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I wanted to add that if you're brand new to PowerShell then you should take a look at <em>PowerShell in a Month of Lunches</em>.
Also, take a look at /r/PowerShell. There are fantastic people in there, and they're incredibly knowledgeable.
The best way to learn anything depends on your learning style. Some people learn better by reading, some by watching videos, and some by doing. It's important to know how you learn effectively.
That said, my recommendation is to find a routine task you do regularly and figure out how to do it automatically with PowerShell. Do you archive old report files to a specific directory structure? Learn about Copy-Item. Do you manage Exchange, SCCM, O365, anything like that? They all have automation support with PowerShell. There are even community modules that support a lot of third-party products - for example, the JiraPS project allows you to manage JIRA items with PowerShell, including creating new issues, commenting on existing ones, and closing them out.
If you prefer reading, the book <u>Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches</u> is often recommended - but it's very important that you actually follow along with the exercises in the book. Type them and run them on a live computer whenever possible.
If you prefer videos, I suggest the Microsoft Virtual Academy series on PowerShell. These are a bit long, but they do a great job of teaching you both concepts and practical knowledge.
Hope that helps!
Going through the Stanford List, here are the books listed there that I have also used and thought positively of:
- Algorithms: Introduction to Algorithms
- Computer Networks: Computer Networking (Nice name)
- Machine Learning: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
- Programming: C Programming Language
Of the list, the only one I have read and didn't like was Operating System Concepts. It's not that it was terrible, per se, I just liked Modern Operating Systems a lot more. I used the third edition, but I can't imagine the 4th is any worse.
The one single-best reference book on the topic of system administration is: UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook.
The Linux Bible, How Linux Works, The Debian System, Slackware Linux Essentials, and CompTIA Linux+ all deserve places on the bookshelf.
Learn Powershell in a Month of Lunches
Also, SS64 has a great Index/reference of PS commands.
Another good thing to do is to start searching the web for "how do I $taskName in Powershell."
The Practice of System and Network Administration, Volume 1.
I started doing everything at a really small family business a few years ago with nothing except a history of dabbling in videogame development and a degree in computer science (this is less helpful than you'd think it'd be when it comes to IT and system administration). This book has saved my company's butt as far as IT systems infrastructure and efficient time management spent in that area goes.
This should give you a very strong running start toward not managing a horror story or running something that ends up with several thousand upvotes on /r/talesfromtechsupport/ in ten or fifteen years
This book is what I’ve recommended to friends of mine in the same boat. Very easy to read and reference for future use.
Lol what?
Dude, you don't need any fucking classes to start out in IT
You can buy textbooks and earn certs while spending minimum amounts of money
Do not sign up for some fucking ridiculous 23k course. That's insane.
This field is so beautiful because you can dive in without any student debt whatsoever, don't hamstring yourself by going into debt like that
If you want an entry level job, go buy the A+ cert book on amazon
Maybe do network+ too(that's the path i started out with so I'm biased I suppose).
You're talking like less than 50 bucks for the textbooks and then a couple hundred bucks for the tests(total), and with those 2 certs you can easily get an entry level help desk job and start working your way up.
It beats the fuck out of manual labor, that's for sure
I feel like C is most useful when you are programming directly to an OS and its resources, rather than through a framework or library. And you don't often need to use the most elegant data structures to accomplish a simple task.
The Linux Programming Interface is still one of the best introductions to Linux programming.
I think it's time for you to read a text book about virtual memory and page tables. There's a lot going on under the hood.
The short answer is, every process lives in its own virtual space, which appears to the process to be the whole of system memory. For that process, the only things that exist are its own memory and the kernel parts which are mapped into it. The only way a process can see other process memory is via the kernel.
The longer answer is that the way the kernel achieves is this is through a couple of bits of hardware in particular the MMU (memory management unit) which includes the TLB (translation lookaside buffer). The TLB is a kind of cache that handles fast lookups from virtual addresses (that a process sees), to physical addresses (that the kernel sees and manages). A TLB lookup will fail if a process tries to access a virtual address that is not mapped into it. In this case, the kernel (or on x86, the MMU on behalf of the kernel) will consult a bunch of tables ("page tables") to find the mapping and load it. If the kernel can't find the memory, then your process is trying to access memory that was never allocated to it, and you get a segfault (the memory segment couldn't be found).
