IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.

ShakyJake

ShakyJake

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Just began a new project working on something totally alien to me. It's a customized GL.iNet MiFi device (a 4G LTE to WiFi router type thingy). These run a custom OpenWRT O/S. Up to this point there has only been one developer (the creator) working on it. It's using LUA as it's scripting language. I know LUA is often used in games for their scripting engine.

Is LUA commonly used for this type of application? I realize these little boxes have limited computing and storage capabilities, so I wouldn't expect them to using anything heavy. But this shit is awful.
 
alavaz

alavaz

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OpenWRT has had the lua config interface (luci) for a long time. It's not really that bad, most router firmware is like bourne shell via cgi.
 
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Chris

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So... we outsourced the setting up of our website and servers to a certain eastern european country.

My little GoDaddy website managed by CPanel was moved over to Apache2 Ubuntu using a terminal window for server stuff.

The SSL certificate was still on GoDaddy and now apparently doesn't auto reapply because they are no longer the hosts. So now many customers can't access the website through their strict school firewalls because https is gone.

The guy maintaining this who could fix it in a minute is now drafted into the fucking Ukrainian army. Oh and he is the only one with write access to the server.

Spent all day diagnosing the problem, rekeying the SSL certificate, learning how FileZilla works to upload the files (apparently my part of the project on GitHub is different), resetting root user password to get write access, learning how the fuck to edit text files in a terminal window with vim, figuring out I had to edit a specific config file and not the default one... and the new SSL certificate just crashes the whole website. I hope to god it's just a typo somewhere.

Who do I even ask for help here? What's the job title for this?
 
Neranja

Neranja

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Chris said:
and the new SSL certificate just crashes the whole website.
Click to expand...
You should have two files: The signed certificate (signed by a CA), and a key file. The latter file is the important one and should be kept secure.

You may have a third file called CA chain, which contains the CA cert (the root) and all intermediary certificates.

You should have settings like:
SSLCertificateFile /path/to/certificate.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/certificate.key
SSLCertificateChainFile /path/to/CA-Chain.crt

Also, check the error log of your Apache2 server. /var/log/httpd or something.
On another note: "apachectl configtest"
 
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Chris

Chris

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Neranja said:
You should have two files: The signed certificate (signed by a CA), and a key file. The latter file is the important one and should be kept secure.

You may have a third file called CA chain, which contains the CA cert (the root) and all intermediary certificates.

You should have settings like:
SSLCertificateFile /path/to/certificate.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/certificate.key
SSLCertificateChainFile /path/to/CA-Chain.crt

Also, check the error log of your Apache2 server. /var/log/httpd or something.
On another note: "apachectl configtest"
Click to expand...
Thanks, actually got it sorted a few hours ago doing pretty much that.

The log said that the .crt and .key didn't match.

I think it's because I made the .key on my user account then installed the certificate a few days later on the root account?

I just had to rekey it again and it worked.
 
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Phanton

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Hey everyone,

I've been considering a career change, moving from education to IT. Frankly, I really enjoyed working from home during Covid, am tired of office politics, and definitely am tired of the long unpaid hours so 'normal' in education. Yeah, summer off is cool--but I think this career path could be much more well suited toward my interests and desired lifestyle.

Yet, I find the path toward IT somewhat bewildering. Should I... Acquire an A+, Network+, Security+? Should I consider specializing into a particular coding language? If so, which? Also, what sort of job prospects are realistic for someone with little to no professional background in the field even with those certifications? Are there any particular things that companies look for that I could start doing to set myself apart from potential competition?

I've looked at programs at local colleges, and they seem ridiculously pricy for only what I consider to be a study guide for the certifications. Am I better off studying for these independently? I see some online resources such as CompTIA and the like. I recently signed up for a pretty cheap A+ self-paced course just to get my feet wet. It's recommended as a 3 month course, but frankly I'm half way through it in 20 days because it's somewhat review as a long time PC gamer.

TLDR: How does one efficiently and cost effectively get hired in the IT field starting from square one?

Apologies if this is deemed a poor location for this post. Thanks for your consideration.
 
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Chris

Chris

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Phanton said:
Hey everyone,

I've been considering a career change, moving from education to IT. Frankly, I really enjoyed working from home during Covid, am tired of office politics, and definitely am tired of the long unpaid hours so 'normal' in education. Yeah, summer off is cool--but I think this career path could be much more well suited toward my interests and desired lifestyle.

Yet, I find the path toward IT somewhat bewildering. Should I... Acquire an A+, Network+, Security+? Should I consider specializing into a particular coding language? If so, which? Also, what sort of job prospects are realistic for someone with little to no professional background in the field even with those certifications? Are there any particular things that companies look for that I could start doing to set myself apart from potential competition?

I've looked at programs at local colleges, and they seem ridiculously pricy for only what I consider to be a study guide for the certifications. Am I better off studying for these independently? I see some online resources such as CompTIA and the like. I recently signed up for a pretty cheap A+ self-paced course just to get my feet wet. It's recommended as a 3 month course, but frankly I'm half way through it in 20 days because it's somewhat review as a long time PC gamer.

