Looking at a change in my IT career

[jasebert]

Hi all,

Just to give you a bit of background on myself. I started my IT career in 2001 on a help desk and have been working my way up and now I am doing an engineering type role (it is varied). I do everything from looking at desktop issues to installing new infrastructure and a touch of Cisco.

I need a change. I was looking at specialising in Security (I have done some security training and the Microsoft security path and enjoyed it). I also want to start to get involved in this thing they call 'Linux', and become a Linux engineer.

I suppose my questions are -
Has anybody started off a Windows person and just said this blows I am moving over to this 'Linux' space, and actually done it?

What is the market like for people who know Linux and are good at security? I look around but there does not seem to be much, but at the same time when I talk to people in the industry they say they can not get any good people.

How hard is it to learn Linux? Is it as easy as Windows (because Windows is easy which but at the same time, coming from a Novell background is woefully unstable and I hate it)?

My end goal is to be a Linux engineer who specialises in Security (I know it is vague, but it is the best description I could come up with) but is also knowledgeable in the Microsoft world.

Any help would be really cool as I really want a change but unsure how to start planning for it.

[vladi]

How hard is it to learn Linux? Is it as easy as Windows (because Windows is easy which but at the same time, coming from a Novell background is woefully unstable and I hate it)?

Linux is easy, as long as you don't come into it from a Windows mentality - don't expect things to be the same, or even similar. You are welcome to PM me or post any questions related to it on the Unix/Linux forum. If you want a taste of it, download a LiveCD (pick a 32bit, will save you some hassle) from one of the major distros (distrowatch.org), insert it and set your BIOS to boot from CD. As a beginner, I would recommend Ubuntu as it is newbie-friendly.

Something that just came to mind while writing this: on the off chance that you are looking to play games / use pixel shaders, you are much better off with an nvidia card over an ati card since ati shits on their linux customers.

*EDIT: There is a specialised distribution based on Gentoo, called Pentoo. It is made for penetration testing and vulnerability exploitation. You may wish to check it out at http://www.pentoo.ch/-PENTOO-.html, though it is probably not ideal for a beginner.

[Hit And Rum]

If you want I can set you up with the Canberra manager for our IT recruitment company. PM me.

[Kez]

Linux is a nice operating system, but as vladi said, don't go into it with a windows mentality.

That's the #1 reason why all the "omg linux liek sux" people are the way they are, they want it to be like Windows, which it's not :p.

Security penetration, I prefer to use Auditor (http://www.remote-exploit.org/index.php/Auditor_main).

Best pen-test package ever.

[Farnk]

We use a number of IT sec consultants and auditors, both for pen tests and also PIR sec audits.

The one comment they all make is that they just cannot find suitable staff. Having said that, all the people we see tend to be of a similar type. They are the classic unix-dude stereotype. Long hair, quiet, uncommunicative.. Great at what they do, but by god you want them gone as soon as they have fininshed their job.

It's a growing segment for sure, but as you will have already realised is that sec is the boom segment now and will be for a few years then something else will be the big thing. Just as Windows / Cisco / Novell etc all had their time.

[millap]

I suppose my questions are -
Has anybody started off a Windows person and just said this blows I am moving over to this 'Linux' space, and actually done it?

How hard is it to learn Linux? Is it as easy as Windows (because Windows is easy which but at the same time, coming from a Novell background is woefully unstable and I hate it)?

I came from a Windows background about 6 years ago and started dabbling in Linux/Unix. Ii find it much more interesting, fun and well......stable :D than Windows and you can do so much more with it. Learning it isn't the easiest thats for sure, but pursevere and you'll get there. I started with KDE and GNOME on my installs but now work at pure command line and tbh, THATS where the work is done anyway...depending on what you want to do with it. I have host at home which offers remote ssh, smtp mail, remote rsync and http/ftp services. At work our remote backup is done with the linux iscsi-target implementation (integrated with Windows/Backup Exec would you believe!) and we have a customer 'anti-spam' host I built based on linux so the posibilities are endless.

Most of the network appliances nowadays (Barracuda Anti-Spam firewall and the Allot NetEnforcer to name two) are linux/unix based and it's a growing market. Thus, skills in it are handy and the requests via job ads are growing with it (certainly here in the UK anyway).

I still use Windows, but for stable, reliable services which don't cost a fortune to run Linux FTW!

millap

[Peach]

I came from a Windows background about 6 years ago and started dabbling in Linux/Unix. Ii find it much more interesting, fun and well......stable :D than Windows and you can do so much more with it.

Too add to this point (and drift off topic): you can do most things with windows, but generally someone expects you to pay for the software to do it. This is not the case in the world of Linux/Unix and open source.

[fivestarcam]

Linux is great.. I have used Linux in a few previous jobs and came from a windows mentality.
I guess like with anything it is easier to learn and have actual tasks to perform as opposed to just learning it, it is much easier.
We use Solaris at my new job, which is the same sort of thing shell wise...

Try setting yourself tasks... Set up a web server, proxy, DNS and a firewall.. Start them with Cron jobs and alike, that will give you a good intro, especially given that you want to specialise in security...

And best of all Linux is free... It is frustrating trying to get things running, compiling code, finding out you dont have such and such libraries, installing peral modules etc. etc.. But once you get shit going it is indeed satisfying..

Try and start just on the shell, perform all your tasks from there... There is a windows like GUI, or a few actually but if you go down that path you wont really be learning much...

Hope that helps..

[hijukal]

I find it much more interesting, fun and well......stable :D than Windows
Not wanting to run this topic off the rails, but I've found that when Linux boxes I've used in the past crash (usually from a power outage -- stuff buying a UPS for a "play" machine) the filesystem almost always falls into a heap (8-9/10 times) when it's being checked.

I use the ext2 or ext3 filesystem I think. Is this happening to others? I understand the reason it's happening, but FAT/NTFS just seem to keep on trucking if they unexpectedly lose power.

[foolish42]

Not wanting to run this topic off the rails, but I've found that when Linux boxes I've used in the past crash (usually from a power outage -- stuff buying a UPS for a "play" machine) the filesystem almost always falls into a heap (8-9/10 times) when it's being checked.

I use the ext2 or ext3 filesystem I think. Is this happening to others? I understand the reason it's happening, but FAT/NTFS just seem to keep on trucking if they unexpectedly lose power.

ext2 is crap for recovery, but faster - useful for your non variable data (ie OS /usr, /bin, /lib stuff that doesn't change). ext3 is a journaling system which should recover from unexpected crashes much better. also check out reiserfs. There are quite a number of comparisons for speed/reliability etc out there go google it.

NTFS is definitely good for recovery - it has to be :), plus its journalling as per ext3. FAT is crap for recovery on an active file system - chkdsk will always find you some "un allocated blocks" in there after a crash....

[hijukal]

It must've been ext2 that I'd been using in the past. Next time I have some free time to fiddle with Linux again I might give ext3 or reiserfs a shot. Ta.