Top 10 Essential Websites Every SysAdmin Should Bookmark for DevOps and Infrastructure Mastery


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As a seasoned system administrator, staying updated with the latest technologies and best practices is crucial. Here's my curated list of must-read websites:

For Ansible users:

# Sample Ansible playbook from Ansible Galaxy
- hosts: webservers
  vars:
    http_port: 80
  tasks:
    - name: Ensure Apache is installed
      apt:
        name: apache2
        state: present

Essential reading for hardening systems:

# Basic iptables rules example
*filter
:INPUT DROP [0:0]
:FORWARD DROP [0:0]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
-A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT

Key sites for observability:

Don't miss:

Some great weekly digests:

  • SRE Weekly
  • DevOps'ish

As a system administrator, staying updated with the latest technologies and best practices is crucial. Here are the most valuable resources I've found over the years:

  • Planet Sysadmin (http://planetsysadmin.com/) - Aggregates content from sysadmin blogs worldwide
  • IBM DeveloperWorks (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/) - Deep technical articles on enterprise systems
  • Linux Journal - Excellent for open-source system administration
  • Server Fault - Q&A platform for practical sysadmin issues

Modern sysadmins need strong automation skills. These sites provide excellent examples:

# Sample Ansible playbook from Red Hat's sysadmin blog
- name: Configure webserver
  hosts: webservers
  become: yes
  tasks:
    - name: Install Apache
      yum:
        name: httpd
        state: present
    - name: Start Apache
      service:
        name: httpd
        state: started
        enabled: yes

Key automation blogs:

  • Red Hat Sysadmin Blog (for Ansible/Puppet examples)
  • Python DevOps (for scripting tutorials)
  • Google SRE Book (free online resource)

Security should be every sysadmin's priority. These resources provide timely updates:

# Basic iptables firewall configuration example
*filter
:INPUT DROP [0:0]
:FORWARD DROP [0:0]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
-A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
COMMIT

Essential security resources:

  • Schneier on Security (conceptual security discussions)
  • US-CERT Alerts (official vulnerability notifications)
  • The Hacker News (security news aggregator)

Modern infrastructure requires knowledge of cloud platforms and container technologies:

# Docker compose example for a simple LAMP stack
version: '3'
services:
  web:
    image: php:7.4-apache
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    volumes:
      - ./src:/var/www/html
  db:
    image: mysql:5.7
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: example

Recommended cloud resources:

  • AWS Architecture Blog
  • Kubernetes Official Documentation
  • Linux Containers Forum