. Go in and review the environment, come up with questions, then "double-team" with an HR person/supervisor/etc so the tech person can ask and judge the tech questions and the non-tech person can get a sense of personality/quick thinking/ all those other important but hard to measure things.

My favorite ever line from an interview for a Java developer (we hired him).
me: "Hi, I'm Chris, the DBA here."
interviewee: "You're the DBA? Everybody must hate you."

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