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Biowarfare posted:why not just throw everything into MDM and have them all self report their status and last logged in user Because, as far as I know MDM doesn't keep track of associated peripherals and stuff you may furnish for employee use. Also in my companies specific instance we need to keep track of contractor equipment we get loaned to develop on to a standard beyond one person last remembering who checked out the 500k satcom dev kit.
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May 21, 2021 01:26
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jaegerx posted:This is why you post before you call your boss to offer to help. New thread title?
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May 21, 2021 01:45
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I will inject that if you manage to have an inventory management system that someone else maintains, it's pretty drat glorious for lifecycle management. I can query an API in service now to get everything one might want about a server.. ip address, hostname, hardware addresses, warranty expiration date, what room it's in, and who the stakeholder is. It's certainly a lot of work get the databases to that point but hot dang is it nice when managing 3000 systems plus desktops/laptops for 1500 employees.
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May 21, 2021 01:58
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Bonzo posted:New thread title? He already got the last one. If we give him this one too he'll insufferable. Even more insufferable.
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May 21, 2021 02:00
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xzzy posted:I will inject that if you manage to have an inventory management system that someone else maintains, it's pretty drat glorious for lifecycle management. I can query an API in service now to get everything one might want about a server.. ip address, hostname, hardware addresses, warranty expiration date, what room it's in, and who the stakeholder is. It's certainly a lot of work get the databases to that point but hot dang is it nice when managing 3000 systems plus desktops/laptops for 1500 employees. This is something my company gets relatively right, and I defend it at all cost. I'll approve exceptions for some crazy stuff if you convince me that there's a good business case for it, but if you want to use a server for purposes other than those documented in the inventory database, you can go to hell and die.
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May 21, 2021 02:03
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Internet Explorer posted:He already got the last one. If we give him this one too he'll insufferable. I’m quotable. You’re just jealous everyone likes edge now.
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May 21, 2021 02:14
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xzzy posted:I will inject that if you manage to have an inventory management system that someone else maintains, it's pretty drat glorious for lifecycle management. Same but I'm the manager and I'm telling my team to do it.
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May 21, 2021 02:21
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We had a hell of a time keeping track of poo poo when COVID hit as well. Our system isn’t perfect but lansweeper will report back attached monitors, so that takes care of that at least. And our phone system is b.a.d. (An older Avaya release) so we mass ordered these special vpn desk phones so people could use them at home. Again, it’s a mix of spreadsheets and lansweeper.
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May 21, 2021 04:26
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uhhhhahhhhohahhh posted:That's kind of the problem. I could be reading it 20 seconds before the start of the interview and I wouldn't be able to recall any of it. I spent a bunch of time every single day learning how to do subnetting in my head to pass an exam a few years ago, tried to do it 3 days after passing it and couldn't remember how to do it at all. Well this went way worse than I was expecting. He had some big network diagram and was asking specific stuff, like what makes up a DHCP packet and on and on and I guess I did so poorly he ended the interview early. Honestly I've no idea how I've ever fixed a problem at work since I'm apparently so poo poo I don't know anything or articulate how anything works. I'm so bad at interviews as well, even stuff I obviously know I still get wrong. Like he asked what a firewall needs to allow traffic through and I said routing and a security policy and he's asking for what else and I'm just sitting there like a dumbass. Obviously it's NAT and I know what NAT is but why can't I think of that in the moment? Guess I'm stuck where I am forever and get to deal with more cool poo poo from my piece of poo poo boss like this: part of the NHS pay deal a few years back means that from now on, what was once a pay rise you received annually, can now be blocked by your manager if you have open issues against you. I don't, but you still won't get your pay bump if you don't actually have a PDR (that your line manager has to book), regardless of a positive or negative outcome. My boss specifically didn't book mine, but booked two other of his direct reports, so they'd get theirs.... But I guess he didn't read the full email and policy they sent him because it says line managers won't get their pay increment either if they don't complete all their direct reports PDRs by the deadline. Which he did. This is right after he was bragging to people who get paid less than half of what he makes about how much he was getting this year.
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May 21, 2021 14:44
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Sorry to hear that man. I hate trivia games during interviews. We have such a vast level of knowledge and its absurd that one is expected to be able to recall any topic in depth under pressure. What makes up a DHCP packet? I don't loving know, but I bet google knows way faster than I could spit the answer out.
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May 21, 2021 14:51
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Someone who has memorized what makes up a DHCP packet is either a savant or someone with an obsolete skillset.
