Does anyone else feel like Microsoft settings quietly change location when you are not looking?

I logged into the admin center today to adjust something simple.

Except the setting was not where it usually is.

I checked another area and it had moved again.

Or maybe I am losing my mind. Hard to tell at this point.



Some days I wonder if Microsoft actually changes things or if I am just dealing with a platform that reorganizes itself out of boredom.

https://redd.it/1plk5vw
@r_systemadmin

What's your experience with ITAD audits?

We’re about to go through our first full ITAD cycle and our auditors are asking for documentation on data sanitization. Is that standard? Do you guys request reports or certificates when disposing of gear?

https://redd.it/1plmcyb
@r_systemadmin

MinIO is no longer open source - who is replacing it?

Since MinIO is no longer open source, i needed to find an alternative because i am relying on S3-Storage.
I have found multiple alternatives: Alarik. io, rustfs. com, and Garage. One thing i dont understand is how so many people trust RustFS? Like their entire website is full of trashy faked reviews....
I am currently trying Alarik since i trust the company behind it but Garage looks good aswell. Which are you guys migrating to and why? I still find it hard to believe that there are so little competitors to MinIO like its such an important fundamental service..
Did anybody fork MinIO?
Sorry for my english guys i am from hungary and i dont want to use ai ;) cheers

https://redd.it/1plj630
@r_systemadmin

Do you really know what your company does?

I've been at this company for 20 years in IT. I support the main office and some employees in the field. When it comes to our plants, I know nothing about what we do. I am 'boots on the ground' when a production computer goes down, I can get it communicating to the plant, but I know nothing of the plant itself. Automation is a whole other group. I feel like an imposter when I'm in the plant and the guys are rambling on about how the plant is running, I just nod and smile. The other thing is we are regulated by the federal gov for safety, so it's not like they want us hanging around the plants if we're not needed.

Anyone else not know their business outside the computers?

https://redd.it/1plovd5
@r_systemadmin

Looking for resource to teach users how to avoid browser notification popup spam

Anyone has a good resource on teaching users on how to avoid browser notification popup spam? On both chrome and edge, once it is turned on, it is very very deep in settings to turn it off. And there's no indication from the popup it is coming from the browser. So I am looking for teaching resource/video/etc. that teaches people to avoid it in the first place.


Thanks!

https://redd.it/1ploavq
@r_systemadmin

The Unpredictable Nature of Sysadmin Challenges

Just when you think you've got the network humming along, chaos ensues. Suddenly, those security alerts that seemed like background noise demand immediate attention. Last week as an IT sysadmin, this was precisely my reality. At 2 am, I’m in the office wrestling with a stubborn malware issue. After a pot of coffee and numerous false leads, the problem was traced back to an unmonitored third-party app. Unexpected? Absolutely. Frustrating? Without a doubt.

Working as a sysadmin, navigating these chaotic scenarios becomes a daily sport. Often times, it feels like we're building sand castles right at the high tide line. The job transforms us into the unsung heroes of the IT department, operating behind the scenes to ensure everything runs smoothly - from the company mails to the internet connection.

But here's the thing I've found. Amidst all the unpredictability, there's also a great deal of satisfaction. There's something about debugging a problem or optimizing a system that makes all the long nights and coffee worth it. Essential yet invisible, we're the beating heart keeping the technological body alive and kicking.

Yeah, we've had our woes, but isn't the reward of solving complex problems the real rush? What has been your most challenging sysadmin experience and how did you find triumph amidst chaos?

https://redd.it/1plq0d8
@r_systemadmin

tired of patching the wrong things because alerts lack business context

our vulnerability scanner flags hundreds of issues monthly but there's zero context about what actually matters. is this asset customer facing? who owns it? what data does it touch? is it even in production?

we waste so much time investigating just to figure out priority, and half the time we're patching things that turn out to be dev environments while actual production risks sit in the backlog because they looked less scary in the cvss score.

how do you actually get business context into your security workflows without manually researching every single finding?

https://redd.it/1plw4f6
@r_systemadmin

Are incomplete tickets the #1 cause of wasted time in IT support?

