Do ski hills hire sysadmins

I’m approaching the end of tenure at my current employer. I’ve worked as their primary sysadmin, helped deploy their entire network infrastructure, was the primary on moving their systems off VMware and to Proxmox. now I’m looking to see what’s next. I’ve always wanted to be closer to the ski hills. Do ski hills have sysadmins/network admins?

https://redd.it/1pmsv1a
@r_systemadmin

FINALLY got the AZ-104!!

Okay, so I gotta admit, I'm a bit of an idiot when it comes to learning things from books and I know that some of you got the AZ-104 certification after studying for something like a week, with zero experience, but I am absolutely not like that. I've never been able to learn from books. Like, never. Give me a teacher in a classroom and I'm great. Ditto with learning on my own, but trying to learn it from a book? Forget it. But... I've been hands on with Azure for a few years now and learning AVD mostly on my own for almost a year. I tried the test back in February and bombed with a 55%.

Finally figured out that reviewing the MS Press book with ChatGPT helped me learn the stuff I hadn't touched / wasn't allowed to touch in our work environment, and studied like an insane madman over the past two weeks. I think it was something like 80-90+ hours, averaging 5-10 minutes per page asking questions over and over to the point where I didn't just understand the concepts but I felt like I really knew it. Every time I could, I'd log on to the portal and poke around, look at things in real time, with a lot of questions for ChatGPT about why this interface was different or that option wasn't available, but I got to a point where I was comfortable.

I also had Tutorials Dojo and went through their various exams (timed mode, review mode, and section-based) 22 separate times. I was averaging in the high 90s towards the end. Finally felt ready.

Then I start the actual exam and I'm like... wait... WTF is this? I've never seen this? And I haven't seen that either. I'm also not sure what this other thing is supposed to mean. And so on. My confidence was largely shot about 20 minutes in and while I was hopeful that I *might* pass, I was actually kinda shocked when I found that I'd passed with a 726.

I don't know how some of you guys do it and yeah, as I said, I'm not the best at reading comprehension and learning out of a book, but damn am I happy right now. I'm giggling like a little boy who got locked in a candy store overnight.

https://redd.it/1pmtb2i
@r_systemadmin

Trust relationship

I have new computers, all 2022 servers, linked in a domain that has been upgraded a few times.

From time to time (not every month) we get a trust relationship fail from one of the workstations.

Once in a blue moon, that happens on one of the servers.

The Microsoft information has way too many variables.

We have two Hyper V virtual domain controllers on two hosts plus a simple instance of SQL on its own Hyper V VM

What is a good way to start to trouble shoot this small network?

https://redd.it/1pmt2ru
@r_systemadmin

Fire Department software vendors have been bought up by Private Equity. The fallout is pretty much as you would expect.

Gift article from the NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/us/fire-department-software-private-equity.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.8k8.ZJtO.RUUHl-kXIsmx&smid=nytcore-ios-share



https://redd.it/1pmwdc8
@r_systemadmin

How to Detect & Stop Shadow AI Tools in the Company

We approved certain AI tools for the team but it feels pointless when people use random tools anyway. Last week someone uploaded customer data to a sketchy Chrome extension and our DLP never saw it because it did not touch our network.

We block what we can at the web filtering layer but new tools keep popping up. By the time we identify and block tool X half the team already uses tool Y. Enforcement conversations are exhausting and it feels like we are constantly behind.

Is this the new normal?....is there a proven way to enforce AI security at scale without becoming compliance bottleneck

https://redd.it/1pn1y3v
@r_systemadmin

How do you protect against this?

Today I found myself reading through a few articles about different spam and phishing attacks out there.

After the one below, I realized "Hey, how come they don't give suggestions on how to protect yourself against this?"

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-consentfix-attack-hijacks-microsoft-accounts-via-azure-cli/

How do you protect your tenant against this sort of thing? Is there a conditional access policy that can be created to stop this sort of attack from happening or being successful?

And is there a wiki or something full of known threats and best methods to stop them?


https://redd.it/1pmyt24
@r_systemadmin

Is it just me, or are we spending more time reverse-engineering how our own systems work than securing them?

The deeper I dig into our environment, the more it feels like half the job now is figuring out what our systems are really doing - not what the docs say they do, or what teams think they do.

Data moving between services nobody remembers, SaaS connectors doing silent jobs, internal automations with no clear owner…

Lately it feels like the real challenge isn’t new threats, it’s understanding the system-of-systems we’ve accidentally built.

