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!
I'm not sure I'd consider Powershell devops than a core Windows administration tool. Devops to me would be like Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Salt, etc. (Puppet I think would be good for a Windows person to learn.)
You can do Powershell in a month of lunches: https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Windows-PowerShell-Month-Lunches/dp/1617291080
You can do the Microsoft Virtual Academy as well: https://mva.microsoft.com/en-us/training-courses/getting-started-with-powershell-3-0-jump-start-8276
Powershell is very object oriented and pipelined, it's not a bunch of "++1, !, +3," style of true programming. It's more of a "get-aduser doej"
A lot of the commands are the same syntax prefixes, like "get" and "export".
Don't be discouraged, envision yourself knowing this inside and out in a year, and your mind will work you toward this goal.
What, specifically, do you work with that you think can benefit from scripting?
Powershell in a month of lunches is apparently quite good, that will cover Powershell from the basics to relatively advanced concepts, although I don't recall it covers AD.
Once you have a grasp of PowerShell, the AD modules are not much trouble to learn at all, MCSA should at least cover some of that.
Also - Take a look under the "resources" tab on the right of this sub.
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.
I like a nice ham sandwich for a lunch point.
As far as getting into PS. This is the usual recommendation.
https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Windows-PowerShell-Month-Lunches/dp/1617291080
Enjoy your book and sandwich.
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.
For a book I'd recommend: The Practice System Network Administration
Also look through the history of "[daily routine]"(https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/search?q=daily%20routine&restrict_sr=1) posts. That will give you a good idea of what to expect.
If you touch a piece of technology - learn about it. Read technet, or man pages. Make flashcards and study the material. Try to know it.
Also, try to learn broadly about all areas of technology - networking, windows, unix, etc.
Pick up programming. Bash, Powershell, Python. Learning is the one constant in this field. The sooner you bury your face in a book/video the better off you'll be. I wish I had studied as hard 10 years ago as I study now.
here 'tis, and it was well uner $100
https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Second/dp/0321492668
Best around.
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.
This book is recommended all the time here.
The Practice of System and Network Administration
Pick up Powershell in a month of lunches and grab a free month trial of pluralsight. Two great resources for learning the basics.
For your lab, check on your local craigslist; someone is always getting rid of some gear there. If not there try EBay, can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a CCNA lab kit like these: Cisco Lab Kit
Once you have lab equipment, get some windows servers spun up as that will make learning powershell both applicable and rewarding to you.
Skiena's Algorithm Design Manual - It gives you an overview of what classes of problems exist and how real world problems can be expressed as instances of them. It doesn't always give you the step-by-step directions of how certain algorithms work, but it gives you enough of an overview to understand the problem and points you towards existing implementations.
It's certainly one of the most useful books I used when preparing for interviews (and comes in handy in the real world as well). As an anecdote, in one interview at a big-N company, I was presented with a problem, said "based on these factors I'd treat this as a network flow problem by doing X", and that was the only buzzword needed - rather than watch me try to write a solution to a known problem, we were able to move on to other questions. Without knowing that term, I probably would have spent the remainder of the interview trying to optimize a solution to the problem instead.
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.
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.
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.
Powershell is a very handy tool to have, but you don't need to 'dedicate' yourself. Go through this book and you'll be a step above a majority of IT professionals easily. https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Windows-PowerShell-Month-Lunches/dp/1617291080
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.
Allow me to recommend the good book.
Gives some helpful insight in terms of building a department, and how to justify things to the business leadership and owners.
If they aren't interesting in giving you a budget to operate the department, run.