Across IT support teams, it feels like a disproportionate amount of time is lost to tickets that arrive with bad context, vague denoscriptions, no error details, and no indication of what the user has already tried.
This has often led to unnecessary clarification cycles and repeating the same fixes that worked before.
Some teams enforce strict ticket forms. Others reject tickets outright. Some rely on documentation or accept that this is “just how it is.”
I’m interested in how experienced sysadmins actually approach this.

What has genuinely reduced wasted time?

Where did process or tooling backfire?

At what point does structure create more friction than value?

Not looking for product recommendations, more interested in what works (or doesn’t) in real environments.

https://redd.it/1ply103
@r_systemadmin

Understanding Firewall as a service

Can someone help my caveman brain understand how this works?



I build and maintain firewalls on the regular (MSP) but I’ve been tasked to look into getting rid of our office space. that means dropping our internet and firewall in a rack at a data center or FWaaS (open to other options). I need to keep my static IP because its programmed into all our customer firewalls as an exception so we can jump into them.

So with FWaaS, where do I plug in my network cable?

Is there a device like a router you use to communicate to the cloud?


Just having a hard time grasping the implementation part and don’t want to be clueless before I do vendor demos next week.

https://redd.it/1pm1e7k
@r_systemadmin

With AI we are coming full circle to Bonzai Buddy.

Remember how hard it was to get rid of that and ads?

https://redd.it/1pm2wkx
@r_systemadmin

Underpaid for Okta/Jamf Engineering stack? $103k

I am looking for a sanity check on my compensation ahead of an upcoming performance review.

Role: Systems Engineer
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Comp: $103k base (band: $100k–$120k)
Tenure: ~2 years at this company

Current stack & responsibilities:
• Okta (advanced / architecture-level work)
• Jamf Pro (sole admin, ~1,000 devices)
• Google Workspace administration
• Secondary support for Cisco Meraki networking

Key work over the past 2 years:
• Implemented Okta Device Trust and centralized 50+ applications using SSO/SCIM
• Single point of ownership for the entire Jamf environment (MDM engineering, fleet lifecycle, security posture)
• Supported Meraki network build-outs for new office locations
• Contributed to the Zoom → Google Workspace migration
• Currently implementing Okta Workflows integrated with Jamf

I’ve only received around a $3k total raise over two years (3 reviews), despite the scope and responsibility of my role increasing.

Given the systems I own and the fact that my compensation sits near the bottom of the band, I’m planning to ask for the top of the band ($120k).

My questions:
• Is this a reasonable ask given the scope and risk of the role?
• Should I expect pushback?
• Would you consider this underpaid, fairly paid, or market-aligned for Melbourne?

Appreciate any perspective or advice

https://redd.it/1pm2auz
@r_systemadmin

Consumer grade vs Enterprise grade ssd

Our research group uses a workstation machine to run LLM models. We currently have 1 enterprise level SSD (micron 5210) which is nearing its service life. It had \~4.3 years on (5 year warranty) and smartctl says it has 31% life expectancy. I just inherited the position and realized the machine is not used heavily. It was piled with years of unused data and no one realised. It had a total write of \~10 TB in the 4+ years. The models we use right now total around 500GB space. I was wondering if we could get away with a consumer grade ssd (with maybe a raid 1) instead of dropping 600$ for 3.8 TB.

Edit:
We have a UPS. Should be good for at least 10 mins with max load. Not sure if anyone bothered to set up a auto warning to users.

what is the risk if (when!) it fails?
Downtime usually. Potentially people may lose (easy to regenerate(1-2 days)) research data.

criticality of the system?
Most work halts.

required uptime?
24/7. Although occasional outages are fine.

is it 'your money' or the organisations?
Our money in the org. We can do other stuff with the money we save.

https://redd.it/1pm158k
@r_systemadmin

What’s the best way to learn the theory of HPC computing whilst administering one?


I’ve been in the game now about a year as a very junior systems admin and whilst I’ve managed to accumulate a lot of systems, platforms and dev experience on the HPC at work, I often find myself having big gaps in my theoretical knowledge of thinks like how MPI works or how the nodes themselves function and everything else in between. I feel like I have good working knowledge but it’s not deep enough

I guess my question is does anyone have any recommendations on resources I can use to brus up my understanding? Thanks

https://redd.it/1pm9tke
@r_systemadmin

How many of you moved away from VMware ?