Anyone else dealing with this?

https://redd.it/1pn3wx1
@r_systemadmin

best helpdesk software for a tiny it team that is barely keeping it together

so i just got promoted to lead support at our tiny company and suddenly i am the person everyone comes to when slack or email explodes. we dont have anything set up for tickets or tracking issues right now. its all just replies in slack threads and sometimes i forget things and then someone reminds me a week later. its chaos.

i know helpdesk software is supposed to help with that but there are sooo many options and i literally have no idea where to start. we are like 10 people total, and support tickets are not crazy huge volume yet but it feels like it might hit us soon. i dont want something that feels like too much overhead or that i need a phd to understand.

for folks using helpdesk tools what do you actually like about yours? is there stuff you never use or features that seemed cool but ended up annoying? also how steep was the learning curve for your team? did your customers notice a change once you switched?

i also worry about setup time since i have to do this between answering real support questions. how long did it take you to get everything up and running? any tips to make that easier? thanks in advance

https://redd.it/1pn3omb
@r_systemadmin

Bought RAM in October to dodge price spikes… now I have to return it because “year-end optics”

Back in late October, I saw leaks on X/Twitter about upcoming RAM price hikes. So I did the smart thing: ordered extra RAM for workstations and laptops, delivery scheduled for December. Prices were great back then.

Fast forward to now: prices have tripled in some cases. My order arrives, I’m feeling good for saving the company a good amount of money.

Then accounting steps in:

>“We can’t spend anything in December, it makes the year-end numbers look bad.”

So now I’m sending back perfectly good, dirty cheap, already delivered RAM because optics. And if we reorder next year? We’ll pay 2–3× more. Brilliant.

Just some galaxy-brain financial engineering I’ll never understand, i guess?

Not my money, not my stress. No rant. I’ll just drink my tea (black with milk) and move on. Luckily, I bought some RAM for myself too.

Now I’m heading into vacation — wishing everyone a stress-free time and happy holidays!

https://redd.it/1pn5q0i
@r_systemadmin

December is like a year in 30 days

Every vendor: we need to roll out new breaking features now, did you make those urgent changes yet?

Contracts: all renewing now

Employees: Hey remember that important ticket I stopped responding to in May? It needs to be completed by next week.

Management: we need a POC for a new system, can you bang it out next week?

HR: You have 20 PTO days you're losing at the end of the year...

Anyone else really hate December? All I want to do is clean up my desk, wrap up projects and reset for next year, but it never happens. Every year its just literally more everything in the 3 usable weeks of December.

https://redd.it/1pn9bna
@r_systemadmin

Notepad++ fixes flaw that let attackers push malicious update files

Didn't see this posted here but a lot of people use N++, so I thought it worth mentioning. I believe they had another malware issue a few years ago.


https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/notepad-plus-plus-fixes-flaw-that-let-attackers-push-malicious-update-files/

https://redd.it/1pn8vro
@r_systemadmin

Server Room Cooling Systems

For those of you familiar with the planning for your data room/server room: Do you add your AC Units to the UPS circuits? How do you protect your AC units from power fluctuation and outages before the generator comes on?

https://redd.it/1pn80x5
@r_systemadmin

Told to purchase AI licensing because the board members want it.

Company created an "AI" taskforce which includes myself. Was told to find how employees are using AI and come up with a gameplan. After inquiring with employees I find that they're only using it to edit documents and don't need any upgraded licensing with it. Propose guidelines etc. and inform management upgraded licensing isn't needed and would cost ~10K/month if purchased. Apparently the board members really want to see us using AI and am told $10K/month is worth it to keep them happy.


Not my money but we're still in the start up phase and blowing through cash. I wonder how much money is wasted on things company wide because the board wants to see it regardless of if it's necessary.

https://redd.it/1pne8bf
@r_systemadmin

You guys ever just not contact vendor support because you're tired of their terrible troubleshooting?

I've literally set up an email template when I work with a particular vendor because they ask for tons of the same details every single time.

I'm tired, boss. I'll just work through the issue this time because I don't have the energy to deal with the email chain back and forth.

https://redd.it/1png22c
@r_systemadmin

Microsoft, if you're going to send us powershell commands, at least check them for accuracy first.

Just got an email from MS about the retirement of Activesync 16.0 and below in march. Nice that microsoft included an exchangeonline powershell string to quickly assess which devices might be impacted.

