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i know that many of us have had many jobs or do consulting work and are therefore exposed to a wide array of clients... individuals, schools, businesses, large through small, etc. many of these instituions have widely varying needs, their own uniqe internal power structures, and more than a handful of quirky practices.
i imagine that some of us (depending on the size range of the companies for whom we have worked) have cringed once or twice over something we've been asked to do, been ordered to do, or had to tolerate others doing. especially if a company is small and you're there on a short gig with limited scope you may come across a mail server installed in a boiler room closet when a "server room" ran out of space or a disk array kept in the break room fridge because "it kept overheating" (these are just silly examples... the real stories of some bizzare shit i've seen probably surpass this) and had no authority to alter it since that's not what you're being paid to do.
however, do you feel that there are certain hard-and-fast rules of IT operation that are unbreakable and that no company or institution has any cause to side step, no matter how quirky their particular story is?
something that comes to mind for me is the following:
absolutely every user on the system must have a password and there is no goddamn reason on the face of the earth that someone needs another user's password for any purpose.
not eloquent or by any means earth-shattering, i know... but that's one of the cardinal rules i refuse to break under any circumstances* and it's a clear flag for me that a previous admin wasn't doing his or her job conscientously if this rule was waived. there is absolutely nothing i can think of that a user is restricted from accomplishing (on a properly-built network) with their own user permissions if they are set properly.
anyone else have any rules that you think are unbreakable, no matter what the job entails?
* at many schools i'll setup a generic "student" or "public" account that visitors, unimportant staff, or even very young students can use to access the network's public resources, print stuff, etc. this account typically has an easy to remember password which has at times been the username itself.
on more than one occasion, however, i've had schools inform me that a group of older students need their own logins. (say, for a photoshop class or other situation where they need to save things to a unique home directory which no one else can foul up) i create the users accounts, complete with long temporary passwords, etc. they login and set their own. after a while i invariably get a teacher or two asking if students can have blank passwords because "they can't remember the password they pick and it slows them down." i always refuse... and i've had the matter escalate all the way to the principal's office one time. that time i simply stated that "the system cannot accept blank passwords" to get him to buzz off. but my favorite off the cuff remark has now become a standard reply to faculty who say their students can't manage to remember or type in a password correctly...
"then instead of a computer class, why don't you consider teaching a course that demonstrates which end of a boom an individual should grip... as this skill will certainly come in handly later in life for anyone who is incapable of remembering a password by the time they're in high school."
i imagine that some of us (depending on the size range of the companies for whom we have worked) have cringed once or twice over something we've been asked to do, been ordered to do, or had to tolerate others doing. especially if a company is small and you're there on a short gig with limited scope you may come across a mail server installed in a boiler room closet when a "server room" ran out of space or a disk array kept in the break room fridge because "it kept overheating" (these are just silly examples... the real stories of some bizzare shit i've seen probably surpass this) and had no authority to alter it since that's not what you're being paid to do.
however, do you feel that there are certain hard-and-fast rules of IT operation that are unbreakable and that no company or institution has any cause to side step, no matter how quirky their particular story is?
something that comes to mind for me is the following:
absolutely every user on the system must have a password and there is no goddamn reason on the face of the earth that someone needs another user's password for any purpose.
not eloquent or by any means earth-shattering, i know... but that's one of the cardinal rules i refuse to break under any circumstances* and it's a clear flag for me that a previous admin wasn't doing his or her job conscientously if this rule was waived. there is absolutely nothing i can think of that a user is restricted from accomplishing (on a properly-built network) with their own user permissions if they are set properly.
anyone else have any rules that you think are unbreakable, no matter what the job entails?
* at many schools i'll setup a generic "student" or "public" account that visitors, unimportant staff, or even very young students can use to access the network's public resources, print stuff, etc. this account typically has an easy to remember password which has at times been the username itself.
on more than one occasion, however, i've had schools inform me that a group of older students need their own logins. (say, for a photoshop class or other situation where they need to save things to a unique home directory which no one else can foul up) i create the users accounts, complete with long temporary passwords, etc. they login and set their own. after a while i invariably get a teacher or two asking if students can have blank passwords because "they can't remember the password they pick and it slows them down." i always refuse... and i've had the matter escalate all the way to the principal's office one time. that time i simply stated that "the system cannot accept blank passwords" to get him to buzz off. but my favorite off the cuff remark has now become a standard reply to faculty who say their students can't manage to remember or type in a password correctly...
"then instead of a computer class, why don't you consider teaching a course that demonstrates which end of a boom an individual should grip... as this skill will certainly come in handly later in life for anyone who is incapable of remembering a password by the time they're in high school."
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