I met a lot of engineer who either said they need to migrate ASAP and some who already did. But i know to change vendors is not that ez. I worked with VMware for the last 15 years and it was my go to virtualization but now its not affordable anymore. So i am shifting to Hyper-V to those infrastructure that already have Windows and Microsoft licensing and proxmox its a nice cheap/free alternative but not sure if its still "ripe" for productive stuff ( have not worked with it a lot)
Can you guys give me your experience with switching from VMware ?

https://redd.it/1pmcgu6
@r_systemadmin

File Server + Workstation Build for Small Architecture Firm — Need Feedback

Hey everyone,

I run a 10-person architecture firm. We work mainly with Rhino 3D files and need reliable shared file access across the office. Windows 11

Current situation

One machine handles everything — workstation and file server. It works, but we’ve had hardware issues (failing HDD, thermal problems with Mini-ITX case). Tried a QNAP NAS temporarily but it couldn’t handle multiple users accessing large design files.

The plan

Split into two dedicated machines by repurposing parts from the existing machine and building a new file server.

\-----

EXISTING MACHINE (parts source)

CPU: Ryzen 7 2700X

Motherboard: Gigabyte B450 I AORUS PRO WIFI (Mini-ITX)

RAM: 32 GB DDR4

GPU: GTX 1060 6 GB

OS Drive: 480 GB NVMe SSD

Storage: 2 TB Patriot SATA SSD

\-----

TEAM WORKSTATION (mostly reused parts)

CPU: Ryzen 7 2700X (reused)

Motherboard: Gigabyte B450 I AORUS PRO WIFI Mini-ITX (reused)

RAM: 32 GB DDR4 (reused)

GPU: GTX 1060 6 GB (reused)

OS Drive: 480 GB NVMe SSD (reused)

Secondary Storage: 1 TB HDD (new)

PSU: Corsair RM650x (new)

CPU Cooler: DeepCool AK400 (new)

Case: NZXT H3 (new)

——

FILE SERVER (new build)

This computer will only be used for sharing the files with the team**.** Everything will be backed up via NAS.

CPU: Intel i3-13100 (new)

Motherboard: Gigabyte B760M DS3H DDR4 (new)

RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (new)

OS Drive: 500 GB NVMe SSD (new)

Work Files: 2 TB Patriot SATA SSD (reused)

PSU: Corsair RM650x (new)

CPU Cooler: DeepCool AK400 (new)

Case: NZXT H3 (new)

Network: Gigabit Ethernet (onboard)

\-----

My questions

Is an i3-13100 enough for a file server handling 10 users?

The motherboard has only one M.2 slot. OS drive uses M.2, work files SSD connects via SATA. Any issues with this?

Worth adding 2.5 Gbps networking now, or wait and see if Gigabit is a bottleneck?

Anything I’m missing for reliability?

Thanks for any input!

https://redd.it/1pmdcdu
@r_systemadmin

After first of the year, Assistant Manager spot is coming up, I have a good shot at it.

Hi friends, tale as old as time. IT Manager retired and assistant manager ascended to the role (there were interviews and he just was absolutely the right choice for the job) and now his spot is coming up soon.

It’s a small crew, 12 of us for about 200 users or so. I’m in a sysadmin role there mostly Linux traditional hosting with a mix of literally everything else lol.

I’m confident I could do right by the team and I would do well in the role and the new manager has also given me his vote of confidence.

It just comes down to am I ready for a career change? Because of the size of the team and the lack of overlap in some of my duties I’ll be doing some sysadmin work probably for a very long time if not forever, but it’ll be less and less as time goes on. It’s a government civilian position so I plan to be a lifer, the TSP FERS combo is still really solid.

I just have to decide if I’m ready for the change and I have to decide soon. There’s not much of an age gap between the manager and I and he’s also planning to be a lifer, so I’d be in this spot for a while unless I moved.