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May 21, 2021 14:56
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what possible reason would you need to know exactly what a DHCP packet contains
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May 21, 2021 15:00
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Bunch of loving gotcha questions. Whenever I’ve been asked that poo poo I tell them straight up that I don’t know and if I ever needed to know, I’d look it up.
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May 21, 2021 15:07
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GreenNight posted:Bunch of loving gotcha questions. Whenever I’ve been asked that poo poo I tell them straight up that I don’t know and if I ever needed to know, I’d look it up. I don't think he liked that answer when I said the same more or less. He asked me for the broadcast and network IDs of a random /19 IP and I said I can't subnet in my head so I'd have to use a subnet calculator which wasn't allowed.
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May 21, 2021 15:14
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punishedkissinger posted:what possible reason would you need to know exactly what a DHCP packet contains If you're a network/syadmin guy, you shouldn't have to know the byte-for-byte layout, but you should know some details about how the DHCP process works. At least at a high level. Junior positions doesn't quite need to know as much about it but they should have an idea how it works. Client: "Hey, anyone giving out addresses?" Server: "I am! Use 10.0.0.35" Client: "Cool! Thanks bro!" You should know that it's a broadcast UDP packet. You should know about reservations. Bonus points if you know about DHCP options, and what some of them are. Bonus points if you mention a server can have multiple scopes. Bonus points if you know how to check if you're getting the offer/ack packets from the server. And more points if you know about helper/relays. If I didn't get enough detail out of "Tell me about DHCP", I'd ask something like "What would prevent a computer from getting a DHCP address"
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May 21, 2021 15:14
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uhhhhahhhhohahhh posted:Well this went way worse than I was expecting. He had some big network diagram and was asking specific stuff, like what makes up a DHCP packet and on and on and I guess I did so poorly he ended the interview early. Honestly I've no idea how I've ever fixed a problem at work since I'm apparently so poo poo I don't know anything or articulate how anything works. Those questions suggest the interviewer believes in a basic body of knowledge. Unfortunately, that knowledge isn't always learned during day-to-day work, especially if you've been pigeon holed. I'd say it's not so much flubbing questions as much as it is not immediately recognizing what they're fishing for. If you don't have it already, I'd work on your CCNA--it's not protection from random trivia, but it's a good foundation for "things network engineers should know." If I was interviewing a senior level firewall engineer, I'd be asking basic questions about statefulness, TCP handhaking, and experience with wireshark captures before getting to the real stuff. I can see talking through stuff like ARP and DHCP as generic mid-to-senior level network engineer questions, which is CCNA level.
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May 21, 2021 15:16
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Unless I just studied and passed the exam two days before this interview I wouldn't have remembered it. I learnt this stuff to pass an exam a few years ago but if I took the exam today I wouldn't remember it and I probably wouldn't pass it again. Like I literally set up a new DHCP deployment less than a year ago. I know how DHCP works, all the config across wired and wireless infrastructure to get it working but I couldn't tell you poo poo about the frame and headers without looking it up. uhhhhahhhhohahhh fucked around with this message at 15:24 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 15:19
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I know what's in a DHCP packet but that's only because I've actually written and maintained a DHCP server. I still have to pull up RFC's to figure out how to use DHCP options though, that poo poo is worthless to memorize (even though modern servers still need you to be familiar with them). Any job that expects you to have it memorized it ain't worth having so you dodged a bullet.
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May 21, 2021 15:30
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They'll have a difficult time finding someone who knows all that info and pay them what they expect.
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May 21, 2021 15:31
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:We had a hell of a time keeping track of poo poo when COVID hit as well. Our system isn’t perfect but lansweeper will report back attached monitors, so that takes care of that at least. Right before COVID hit management decided "no more asset tags on monitors" and now it's all "wait what do you mean we don't have any spare monitors after we stopped tracking them and told everyone they could take their desktop monitors home?"
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May 21, 2021 15:40
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GreenNight posted:They'll have a difficult time finding someone who knows all that info and pay them what they expect. Six months later, a sign on the server room door reads "NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE"
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May 21, 2021 16:00
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Sheep posted:Right before COVID hit management decided "no more asset tags on monitors" and now it's all "wait what do you mean we don't have any spare monitors after we stopped tracking them and told everyone they could take their desktop monitors home?" Just gotta look at this as the cost of business continuity during one of the most uncertain times in a decade+ IMO monitors, mice, etc are cheap. We had to convert a bunch of people to laptops over the year who were in-office 5 days desktop people too.
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May 21, 2021 16:18
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Yeah but with supply chain issues, shits hard to come by. Monitors, laptops, etc. Sometimes the lead times is long.
