[geeks] documenting the environment

[hike]

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 8:43 PM, Nadine Miller <velociraptor at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Frank Van Damme wrote:
>
>> Hi.
>>
>> many of you are probably familiar with the topic of documentation. I
>> mean the process of documenting a network of IT environment, including
>> servers, routers/switches/firewalls, physical and virtual hardware, ip
>> addresses and ranges being used, ports occupied on network hardware,
>> SAN, physical locations etc.
>>
>> There must be a dozen ways to do this, but I was wondering how people
>> cope with this problem in real life , and if some methods turn out to
>> work better than others. I am also dreaming of a method allowing me to
>> track changes to the documentation as the environment changes/expands.
>>
>
> Good luck with that!  I've yet to work anywhere with decent documentation.
>  We had a lot of documentation at the .govvie places, unfortunately just in
> a shared folder on the exchange server.  But even this was incomplete in
> spite of government mandated controls on configuration changes.  Everywhere
> else was very, very lax.
>
> The bigger the shop the harder it is to get people to document, IMO. You
> really have to get everyone behind it, and get management to put some
> investment into it to encourage people to keep it updated.
>
> There are some scripts that can be used to collect info (say, run out of
> cron) and inject said info into a db.  Some of the network management
> softwares supposedly are self-documenting.
>
> You might want to have a look at things for configuration management like
> CFEngine, Pikt, and similar.
>
> =Nadine=
> _______________________________________________
> GEEKS:  http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/geeks
>


I do not document anything except for personal use.

No company that I have worked for has paid me for documentation and used it
properly.  If they ask for documentation, it always ends up being a "ding"
at performance review time.  Errors can always be found and if the manager
wants (even the upside-down dot over the "i" or the backwards crossed "t"),
she will list that as a negative.  Like the United Way and ISO9000,
documentation is a trap used by manager to make you compliance and
submissive and screw you over.

I do document my activities, emergencies needing sysadmin
work/troubleshooting, business events, etc. in my personally owned log book
using my personally owned pen/pencil.
If the manager wants the information, she can buy it.  But, no manager has
ever asked for my log book; they treat the next sysadmin as poorly as they
treated me.

So, if it helps you, document.  If management doesn't approve, ignore them
and do it anyway.  Or, you can document and now even ask management for
approve.  It's your career not theirs.

There are numerous opensource products for documenting machines and
networks. You can set these up on spare equipment or  add them to existing
machines.  Many don't need servers ; that is, a workstation will do.  Nagios
is one that I have used but there are several others that give good
reviews.  And there is no need to tell anyone else or to share the
information.  If management asks, tell them is is just part of your job
description and ignore them.

(I'm really big on ignoring management.  After 20+ years in sysadmin work, I
have come to recognize that management only wants to interfere; they do not
want to help.  The latest event: my manager wanted me to contact Red Hat
sales/support and ask them if we need a RHEL 4 license to run RHEL 4 servers
or will the RHEL 5 license cover our RHEL 5 license.  When I told him the
answer to his question, he gave this "task" to a junior admin.  When the
junior admin told him the same thing [after a couple hours on the Red Hat
site verifying what I said], he stopped his foolishness on this point.  I am
tired of this management crap, btw.  I just want to do my job and go home
and enjoy my real life.  The older I get, the less I suffer fools
graciously.  Sorry to be so cynical; but the older I get, the more I agree
with those who, in my younger days, said that managers are
bloodsuckers/leeces/vampires.)