There's a lot to it, and a single reddit comment isn't the place to get into all the details. I'd take a look at Modern Operating Systems or any other decent text book for a full explanation.
If you’re looking for resources that may be helpful, have you tried the “Learn PowerShell in a month of lunches” series by Don Jones? https://www.amazon.com/dp/1617294160/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_fJafCb1K1VSKQ
Also, Microsoft Virtual Academy has a good training course with Jeffrey Snover (https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/getting-started-with-microsoft-powershell-8276)
They’ve been a major help to me and I had no experience coding prior to them.
There sure are books!
My favorite authors are Mike Myers and Todd Lammle.
Here's a guide for the CompTIA A+ certification.
These books can be a bit pricey, but it's EVERYTHING you need to know for the certification. If you have this book and a computer to practice on, you have everything you need to pass. The book is nearly 1,500 pages long as well. If you struggle to afford the books, you can always search online for illegal copies of older versions and possibly even the latest version that I linked. I assume the copyright police aren't going to be breaking down your doors.
The A+ certification estimates 6-9 months of hands-on training to be able to pass, but it can definitely be done in a shorter amount of time. Don't get dissuaded if after a month you feel tired of studying. Even if you don't have the means to take the exam, the information you can learn will help you so much.
I've mentored several Junior linux team members and I always recommend : https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-System-Administration-Handbook/dp/0134277554
While not RH specific, it is has a wealth of information on Linux in general and serves as a good reference.
man pages really are good enough once you got the basics down. They were 20 years ago, and I don’t think the quality has decreased. If you want truly great man pages, FreeBSD is the place to go.
To get the basics down, start with something like this
Once you understand that, follow up with something like this
Young people today.. they pick Arch to “learn something” (or just to be cool - I can’t decide), and when the learning part starts, they want the answers served without any effort. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn, just don’t expect to be finished in 4 hours.
I’ve spent 20 years as a Unix system administrator and/or developed systems running on Unix. Before I had kids I spent a few years working on Stampede Linux. My first Linux distribution was “Yggdrasil Plug&Play Linux fall ‘93”. I still learn new stuff frequently, and it usually starts with something I find on the internet, which then get tried on my own machine, and finally i use man pages for troubleshooting/fine tuning.
If that fails, I do what everybody else does, i ask google, and if I still can’t solve the issue, I will ask somewhere. Last issue I had was Debian <-> FreeBSD NFSv4 mounts with Kerberos that would freeze frequently. I spent a couple of weeks debugging that before asking, and learned a great deal in the process. After google started returning only purple links, I finally asked on a couple of forums.
2nd this.
The Linux Command Line. Author offers free PDF for download or you can support and buy from amazon.
http://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php
https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Command-Line-Complete-Introduction/dp/1593273894/r
Yes. I have an ebook copy that I got from a Humble Bundle a few months ago (the whole bundle was $15). It's very in depth and easy to understand. If you want to learn systems programming then Linux Programming Interface is the way to go.
To be clear, this is the book I'm talking about: https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Handbook/dp/1593272200
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1617294160/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_r74aGb8T88YNW
That book helped me learn all the basics and then some that I needed, when I started learning powershell. I still use it as a reference for writing scripts even after reading it too. It is super helpful and gets you learning the shell, the syntax of the script, and how to find information in the shell to do what you need. I can't recommend this enough.
Modern Operating Systems by Andrew Tanenbaum is fantastic. https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Operating-Systems-Andrew-Tanenbaum/dp/013359162X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3GFWMJB7LKL2F&dchild=1&keywords=tannenbaum+operating+systems&qid=1600412939&sprefix=tannenbaum+%2Caps%2C223&sr=8-1
The Practice of System and Network Administration, Volume 1. The 3rd edition has more devops stuff in it than the 2nd edition but still has the core information.
Ticket: "I cannot change the order of my displays from control panel anymore"
Ticket Closed
Resolution: Git gud, scrub
Hey no worries! Often times when you're new to something it seems like a firehose rather than a fountain (something formal education does a good job moderating).