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May 21, 2021 16:25
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The Iron Rose posted:It’s cool fam we’ve all made the same mistake once. I did, it was an ESXi 5.0 box with about 10 VMs on it all powered off, and an uptime of 6 years or something. It was literally doing nothing. I checked it over with everyone and deep 6'd the thing and chucked it in the gently caress it bucket. When I pulled that beeping drive out of the chassis it had a manufacture date of 2008. MustardFacial fucked around with this message at 16:48 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 16:43
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It's a legit question, and I really doubt the interviewer was asking what's in byte 2 of the DHCPOFFER packet. Here's an example why "I'd just look it up" is the wrong answer-- Packet 1: A>B [SYN] Packet 2: B>A [RST] To an admin that doesn't know TCP connection flags, he's seeing two way traffic and nothing's wrong. "Understanding what you are looking at" isn't random trivia, and Google isn't a substitute for that.
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May 21, 2021 16:47
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It's good to know some basic stuff, but Google Is Your Friend for a reason.
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May 21, 2021 16:49
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Contingency posted:It's a legit question, and I really doubt the interviewer was asking what's in byte 2 of the DHCPOFFER packet. On the flip side, why not then present a trace and say, can you broadly tell me what's going on here? Instead of asking something that's basically a wrote memorization question?
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May 21, 2021 17:06
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Contingency posted:It's a legit question, and I really doubt the interviewer was asking what's in byte 2 of the DHCPOFFER packet. TCP handshakes was a later question that I got right  also your example is still easily searchable, and if you didn't know what SYN or RST really meant in this situation, you could Google any part of it and find out what a TCP exchange is meant to look like in about 45 secondsThe worst part is I didn't even really want that job, I'm just desperate to leave where I am now. The company sounds okay but I'm not really interested in routing and switching anymore and the job was mostly project work so most of it he was asking still wasn't that relevant.
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May 21, 2021 17:45
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The Iron Rose posted:The above answers are all correct. I've done three MRP/ERP implementations, ama. Please don't it gives me PTSD from my lovely last job!!!
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May 21, 2021 18:03
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Defenestrategy posted:On the flip side, why not then present a trace and say, can you broadly tell me what's going on here? Instead of asking something that's basically a wrote memorization question? Regarding which question, DHCP or TCP traffic? I would expect a network engineer to understand how DHCP relies on broadcast traffic, that's difficult to assess from a candidate interpreting a capture. DHCP would not have been my preferred question, but I can see the value in it. I would have gone with "how does a host communicate with a host in a different subnet" for a junior engineer and for a mid level follow up with "fill in the layer 2 details," filling in the scenario as things progress. You should not need to review a capture to explain in broad terms how DHCP or routing works. I've had mixed results with interpreting output. If they nail it, it's a strong plus. If they don't, is it because they don't understand it, or are they stressed out already and under the gun? Did they hone in on the wrong thing and are blinded to what you want them to catch? uhhhhahhhhohahhh posted:TCP handshakes was a later question that I got right I don't think understand what I'm getting at. In the interview, the problem posed is "answer this question." In the real world, the problem is "this ain't working, what's going on?" The difference isn't just a lack of access to Google. It's not that you can't google TCP connection flags, it's that you need to be able to diagnose issues. If you don't have foundational knowledge to identify issues, you're forced into chasing false leads and will be ineffective. As another example, it's easy to google "hosts on same subnet but different broadcast domains" but you need foundational knowledge for that to even be a consideration. If you want to get out of your lousy job, learn to subnet and fill in rough patches in your skillset. It sounds like your previous studies were use or lose, and it's lost. In your shoes, it'd be better to do a refresher and get a job that'll reinforce that knowledge. CCNA would be a good start even if you don't go straight R&S.
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May 21, 2021 18:08
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I couldn't think of a networking skill in 2021 less useful than being able to subnet in your head. You don't need to be good at maths to understand what a subnet is, why and how you use it. I set up subnets for 65 sites * 8 VRFs, plus subnetting for data centres and dozens of interconnect subnets for all 8 of them and didn't do a single one in my head.
uhhhhahhhhohahhh fucked around with this message at 18:19 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 18:16
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uhhhhahhhhohahhh posted:I couldn't think of a networking skill in 2021 less useful than being able to subnet in your head. You don't need to be good at maths to understand what a subnet is, why and how you use it. I set up subnets for 65 sites * 8 VRFs, plus subnetting for data centres and dozens of interconnect subnets for all 8 of them and didn't do a single one in my head. I think it’s helpful when troubleshooting to be able to look an ip/mask and have a rough idea how big the range is or whether a couple of different ips are in the same subnet or not, but agree beyond that.