TLDR: How does one efficiently and cost effectively get hired in the IT field starting from square one?

Apologies if this is deemed a poor location for this post. Thanks for your consideration.
Click to expand...
I'm also kind of doing this Education to Teaching route so any reply could also help me.

I'm funding my side buisness with teaching but by building the buisness I've picked up a lot of web design skills and could fund it by doing web design instead... I just don't know what web design qualifcations etc are valuable.

Anyway as for your question... what were you doing in education?

I'm a Maths teacher so I wrote some software that planned and resourced lessons for me to reduce my workload and sell to others.

Maybe you could work in the overlap of your old and new careers to mitigate risk like I'm doing. If my buisness fails, at least I can use what I make to teach.
 
Phanton

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Chris said:
I'm also kind of doing this Education to Teaching route so any reply could also help me.

I'm funding my side buisness with teaching but by building the buisness I've picked up a lot of web design skills and could fund it by doing web design instead... I just don't know what web design qualifcations etc are valuable.

Anyway as for your question... what were you doing in education?

I'm a Maths teacher so I wrote some software that planned and resourced lessons for me to reduce my workload and sell to others.

Maybe you could work in the overlap of your old and new careers to mitigate risk like I'm doing. If my buisness fails, at least I can use what I make to teach.
Click to expand...
High School English! It's been a tough two years. I don't know if my heart is in it anymore. Not a ton of overlap, sadly. I've considered pursuing a CTE certification once I can leverage my knowledge in computing (i.e. with an A+) so that perhaps I can teach that instead? Unsure if that's just a time sink since my goal is moving away from education right now.
 
TJT

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Phanton said:
Hey everyone,

I've been considering a career change, moving from education to IT. Frankly, I really enjoyed working from home during Covid, am tired of office politics, and definitely am tired of the long unpaid hours so 'normal' in education. Yeah, summer off is cool--but I think this career path could be much more well suited toward my interests and desired lifestyle.

Yet, I find the path toward IT somewhat bewildering. Should I... Acquire an A+, Network+, Security+? Should I consider specializing into a particular coding language? If so, which? Also, what sort of job prospects are realistic for someone with little to no professional background in the field even with those certifications? Are there any particular things that companies look for that I could start doing to set myself apart from potential competition?

I've looked at programs at local colleges, and they seem ridiculously pricy for only what I consider to be a study guide for the certifications. Am I better off studying for these independently? I see some online resources such as CompTIA and the like. I recently signed up for a pretty cheap A+ self-paced course just to get my feet wet. It's recommended as a 3 month course, but frankly I'm half way through it in 20 days because it's somewhat review as a long time PC gamer.

TLDR: How does one efficiently and cost effectively get hired in the IT field starting from square one?

Apologies if this is deemed a poor location for this post. Thanks for your consideration.
Click to expand...
So something to understand is that the term "IT" is extremely broad.

What interests you do you think? Just as a few examples that are all firmly within the IT/Tech job market.
  1. IT -> the typical IT guy who manages peoples equipment, user accounts, stuff like that. Sometimes is a help desk guy too or in spends a lot of time fulfilling user tickets to generate accounts for this or that. Get rid of old accounts. Also does network shit.
  2. Software engineering -> Programming shit, building apps, whatever.
  3. Cybersecurity -> Spend time scanning shit and bugging developers about your suspected security flaws.
  4. Business Intelligence -> Design and build reporting based off of internal data within a company for business insights and decision making.

If you want easy money. Learn ServiceNow or Salesforce and get some of the certs those platforms have.
 
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elcaro1101

elcaro1101

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Yay adult stuff! Got this today, pretty excited!

1647447151349.png
 
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RobXIII

RobXIII

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Phanton said:
Hey everyone,

I've been considering a career change, moving from education to IT. Frankly, I really enjoyed working from home during Covid, am tired of office politics, and definitely am tired of the long unpaid hours so 'normal' in education. Yeah, summer off is cool--but I think this career path could be much more well suited toward my interests and desired lifestyle.

Yet, I find the path toward IT somewhat bewildering. Should I... Acquire an A+, Network+, Security+? Should I consider specializing into a particular coding language? If so, which? Also, what sort of job prospects are realistic for someone with little to no professional background in the field even with those certifications? Are there any particular things that companies look for that I could start doing to set myself apart from potential competition?

I've looked at programs at local colleges, and they seem ridiculously pricy for only what I consider to be a study guide for the certifications. Am I better off studying for these independently? I see some online resources such as CompTIA and the like. I recently signed up for a pretty cheap A+ self-paced course just to get my feet wet. It's recommended as a 3 month course, but frankly I'm half way through it in 20 days because it's somewhat review as a long time PC gamer.

TLDR: How does one efficiently and cost effectively get hired in the IT field starting from square one?