Except the string / query doesnt work because its not written properly.

I was able to fix the glaring issues quickly without any help from AI.

Original string sent to us my microsoft. Am I crazy?:

Get-MobileDevice | Where-Object {($_.ClientType -eq 'EAS' -or $_.ClientType -match 'ActiveSync') -and $_.ClientVersion -and (version$_.ClientVersion -lt version'16.1')} | Sort-Object UserDisplayName | Select-Object UserDisplayName, UserPrincipalName, DeviceId, DeviceModel

Fixed:

Get-MobileDevice | Where-Object {($_.ClientType -eq 'EAS' -or $_.ClientType -match 'ActiveSync') -and $_.ClientVersion -lt '16.1'} | Sort-Object UserDisplayName | Select-Object UserDisplayName, UserPrincipalName, DeviceId, DeviceModel

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

Robin and OfficeSpace pricing

I’m trying to compare Rob⁤in vs. Off⁤iceSpace for hot desking and room booking and just want a general idea of pricing but I’m struggling to find info on their pricing. I’m not looking for an exact quote because I know that would require a sales call and I’m more at a research stage. Just trying to understand if these tools are more budget friendly or enterprise so I can compare them and move on.

If anyone knows ballpark pricing for either one, I’d really appreciate it. Open to other tools too if they’re more upfront about costs and I can take some notes right away..

https://redd.it/1pnhe3g
@r_systemadmin

Tired of working in IT

I’m just really tired of working in IT, been doing it for 11 years now. Exhusted and just struggling and feeling like giving up.

https://redd.it/1pnkq7w
@r_systemadmin

DNS entries for gateways, vlans and management ports?

Edit: Resolved. I think he may be asking for reverse lookups but is a little confused. I'll still have to work out some way to resolve internal management IPs without exposing them to clients though.

TLDR; Anyone ever heard of giving DNS entries to gateways and unreachable management ports.

I have a cyber security guy insisting that he needs DNS entries to be added for all sorts of strange things. This is a windows AD environment for reference.

Off the top of my head he wants a DNS entry that represents the default gateway of each vlan and a corresponding dns entry for the management port of the network hardware. Except, the network management ports exist in a vlan that is unreachable from the regular network the DNS exists in. Additionally, he has asked for DNS entries for storage devices that are the backend for our VM environment, which are also unreachable from the regular network. You'd need a jump box.

According to him he needs this information for reports that come out of a security scanning server. The security server actually can talk to all those vlans to interrogate the systems so it seems like he is using DNS as a sort of labeling system. The security server will then have the DNS entry in the report to show what the IP represents... for some reason.

If you can't tell this is for unspecified government work. I have never see DNS used this way, am I crazy for pushing back on this? It seems really weird to give a gateway its own name in DNS.

https://redd.it/1pnmn78
@r_systemadmin

The return of 8GB RAM laptops (RAM mayhem) - Good luck with your Service Desk

As everyone already probably know, RAM situation is only getting worse. This means that in the near future a lot of companies will be relying on entry-level workstations (laptops) featuring the absolute minimum amount of RAM. Many of us are aware what happens once you run Windows 11 with Office applications, Outlook and a browser with bunch of opened tabs .


The reason why I'm posting this is that if this becomes a reality many Service Desks will be full of complains how everything is slow and tech support have no clue how to resolve the situation.

https://wccftech.com/you-might-soon-see-8gb-laptops-everywhere/


Good luck to everyone related to Service Desk responsibilities.

https://redd.it/1pnvte5
@r_systemadmin

Weirdest queries at Service Desk

What are some of the weirdest queries that you encountered working at the service desk?

I had a suicidal man come to the desk. I left my station to be his friend for the day. I did enough to make him feel better. Seeing him smile was a relief, and he thanked me for spending the day with him.

Team leader was an ass about it though.

https://redd.it/1pnwz37
@r_systemadmin

Chrome AI is taking ~4GB per user on our RDS servers

We just discovered that Chrome’s AI features are using around 4GB of disk space per user on our RDS servers.We were wondering why our RDS disk space had been decreasing so quickly lately. So we ran a quick TreeSize scan and came across this strange Google folder.

I’ll point you to this post where we learn that it’s yet another AI-related issue ! https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/1jslb22/optguideondevicemodel\_folder\_taking\_up\_3gb\_have/?tl=fr

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