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May 21, 2021 18:33
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Memorize /8 /16 and /24, know which direction you multiply/divide by two and count the steps imo
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May 21, 2021 18:46
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Just a few weeks ago I was discussing a site that added 172.32.0.0/16 to their internal address space, so I guess I'm big on people that can subnet?
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May 21, 2021 18:53
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I agree that those are bad questions. Asking about "trivia" when trivia is easily googleable is not a good way to evaluate a candidate. Contingency is right that you can't google "understanding" but knowing the trivia of the structure of a DHCP packet doesn't demonstrate any understanding of DHCP. And what kind of understanding are they searching for? Do they want someone that can setup new DHCP deployments as an expert network engineer? Do they want someone to do desktop support and deal with a user ticket of "my laptop doesn't have internet"? I'm not a network engineer by any shot, but for a few months, I knew A TON about DHCP because I've had to dig into the guts of DHCP and PXE to get PXE booting working on our network. I think at that time I could probably have explained what a DHCP packet looks like, since I spent a ton of time staring at Wireshark captures and the official PXE spec document, but most of that trivia has fallen out of my head. If I picked up a PXE project again I'd pretty quickly be able to get up to speed because I have retained some of the understanding even though I've lost the trivia. Interviewing for understanding is hard, which I think is why I think (bad) interviewers fall back onto it. A much better question to have been asked would maybe just asking about your experience with DHCP and asking some follow-up questions based on your responses. But that requires the interviewer to actually know something, rather than just have an answer key they can refer to. As much as it may not feel like it, I think you dodged a bullet uhhhhahhhhohahhh because that would have been a bad manager to work under anway, and probably a bad environment in general on top of that, if a manager like that exists.
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May 21, 2021 18:56
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Ya'll want a good laugh? I've been doing Active Directory stuff as my primary focus for about 15 years now. When I interviewed for my current job, with zero prep, I forgot 2 of the FSMO role holders. I completely froze during the interview. I still got the job, but man that was embarrassing. FISHMANPET posted:As much as it may not feel like it, I think you dodged a bullet uhhhhahhhhohahhh because that would have been a bad manager to work under anway, and probably a bad environment in general on top of that, if a manager like that exists. I concur, this is my feeling as well after reading his posts. I worked under a guy that would do stuff like this. I never had to interview with him as I came onboard via acquisition, but yeah, he wasn't the best guy to work for. We got along OK after a while though.
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May 21, 2021 19:02
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skipdogg posted:I've been doing Active Directory stuff as my primary focus for about 15 years now. When I interviewed for my current job, with zero prep, I forgot 2 of the FSMO role holders. I completely froze during the interview. PDC emulator ...um goddamnit
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May 21, 2021 19:14
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klosterdev posted:PDC emulator I forgot the Domain Naming Master and Infrastructure Master roles. I joked no one really cares about those anyway. I think I saved myself by being able to talk really in depth about the other 3.
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May 21, 2021 19:17
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MustardFacial posted:I did, it was an ESXi 5.0 box with about 10 VMs on it all powered off, and an uptime of 6 years or something. It was literally doing nothing. I checked it over with everyone and deep 6'd the thing and chucked it in the gently caress it bucket. 12 years ago I bought two servers for a place I worked. One to run ESX 3 or 4 (Dell R700), and one that was just going to be a DC (R200?). Never needed the other DC so I installed Debian 4 or 5 on it, and basically used it as server to run screen/irssi on. At the beginning of the year, I went over there to do a couple hours of contract work, and looked at the two old servers very nostalgically. I asked my contact at the company if I could take them home and they said sure. Powered them up, the Debian server was just as I left it, but one of the mirrored drives had failed, and the VMware server was toast. like 4/6 drives had failed. Removed the failed drives and installed a current version of Debian. Funsies.
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May 21, 2021 19:24
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Having now been interviewed enough I also find so many interview questions are like.... related to bullshit that's on someone's plate right now. We're mid sharepoint migration so even though that down the line will be like... a small part of the job, having been fist deep in migrating my previous job to sharepoint made them light up. I do understand someone who isn't a moron with sharepoint and can communicate it to users is a "skill" but like, anyone ITT could google it and do fine, it really has nothing to do with "can you do the job." Like they focused on sharepoint admin but I've done as much server racking as sharepoint admin, it was just on everyone's brains when they drew up the interview.
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May 21, 2021 19:39
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