Any govvies in here have advice? Also keep in mind this is a rare occasion of a non-toxic environment with a good mission overall and I work with some good people. Any other sysadmins who made the jump and regret it or on the other side feel it was a good choice?

https://redd.it/1pmhruf
@r_systemadmin

Overlooked Aspects of Sysadmin Work

It's funny, you know, how often we sysadmins are reduced to "IT guy" status in the eyes of coworkers and friends. It's not just about resetting forgotten passwords or installing updates. There is so much depth in our roles that too often—for the sake of brevity—gets overlooked. I was recently knee-deep in crafting an intricate data backup strategy, protecting vital company information and ensuring business continuity. Yet, when asked about my day, I simply replied, "Oh, you know, usual computer stuff."

You would think it gets tiresome; that constant trivialization of what we do, but I've actually come to find it somewhat amusing. It's like our own little secret – they never truly grasp the complexity nor scope of our responsibility. We're the guardians in the shadows, silently ensuring the company’s technological lifeline doesn't falter. Have others noticed this pattern and how do you usually respond?

Title: The Hidden Puzzles of Sysadmin Life

Body: So there I was at 2 am, frantically troubleshooting a network issue. The invisible wires that connected our entire company were down, and the responsibility to fix them rested on my shoulders. A typical Saturday night for most, right? It should have been stressful: a high stakes hide-and-seek with problematic IP addresses and elusive whispers of connectivity. But somewhere within that quiet, late-night chaos, I found a strange sense of harmony.

There's something rewarding about conquering those hidden puzzles embedded within sysadmin work. And even though it's all binary codes and command lines on the surface, underneath it's like weaving a complex web of connections and solutions to support the company. But what do you guys think? Is there a particular aspect of sysadmin work that you find strangely enjoyable or rewarding?

Title: The Solitude and Solidarity of Sysadmin Days

Body: Working as a sysadmin provides an interesting contrast. On one hand, we spend a good chunk of our time in solitude—squinting at lines of code, wrestling with network configurations, managing server looms in hushed isolation. But on the other hand, we play such an integral role in ensuring everyone else's workday goes smoothly. In a way, we are solo performers playing in an orchestra of organizational systems.

The rhythm of this solitude and solidarity can be strange, often feeling like we’re silently sailing in a crowded sea. But it all adds to the uniqueness of the job. Despite being mostly behind-the-scenes, we hold this essential place in any organization. What's your take on it—does the solitude/solidity contrast resonate with your experience as a sysadmin?

https://redd.it/1pmiwsk
@r_systemadmin

Is there any reason to change user source of authority to Entra when still using domain-joined devices?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/hybrid/user-source-of-authority-overview

I watched a couple of videos describing how to move the source of authority for hybrid users from on premises AD to Entra.

They mentioned needing the applications needing to be configured for SAML or Open ID Connect authentication, no on premises Exchange Server dependencies, users account configured with Entra ID passwordless authentication with Cloud Kerberos Trust. However, they never mention sign-in to domain joined hybrid devices. There were even some questions about this in comments in some of the related blog posts, but no response given.

Are they just assuming all the computers accessed by these users are Entra joined?

Even with Cloud Kerberos Trust, how are those users going to sign in to hybrid joined workstations? How is RDP going to work? How is UAC elevation going to work?

How will they use run as a different user?

Sign in to Windows Server?



https://redd.it/1pmho6q
@r_systemadmin

Purview is being INCREDIBLY slow

I started a 50gb export of Mailbox + Sites yesterday at 9AM, the orinal ETA for it was 8 hours, it has now been 30 hours and the ETA is still 7 hours, this is not going normally, i've done bigger exports that took less time i was supposed to do this on the weekend so I could get the exported PSTs and files on another account before monday, now that just wont be possible.

Is Microsoft experiencing instabilities and such? Cause this does not make sense

https://redd.it/1pmkjld
@r_systemadmin

Curiousity: Female vs Male Ratio

What is the standard female to male ratio you see on your teams and in your IT/Dev departments? How many female IT managers are out there?

Edit: I'm a chick who just got promoted into a leadership role. I've been an engineer for 7 years.

https://redd.it/1pmmom1
@r_systemadmin

Scan to email

What are people who have a 365 enviroment doing for scan to email functionality for a printer which doesnt support M365 authentication natively.

I am loathe to turn off the security settings even on 1 account because of the security risk.

I have considered sendgrid - but is there a better way?
Scanner is a Epson WF-7845

https://redd.it/1pmojfu
@r_systemadmin