A Working Interview For High Level Sysadmins

I discovered over the past couple of days (early Sep 2008) that putting people through working interviews is way too much fun

This is intended for high-level unix sysadmins, but here's what I did:

I broke /etc/nsswitch.conf, /etc/network/interfaces (Debian box), and /etc/resolv.conf, leaving the good values in those files with very obvious comments, because this isn't a test of "can you psychically guess our network layout".

Rebooted the box, consoled in, added iptables commands to block port 22 both ways and icmp, using -j DROP.

Sat interviewee down in front of root console and said "ssh to FOO (a local shell server); FOO is up and running with ssh, and the network is fine. Go."

The iptables bit was the hard part. Both people I've done this to needed a bit of a hint for that, but that's OK, IMO, as "machine has stupid-ass iptables rules" isn't exactly a common scenario.

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