New Year's Resolutions for SysAdmins

Ah, a new year, with old systems. If you recently took time off to relax with friends and family and ring in 2014, perhaps you're feeling rejuvenated and ready to break bad old habits and develop good new ones. We asked our friends and followers on Twitter, Facebook, and G+ what system administration resolutions they're making for 2014, and here's what they said:

1. "Gather more metrics and become a data driven IT team."
2. "I will not ever again work for a cheapskate business owner who cannot, or will not, pay me a fair rate."
3. "Check that your backups are working the way you think they are.
4. "Check all of your cron jobs to make sure they are doing what you think they are doing when you think they are doing it."
5. "Use pam_passwdqc.so on all systems."
6. "Finally stop using nslookup and ifconfig."
7. "Learn to be a better coder."
8. "Upgrade my skills to administer cloud technologies such as OpenStack and OpenShift until I can perform all the major tasks blindfolded and upside down. It's not enough to spin up a LAMP stack in 10 minutes anymore as literally a cat can do it. Cloud is the future, and she who knows how to administer it shall remain gainfully and lucratively employed."
9. "To look for a reason to slap a Raspberry Pi anywhere and everywhere to automate even more stuff in my life."
10. "Remember to write down all the things I do so the year-end review isn't a frantic struggle through old emails to justify my existence. It takes two minutes a day. Actually, this is good for everyone, not just sysadmins."

What resolutions are on your list? Let us know in the comments.

Best wishes for healthy systems and a happy New Year!

P.S. The January 2014 issue of ;login: logout is now online and includes:

• /var/log/manager: Message Not Received by Andrew Seely
• Code Review for System Administrators by Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph
• This World of Ours by James Mickens