

Best LAMP administration introduction? - thenomad

I&#x27;m going to be launching a new self-hosted analytics service in a couple of months, and I&#x27;m currently training our tech support guy.<p>He&#x27;s got a lot of experience as support, but not so much with the self-hosting &#x2F; headless Linux &#x2F; LAMP end of things.<p>So, what would your recommendations be for the best resources - paid or free - to get him up to speed fast for supporting a self-hosted product? I&#x27;m guessing he&#x27;ll need to know enough to be able to debug at least basic problems with Apache, MySQL and PHP setups.<p>I realise this is slightly vague - if you&#x27;d need more clarification, please do ask.
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chc
This is a great question. I feel like this is something a lot of people who
aren't full-time sysadmins just end up learning through the school of hard
knocks. There are tons of great "learn to code" sites and classes, but the
"learn to sysadmin" side of things seems to be kind of underserved.

FWIW, when I decided to try to learn this seriously, I started out by just
setting up a Linode, opening up their tutorials† and setting myself some
tasks. But I feel like there has to be a better way than that.

† I think these two:

[https://library.linode.com/using-linux/administration-
basics](https://library.linode.com/using-linux/administration-basics)

[https://library.linode.com/lamp-
guides/debian-7-wheezy](https://library.linode.com/lamp-
guides/debian-7-wheezy)

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thenomad
That's the way he has been learning so far, albeit through the Digital Ocean
rather than Linode tutorials. I'm hoping there's a better way!

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akg_67
Look up books on the topic of "Operation, Administration, Management and
Troubleshooting X" where X is the technology you are using. O'Riley tend to
have Operation books on different technologies.

I highly recommend as a start Kyle Rankin's DevOps Troubleshooting Linux Best
Practices.

DO/Linode tutorials are good for setting up X but may not be necessarily good
for troubleshooting.

After being in service side of IT infrastructure for over a decade, what I
found important is the breadth (generalist) and not depth (specialist) of
knowledge. Surround your support person with appropriate resources
(specialists, books, trainings, google). The key to success is not what he
knows but where he looks to find what he needs.

 _ed: added more info_