Square one? I'd say start with the Unix and Linux Systems Administration Handbook 5th ed. I suggest this one because it offers a really comprehensive view of most essential concepts one must know as a sysadmin.
You'll start by learning essential duties of a sysadmin (access control, adding hardware/software, automation, backups, monitoring, troubleshooting, documenting, security, performance tuning, working with vendors, putting out fires, etc.) From there, it's basic administration, networking, storage, and finally operations.
What I like so much about this layout is it demonstrates the cumulative nature of computing concepts. The authors also do an excellent job tying concepts back to practice--which should hopefully demonstrate the value of theory!
Because this is a general primer on systems administration, most of the concepts will apply to Windows even though tooling and execution will differ. At the end of the day directory services are directory services, access control is access control, and it's never DNS--unless you or someone you work with has misconfigured DNS.
There is an all in one A+ book on amazon (https://www.amazon.com/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-901-220-902/dp/125958951X) This book is a good read through for general concepts - read it quickly, don't go super hardcore study mode on this book, its quite long. This along with professor messer (free, google it)after quickly reading through was all I used to get my A+.
If you have some knowledge of computers and perhaps built your own you could be ready for a helpdesk role already. I know all I had was "customer service" and some basic technical knowledge before I got my first job. Just be sure to word your customer service skills as if you were on the phone doing customer service - since this may be a large portion of the job. Asides from that - google common helpdesk interview questions, their answers, and then google the specific terms like dhcp and dns to understand how they work.
Depends on your previous knowledge of scripting/programming but if little to none I'd recommend
Learn Powershell in a month of lunches: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1617294160/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_3H478HT6G3ZY175PXSHD
For me the biggest help was the All in One book by Mike Meyers people complain that he is long winded in the book. But I think the stories that he tells give insite and the full context needed to pass the 1002 exam. I'll add a link below.
I'm not aware of a fourth edition. You want "Learn Windows Powershell in a Month of Lunches". This is the one I have but it's third edition: Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches, Third Edition: Amazon.co.uk: Jones, Donald, Hicks, Jeffrey: 9781617294167: Books
There is also "Learn Powershell Scripting in a Month of Lunches" - This has a yellow cover and should be read after the above book. It goes into writing scripts you can reuse but you need to know the basics in the first book before you can really get into this.
There is also another called "Learn Powershell Tool Making in a Month of Lunches" - This is an older version of "Learn Powershell Scripting in a Month of Lunches". They renamed it in later versions.
What are you using to study right now?
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I have my second test today, but I've used Mike Meyer's book as well as his Udemy course. Then I used Jason Dion's practice exams. Those are all very popular resources to get started.
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Another popular (and free) resource is professor Messer on Youtube.
Mike Meyers book is what I used. Here is the the link to Amazon.
Read a book on system administration, I would say. Don’t skim it, READ it.
The book that got me where I am today: https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-System-Administration-Handbook/dp/0134277554/ref=nodl_
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for self hosting behind the safety of ones own (fire)walls.
But take it from someone with 20+ years of experience as a sysadm, network administrator, security consultant, developer, cloud architect and more, that you do NOT want to expose services to the internet unless you know what you’re doing.
If you need more arguments, look no further than haveibeenpwned. While some of the companies might not have hired the brightest of the bunch, I refuse to believe that all of them were incompetent, and they still got hacked.
Services on the internet needs near constant monitoring, at least if you have a lot of traffic. I doubt your little nextcloud (or whatever) instance will attract much traffic except from automated vulnerability scanning scripts.
You say you want to learn Unix, and that’s (probably) a good choice. I know it has kept bread on my table for 3 decades, and I can recommend Linux and Unix system administration handbook as a great guide that takes you around almost everything, including security.
Also know that your “SLA” gets a lot more complicated once your user base grows from 1 to “more”, and you will find yourself sitting in the small hours of the night debugging why somebody cannot connect from the laptop when their phone connects just fine. And god forbid your hardware fails and your backup doesn’t work :-)
Anyway, I’m a grumpy old dinosaur,and there’s lots of learning to be had from experimenting, so keep at it, and you’ll get great at it in no time :-)