Apologies if this is deemed a poor location for this post. Thanks for your consideration.
Click to expand...


Having recently shifted myself after taking the summer off (not a teacher though, so no summer pay here QQ), I can say that there's definitely a huge market for IT staff right now. Depends who you want to work for, and what you want to do. A lot of places require Security+ cert (especially a government gig or its contractors). If networking interests you, spend a few weeks studying the CCNA test, there's plenty of practice tests online, some of them seem a little TOO good since they started allowing that test to be taken at home, hint hint lol. Get those, and be willing to get an entry level gig if your resume isn't IT heavy yet.

Once you get comfy, and learn from the entry job, always keep an eye out for new jobs. This isn't 1950 where you stay with the same company and retire with a pension. People brag about boosting their salary 40% + just changing jobs once they get the exp. I really like the job I have now, it's rare to work with an entire shop of great people, so I got lucky lol.
 
Louis

Louis

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Seconding the ServiceNow suggestion. I'm currently in a ServiceNow postion, but moving to a mulesoft position for more money $$$.

I sort of feel that I'll miss working on it just because of how large the platform is and it allowing you to get your hands on nearly all aspects of IT. It's nearly impossible to keep up with everything they contiuously add.
 
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Neranja

Neranja

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RobXIII said:
If networking interests you, spend a few weeks studying the CCNA test, there's plenty of practice tests online, some of them seem a little TOO good since they started allowing that test to be taken at home, hint hint lol. Get those, and be willing to get an entry level gig if your resume isn't IT heavy yet.
Click to expand...
Humble Bundle currently has a "Get Certified" book bundle from Wiley. I don't know about the quality, but things like CCNA, CCNP, MCA, LPI and AWS are included.
 
Mist

Mist

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Why did a senior engineer wake me up at 2 in the morning asking me how public trust certificates work and how to replace them across a customer's public-facing infrastructure because they're about to expire in 8 hours?
 
Chris

Chris

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Phanton said:
High School English! It's been a tough two years. I don't know if my heart is in it anymore. Not a ton of overlap, sadly. I've considered pursuing a CTE certification once I can leverage my knowledge in computing (i.e. with an A+) so that perhaps I can teach that instead? Unsure if that's just a time sink since my goal is moving away from education right now.
Click to expand...
So I'm making a lesson/worksheet generator. Type in the topic you want to teach and questions are randomly generated in different types of activities.

I learned a lot of web programming to make it and it makes my job easier.
 
Phanton

Phanton

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TJT said:
So something to understand is that the term "IT" is extremely broad.

What interests you do you think? Just as a few examples that are all firmly within the IT/Tech job market.
  1. IT -> the typical IT guy who manages peoples equipment, user accounts, stuff like that. Sometimes is a help desk guy too or in spends a lot of time fulfilling user tickets to generate accounts for this or that. Get rid of old accounts. Also does network shit.
  2. Software engineering -> Programming shit, building apps, whatever.
  3. Cybersecurity -> Spend time scanning shit and bugging developers about your suspected security flaws.
  4. Business Intelligence -> Design and build reporting based off of internal data within a company for business insights and decision making.

If you want easy money. Learn ServiceNow or Salesforce and get some of the certs those platforms have.
Click to expand...
I'm leaning toward IT and Cybersecurity as it stands, but frankly my knowledge of the subtleties between these fields is limited. I have a friend in networking that loves it and so I've just naturally leaned that way by his advice.

ServiceNow and Salesforce--what would you recommend as studying tools or is this something acquired more formally? Is it as easy as google the terms and sign up for the certs I find on sites, and will a relatively new person to the field be able to handle the information or should I begin with lower tier certs?


RobXIII said:
Having recently shifted myself after taking the summer off (not a teacher though, so no summer pay here QQ), I can say that there's definitely a huge market for IT staff right now. Depends who you want to work for, and what you want to do. A lot of places require Security+ cert (especially a government gig or its contractors). If networking interests you, spend a few weeks studying the CCNA test, there's plenty of practice tests online, some of them seem a little TOO good since they started allowing that test to be taken at home, hint hint lol. Get those, and be willing to get an entry level gig if your resume isn't IT heavy yet.

Once you get comfy, and learn from the entry job, always keep an eye out for new jobs. This isn't 1950 where you stay with the same company and retire with a pension. People brag about boosting their salary 40% + just changing jobs once they get the exp. I really like the job I have now, it's rare to work with an entire shop of great people, so I got lucky lol.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a great call, I'll look into CCNA as well. What site(s)/sources do you recommend to study?
 
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Mist

Mist

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Phanton said:
I'm leaning toward IT and Cybersecurity as it stands, but frankly my knowledge of the subtleties between these feilds is limited.
Click to expand...
Here it is:

In IT, a high severity incident occurs when two devices mysteriously stop talking to each other for no explainable reason.

In Cybersecurity, a high severity incident occurs when two devices mysteriously START talking to each other for no explainable reason.

Other than that, there are no differences.
 
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