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UNIX Hints & Hacks |
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Chapter 9: Users |
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Believe it or not, the bulk of UNIX system administration is public relations. You have to let the users know that you are there for them. Part of keeping users happy is listening to the concerns, problems, and situations and being there for them. While it is part of being proactive, if you are in an environment where you are always on the defensive with administration, there are steps you can take that will give the appearance to your users that you are proactive.
It all depends on the size of the user community you support. Some administrators have multiple buildings, departments, or groups to support. No matter how your users are broken up, you need to maintain visibility. For the best results, your users should see you once or twice a week, dependant upon the size of the user base. Don't ask me why, but here is how it works. What is the result of being visible? Users tend to experience an immediate feeling of safety when they can physically see you. Even after you leave, because the users saw you and the systems are stable, they tend to believe that you are providing the support to maintain stability in the environment.
Many administrators will say that they don't have time to go walking around. There are various ways you can achieve this without impacting much of your time. If you are checking on a printer, a system, or a particular user or going to a conference room for a meeting, pick a route that lets you be seen by as many users as possible. After a while, if a user's system has been stable and you have not heard any complaints, I guarantee that if you ask them how things are for them they will say something like, "Things are fine. I always see you around. That must mean something."
Many administrators will not do this for fear that users will stop them on the way to their destination. Although, every environment is unique, in my last four environments the odds were all in my favor. Three out of every four times I went by users not one stopped me for help. If you do get stopped by users asking for help, tell them the truth--that you are working on an incident or are late for a meeting. Assure them that you will stop by on the way back. If you have a little time and they can tell you what their problem is in a nutshell, you can start thinking about how to fix their problem. If the problem is something severe, you may have to make a judgment call as to what should take precedence. Never quickly brush off users because you will lose credibility with the them.
Try to set aside a specific time for follow-up calls each day. The reality is you will only have one or two and each call only takes 30 seconds. If there was a problem, you would have heard from the user by then. No matter what the conversation was that you had with the user, make the follow up call. If a user called to ask you a question regarding a simple UNIX command, call them back a day or two later and see if the command worked. If new memory was put into a workstation, call the user and verify that the system hasn't crashed since the memory was replaced. Of course, you know it hasn't because you are monitoring the systems, but the user will feel that you are giving him or her extra attention. If users ask questions that you cannot answer right away, let them know you will check on it and get back to them. Then log the new questions so you won't forget.
Your user community needs to know that you still exist. One of the worst things a user can say to an administrator is, "I haven't seen or heard from you in awhile. I wasn't sure you still worked here." You should contact every user at least once a month just to ask if everything is okay. This is another 30 second phone call. I like to call two different users daily at 8:30 a.m. when they are just getting started and at 1:30 p.m. when they are just getting back from lunch. If you don't see the users very often, you should try to keep yourself fresh in their mind.
If you wanted to, you could create a mailing list of all your users and set a script off in the crontab once a month to send an email to everyone asking if everything is all right.
Shells: ksh, sh
The mailing list file called /usr/local/text/users.txt would appear as:
john@ugu.com gloria@ugu.com mike@ugu.com tony@ugu.com
A form letter called /usr/local/text/formletter.txt would be created:
Hi,
I just wanted to drop you a line to make sure you are not having any problems with your computer or problems with any of the programs you are running.
If you are, let me know.
Thanks, Your faithful UNIX Admin, Victor!
The script called /usr/local/bin/checkusers would appear as:
% vi /usr/local/bin/checkusers #! /bin/sh while real line; do Mail -s "Is everything okay?" $line < /usr/local/text/formletter.txt done < /usr/local/text/users.txt
Line 1: Define the scripting shell
Line 2: Loop through the file with the list of users email address.
Line 3: Mail the form letter asking if everything is okay.
Line 4: Exit with the entire file of users who have been sent the email.
A crontab entry can be set up to go off at 8:15 a.m. on the 3 rd day of every month:
15 8 3 * * /usr/local/bin/checkusers
When the program runs, the output of each email out would have the following appearance:
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 02:28:48 - (PST) From: Your System Administrator (victor@ugu.com) To: gloria@ugu.com Subject: Is everything okay?"
Hi,
I just wanted to drop you a line to make sure you are not having any problems with your computer or problems with any of the programs you are running.
If you are let me know.
Thanks, Your faithful UNIX Admin, Victor!
The only downside to running this program is that if you have a large number of users, you could be inundated with a large number of unexpected problems every month. You may want to expand on the script and send it out to users over the course of a month.
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UNIX Hints & Hacks |
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Chapter 9: Users |
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