Welcome! System Administrator

What is System Administration?

The System Administration (SA) track prepares the student for a career in system and network administration. The track addresses issues related to the selection, installation, configuration and maintenance of Linux and Windows operating systems (including shell programming and scripting, heterogeneous systems, remote management, the legal issues of system administration, as well as the design and implementation of policies and automated administration regimes) and internetworking environments (including the TCP/IP protocol suite and network services administration [DHCP, DNS, SSH, and Kerberos]). Students will be exposed to the most common operating software (including Windows and Linux, both client/desktop and server) and coached on best practices in their administration.

What Career Paths can I go into?

As organizations keep investing in their information systems, talents are needed to help design, deploy, manage, and safeguard these systems. System/Network administration has consistently been ranked as one of the top, if not the top, fastest-growing jobs in recent years.

Students may assume job titles such as System/Network Analyst, System/Network Administrator, System/Network Engineer, Data Communications Analysts, and System/Network Manager.

Advising Notes

College of Management students should seek general advising from the University Advising Center until they have earned 60 credits; and the College of Management Undergraduate Program Office once they have earned 60 credits. Students seeking advising regarding track courses should see a faculty mentor for their chosen track – see the CM Undergraduate webpage for details.

Advising for degree exceptions and policy overrides should go through the advising office for the College in which the student is enrolled (CM students should go to M-5-610), as appropriate.

Students should plan to take the track courses over the course of two years (four semesters) to ensure a wide selection of required and elective courses in the concentration. Some track courses may be offered once a year and are subject to sequencing due to pre-requisites, making this time allowance necessary.

The pre-requisites for these courses are strictly enforced; students should plan their schedule early and carefully.

Take all four of these required courses:

This is an introduction to the process of choosing, installing, configuring and maintaining UNIX operating systems such as Linux. Topics include user management, file system management, security, networked file systems (NFS), networked information systems (NIS), domain name servers (DNS), mail systems and printers. Students will get practice writing shell scripts. Also, students are introduced to general system administration policy.

Pre-requisites IT244.

This course builds upon the material learned in IT341 Introduction to System Administration. It shows how one may better administer networked computer systems by automating many of the administration regimes and by effectively managing those who help. Topics include scripting, heterogeneous networks, remote management, the legal issues of network administration, an introduction to network security, and the design and implementation of policy. Students are also introduced to issues in managing others.

Pre-requisites IT341.

This is an introduction to the process of choosing, installing, configuring and maintaining Microsoft Windows client and server systems. Topics include user management, file systems, network domains and domain management, mailers, and printing. Students get practice in writing scripts for performing maintenance tasks. Also, students learn how these tasks fit into the more general system administration process.

Pre-requisites IT341.

This course explores the application of policy and techniques to securing both public and private networks. The course is project-based and includes such topics as threat analysis and management, cryptography, firewalls, isolation, issues in securing wireless networks, and certificates.

Pre-requisites IT341.