Recommendations for becoming a linux sysadmin?

[Austin Godber]

blake gonterman wrote:
> Afternoon All,
>
> I've finally figured out where I want to go with my career, but most 
> of the jobs I've seen require quite a bit more knowledge than I can 
> get just on my own. Most require experience gained at a job.
>
> So, my question to the mailing list is: What would you recommend I 
> work on to become a Linux Sysadmin?
>
> I've been studying on my RHCT for about 2 months, working with the 
> book, doing the labs and experimenting on my own. I've been purposely 
> breaking my linux install on my laptop and then troubleshooting the 
> errors and such to get a better understanding of how to fix various 
> errors.
>
> I'm looking to get into a junior administration position, but those 
> seem to be hard to come by.
>
> Any suggestions for me?
>
> Thank you!
>
> --gnunixguy

Well, experience is gonna be a question and if you don't have any job 
related experience then you could be evaluated based on what you know.  
For instance, have you recompiled your kernel ever?  Setup software raid 
for no good reason (or something you considered a good reason)?  
Installed a web app on one machine, then tried to move that to another 
machine?  Ever use MySQL?  Postgres?  Postfix? etc.  You will have to be 
able to give people at least a sense of what you know.  Try to do things 
... break them ... figure out how to fix them.  Ever resize an LVM 
Logical Volume?

With just a modest computer and virtualization you can have an infinite 
number of computers to practice on.  Prettymuch everything works the 
same on a virtual machine as it does on a real machine ... after some 
time you will understand the boundaries.

BTW, if you answered yes to all or even some of those questions above 
email me off list.

Austin

godber at uberhip [dot] com