Skills - Bob Hardy

NIS familiar with most command line tools and utilities (ypcat, ypmatch, ypwhich, ypbind, etc.); frequently edit the master files and push out the changes. At HAL, passwd and group were managed together in a file called userdb, which was parsed and pushed out with specially created scripts, but I often edited and pushed the userdb; there was no hosts file, but there was a more complex, special file called nodes, which updated NIS and DNS at the same time, and I routinely edited and pushed that; aliases, netgroup, and a whole family of automount maps: auto.direct, auto.indirect, auto.sim, auto.u, and several more. There was also a ypservers map, which I edited occasionally too. Maintaining the userdb, aliases and auto.u files were a routine part of my terminations duties. Did troubleshooting and maintenance on numerous NIS "slave" servers, which were distributed on a per-subnet basis.

NFS troubleshooting NFS problems, most often on client systems, less often on servers. In some cases, the difference is slight: there were some desktop systems exporting filesystems that were mounted elsewhere. Installed, mounted, exported and added to NIS maps the filesystems to be made available in this fashion. Also, did less frequent maintenance on Network Appliances servers, including removing snapshots when filesystems became overfilled, modifying exports file to enable certain systems to have root access privileges, or to enable or disable read-write access. Archived and removed user home directories, as well as their auto.u entries, as part of my terminations duties.

Mail acting postmaster, I received around 10-20MB of spam per week, and reported a large amount of it to the appropriate ISPs using tools such as traceroute to locate the point of origin. Installed a spam and virus filtration server, running InterScan VirusWall 3.5 under Solaris, to help keep viruses out of email and cut down on email spam, between the mail gateways and the principal mail server.

News acting newsmaster, I did light maintenance and upkeep on the news server I installed, running DNews 5.4 under Solaris. Offered a subset of the available newsgroups, allowing most of alt, austin, cern, comp, dfw, news and rec newsgroups, excluding all binaries groups. Installed a web-based interface, so that users who may not be expert with news reader software can still read news through a familiar and ubiquitous interface.

Solaris installation installed Solaris (and SunOS) via Jumpstart over the network on many desktop and small server systems.

Patches occasionally downloaded, and frequently applied patches and patch clusters to desktop and server systems as needed.

Routing discovered and deleted bad routes, and replaced them with good ones on various systems as needed, killed routed and set up /etc/defaultrouter files on systems prone to such routing problems, created /etc/notrouter files on systems prone to promoting bad routes over the network.

Web servers created new web servers; compiled, installed and configured Apache httpd software for those servers; added scripted cron jobs that checked for httpd and started it up if none were found running. Maintained much intranet web content on company servers, including adding entire new sections of documentation, providing links to externally-provided documents, sifting out old obsolete documents and removing or replacing them, and helping other departments create new documents for their respective web pages, including all documents for Human Resources Department, and many for Finance and Manufacturing Departments. Ran HTML verification checks on such documents, and edited them into compliance with the language specifications. Wrote CGI programs (in perl) for the servers, primarily forms that sent email of various sorts to users and groups, including help requests for the Helpdesk, user satisfaction surveys. Rendered scanned images of documents into readable graphics files, for forms and other printable paper documents for Finance Dept. Archived and removed employee web pages as part of my termination duties.

Vantive implemented Vantive Helpdesk application and supervised operation of the company Helpdesk staff that used it. Brought the Helpdesk to a state of stability where eventually it could be delegated to others to run it. Worked with MIS group to facilitate the integration of some Oracle and Vantive application extensions to the basic product.

NIS	familiar with most command line tools and utilities (ypcat, ypmatch, ypwhich, ypbind, etc.); frequently edit the master files and push out the changes. At HAL, passwd and group were managed together in a file called userdb, which was parsed and pushed out with specially created scripts, but I often edited and pushed the userdb; there was no hosts file, but there was a more complex, special file called nodes, which updated NIS and DNS at the same time, and I routinely edited and pushed that; aliases, netgroup, and a whole family of automount maps: auto.direct, auto.indirect, auto.sim, auto.u, and several more. There was also a ypservers map, which I edited occasionally too. Maintaining the userdb, aliases and auto.u files were a routine part of my terminations duties. Did troubleshooting and maintenance on numerous NIS "slave" servers, which were distributed on a per-subnet basis.
NFS	troubleshooting NFS problems, most often on client systems, less often on servers. In some cases, the difference is slight: there were some desktop systems exporting filesystems that were mounted elsewhere. Installed, mounted, exported and added to NIS maps the filesystems to be made available in this fashion. Also, did less frequent maintenance on Network Appliances servers, including removing snapshots when filesystems became overfilled, modifying exports file to enable certain systems to have root access privileges, or to enable or disable read-write access. Archived and removed user home directories, as well as their auto.u entries, as part of my terminations duties.
Mail	acting postmaster, I received around 10-20MB of spam per week, and reported a large amount of it to the appropriate ISPs using tools such as traceroute to locate the point of origin. Installed a spam and virus filtration server, running InterScan VirusWall 3.5 under Solaris, to help keep viruses out of email and cut down on email spam, between the mail gateways and the principal mail server.
News	acting newsmaster, I did light maintenance and upkeep on the news server I installed, running DNews 5.4 under Solaris. Offered a subset of the available newsgroups, allowing most of alt, austin, cern, comp, dfw, news and rec newsgroups, excluding all binaries groups. Installed a web-based interface, so that users who may not be expert with news reader software can still read news through a familiar and ubiquitous interface.
Solaris installation	installed Solaris (and SunOS) via Jumpstart over the network on many desktop and small server systems.
Patches	occasionally downloaded, and frequently applied patches and patch clusters to desktop and server systems as needed.
Routing	discovered and deleted bad routes, and replaced them with good ones on various systems as needed, killed routed and set up /etc/defaultrouter files on systems prone to such routing problems, created /etc/notrouter files on systems prone to promoting bad routes over the network.
Web servers	created new web servers; compiled, installed and configured Apache httpd software for those servers; added scripted cron jobs that checked for httpd and started it up if none were found running. Maintained much intranet web content on company servers, including adding entire new sections of documentation, providing links to externally-provided documents, sifting out old obsolete documents and removing or replacing them, and helping other departments create new documents for their respective web pages, including all documents for Human Resources Department, and many for Finance and Manufacturing Departments. Ran HTML verification checks on such documents, and edited them into compliance with the language specifications. Wrote CGI programs (in perl) for the servers, primarily forms that sent email of various sorts to users and groups, including help requests for the Helpdesk, user satisfaction surveys. Rendered scanned images of documents into readable graphics files, for forms and other printable paper documents for Finance Dept. Archived and removed employee web pages as part of my termination duties.
Vantive	implemented Vantive Helpdesk application and supervised operation of the company Helpdesk staff that used it. Brought the Helpdesk to a state of stability where eventually it could be delegated to others to run it. Worked with MIS group to facilitate the integration of some Oracle and Vantive application extensions to the basic product.