[CentOS] Dangerous Software Raid instructions on Wiki

[Brian Mathis]

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 12:21 PM, Alan Hodgson<ahodgson at simkin.ca> wrote:
>
> I think this seriously highlights the need to hire competent system
> administrators.
>
> The reason you want to wipe the beginning of the drive is that some
> fake-raid controllers write crap to the drive and if you leave it there
> some linux installers (anaconda, at least) will install dm-raid using that
> info rather than setup md raid using normal linux conventions. Which is
> exactly what that section of the instruction says. My kickstart scripts do
> the same thing and for the same reason.
>
> Let me be even more clear - if your successor doesn't know what dd does, or
> what drives correspond to /dev/sda and /dev/sdb in the box he's working on,
> he has no business being within 10 feet of a production server without
> careful supervision.


This thread seriously highlights the sort of attitudes that are
causing major issues in IT in general, and have been for years.
Whenever someone makes a mistake, we point fingers and call them
stupid.  We haughtily proclaim that only people who "know what they
are doing" should have a job -- as if we had never been short on time,
ventured into an area outside our expertise, or been a beginner.

The fact is that we all have a million things to do and only a fixed
amount of time.  It's simply not possible for anyone to be a complete
expert in everything at all times.  We've all been in a position where
something needs to be done immediately and you don't know everything
about the product/system.  I would wager that is more common than the
situation where you know everything about everything before performing
any actions.


Additionally, IT often has the unique benefit that users can quickly
contribute to a feedback loop that informs you directly with what they
are having trouble with.  Other industries, such as advertising,
marketing, sales, etc... would *kill* to have that sort of feedback.

And what do we do with it?  In this case, someone has effectively
filed a bug on the documentation, and all we can do is spew about how
stupid the person is.  It doesn't matter if the information is there
/somewhere/; the bug is that it's not clear, or it's presented in a
confusing way, or it is potentially dangerous and that danger can be
easily mitigated (Jason Pyeron has got the right idea).

Instead of taking the lazy approach of dismissing someone as stupid,
prove that your haughtiness is justified by engaging on how to fix the
problem.  You've been presented with an opportunity to make something
better than it was before.  Take it.