@storageninja said in Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?:

@scottalanmiller said in Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?:

But in the enterprise, so few people need to talk to anyone but other tech people, the interfaces to the outside world are few and far between.

I agree here, but there is a minimum viable product of soft skills where even other tech people don't want to put up with your shit, or your ability to communicate with other tech people is crap and so you don't get good feedback or collaboration. The 10x engineer who belongs in a closet is something that fewer and fewer companies will put up with. Hell Linus recently admitted he needs to stop being an asshole. Netflix has an official policy to not keep them.

Lacking soft skills doesn't make you an asshole, though. That's not the alternative. Soft skills is a lot of things. Being nice isn't one of them. Being nice is just being a good person. Seeming to be nice when you are actually an asshole, now that is a soft skill.

I worked with a guy like that. Came across great, but openly admitted he was a horrible person that would screw you if he could. Great soft skills, mediocre hard skills, not a nice person.

Fixed that as well, thanks.

@techgameteddy said in Looking to Move from Windows to Linux Administration:

@scottalanmiller To obtain the RHCSE you need to get the RHCSA first dont you? Should I focus on getting those at all then? Im definitely going to create a Media Server this weekend and a wordpress server at home. This is good information. Im also going to look into Containers too. I have noticed that its become a hot topic these days.

The RHCE does seem to bring in job options. But certs, in general, are not a path to Linux jobs. I would focus more on gaining skills and experience. Volunteer work can do wonders for getting into Linux.

Life is one continuous stream of issues & problems.
Living is solving them.
Learning is everything.

That's kind of what I meant. Either you should be watched over and not need to prove yourself... or you should be trusted and only do it when you want to.

@antonit said:

@dafyre Yeah, it was pretty intense. It really digs deep to see if you have the knowledge needed. I just did a test on my own accord and was given the following:

Apache Self Assess

101: Baseline Implementation
Installation and Global Configuration

Install the Apache HTTPD Webserver via the distro's packaging system (yum/apt) Ensure that the following modules are installed and enabled: Mod Rewrite Mod SSL Configure the server admin email address (globally) [email protected] Configure the server so that its signature is displayed on server-generated pages (such as 500 Internal Server Error), and that it also includes the server admin's email address in the signature. Enable the server status page at http://localhost/server-statusaccessible only by the host 127.0.0.1
Users, Groups, and Files Create the system group webadmin Create the system user don.draper with the following credentials: Password: IXnMe2Fp Home Directory: /home/don.draper Primary Group: don.draper Secondary Group: webadmin Create the system user peggy.olson: Password: 3Hx1M8aS Home Directory: /home/peggy.olson Primary Group: peggy.olson Secondary Group: webadmin Create the directory /var/www/vhosts, with the following ownership and permissions: User Ownership / Permissions: root / Read, Write, and Execute Group Ownership / Permissions: webadmin / Read, Write, and Execute. Other Permissions: Everyone should have Read, and Execute permissions. All future files and directories created in the /var/www/vhosts directory should automatically inherit the same group ownership of webadmin.
Virtual Hosts
Configure the web server for the following virtual hosts, and specifications.
VirtualHost 1 Server Name: site1.104.239.228.184.xip.io Document Root: /var/www/vhosts/site1/htdocs Access Log: /var/www/vhosts/site1/logs/access.log Error Log: /var/www/vhosts/site1/logs/error.log Copy the content of this virtual host from /root/files/site1 to the document root
Ensure that the proper content is returned when this site is accessed athttp://site1.104.239.228.184.xip.io, and there are no errors in the logs.
VirtualHost 2 Server Name: site2.104.239.228.184.xip.io The virtual host should also respond to the following aliases: www.site2.104.239.228.184.xip.io web.site2.104.239.228.184.xip.io Document Root: /var/www/vhosts/site2/htdocs Access Log: /var/www/vhosts/site2/logs/access.log Error Log: /var/www/vhosts/site2/logs/error.log Copy the content of this virtual host from /root/files/site2 to the document root Configure Apache with any necessary PHP modules required for the site
Ensure that the proper content is returned when this site is accessed athttp://site2.104.239.228.184.xip.io, that the aliases for www and webreturn the proper content, and there are no errors in the logs.
VirtualHost 3 Document Root: /var/www/vhosts/site3/htdocs Access Log: /var/www/vhosts/site3/logs/access.log for HTTP and/var/www/vhosts/site3/logs/ssl_access.log for HTTPS Error Log: /var/www/vhosts/site3/logs/error.log for HTTP and/var/www/vhosts/site3/logs/ssl_error.log for HTTPS Copy the content of this virtual host from /root/files/site3 to the document root Restrict access to this site with HTTP Basic Auth, with the user namewebadmin and password 4v2JaLuQ Configure the document root so that a directory listing is displayed in the browser, rather than an index page. Configure this site to respond on both HTTP, and HTTPS standard ports, however all traffic that comes through over HTTP must be redirected to the HTTPS virtual host. Any self-signed certificate will do.
Ensure that the proper content is returned when this site is accessed athttps://site3.104.239.228.184.xip.io and that the traffic is redirected when accessing http://site3.104.239.228.184.xip.io. No content should be returned without proper authentication as mentioned above, and there are no errors in the logs.

Was given 3 hours to finish, and unfortunately I did not. Looks like I have some studying to do 😛

Yeah, that sounds like the site I was on. It's cool, because you can use any tool at your disposal to help you get things done. Google is your friend, lol.

@scottalanmiller said:

@wirestyle22 said:

@dafyre There is an Azure on Linux cert. That seems like it would be useful if SAM is correct in their direction. Virtualization as well as Configuration Management (Puppet) would be useful.

Azure is an odd one for Linux certification. If you are specializing on Linux on Azure, sure. But that's relatively uncommon, especially because Azure is so expensive and poorly performing for Linux workloads.

Thank you for the input.

@Minion-Queen said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@Minion-Queen said:

I think we are going to do a good panel discussion. Allow people to ask anything they want but that is about as close to a "general" session as you really can get.

Like my big open room session at SpiceWorld 2013.

Yes! But everyone complained that it wasn't enough time.

Yes, it was way too short for what it was. Because it was lots of different topics rather than just one it could easily have gone longer than the standard time slot.

@scottalanmiller said in Are Security Careers Real?:

@IRJ said in Are Security Careers Real?:

@scottalanmiller said in Are Security Careers Real?:

@JaredBusch said in Are Security Careers Real?:

@scottalanmiller said in Are Security Careers Real?:

@VoIP_n00b said in Are Security Careers Real?:

I friend of mine just made the transition to security. He said his pay doubled.

What did he transition from?

And WTF is security?

Right? Everyone says it, but what exactly is that job?

Its a cross between IT and compliance. There are different security roles, but they all fall in between those two sides. Some closer to IT, some in the middle, and some that are almost strictly compliance.

The biggest problem is that often they are just called "security" and can mean almost anything.

Likewise, the IT jobs are often just labeled "administration" or something and equally mean almost anything.

Here (a Fortune 100) the IT Security Department is a joke, It's all CYA stuff to limit liability to the company, nothing of real substance is done there, the normal IT department does more security than they do, a Chief Security Officer was hired a few years back, and I might add under the CFO, not the CIO. And they brought a few entry-level helpdesk guys from IT over with him to help the security team. No real experts. The CSO just copy/Pastes NIST documents. The guys on the team just pull emails out and stop a spread after a phishing attack or disables accounts that were compromised etc. Not real security work, it's just to limit legal liability is all.