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Questions to ask outgoing computer guru

jescab

Just to get a conversation started.......................

What kind of questions would you ask if the head computer guru was leaving and you were going to fill his spot. You are brand new to the company and know nothing about the servers / work stations and noone else knows anything about the set-up an doperaions of them either. This is a small company and he was the only computer guy there and now you are going to take over for him.

What are some questions that you would ask so you can continue to run this operation. You also don't want him to be able to remotely log on and do anything.

This should get a good conversation going.

Thanks!

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Comments

Sie

If hes good at his job he should have the network documented including all the changes etc so you shouldnt have to ask much, though unfortunatly this isnt always the case.

As for not letting him in?

Would go through systematically change all admin passwords, remove any unrequired access (RAS, VPN etc) maybe change access ports for commonly used services to he could use to access.

Thats to start with, im sure i could think of more if i didnt have so much work to get through!

jpeezy55

jescab wrote:

Just to get a conversation started.......................

What kind of questions would you ask if the head computer guru was leaving and you were going to fill his spot. You are brand new to the company and know nothing about the servers / work stations and noone else knows anything about the set-up an doperaions of them either. This is a small company and he was the only computer guy there and now you are going to take over for him.

What are some questions that you would ask so you can continue to run this operation. You also don't want him to be able to remotely log on and do anything.

This should get a good conversation going.

Thanks!

If he was fired or let go in some fashion, make sure he is giving you good information. If he is mad at the company, his thoughts may just be along the lines of "Why should I help them, let them figure it out on their own!" and if that's the case, you may not get good information at all.

If he is leaving on his own terms, then just ask him if there is anything unique to the system that you need to know about, such as DHCP scopes, and AD settings, policies, etc...

I wouldn't hint too much at asking how to keep someone out of the system, especially him because he could just take it in a bad way.

Hopefully, you are on very good terms with him and he is leaving by his own choice, that combination will yield you the best and most accurate answer to your questions.

Good Luck!

billybob01

Dont ask him anything. Collect all Information and make the job YOURS!!!

jpeezy55

billybob01 wrote:

Dont ask him anything. Collect all Information and make the job YOURS!!!

That's another good way to look at it...you will come off looking very good to your boss too!

mikey_b

One - ask him for his Site Management Bible.

Two - delete his account and change all of the machine account pwds and other priviledged account pwds (for routers and switches as well).

Three - Keep an eye on any odd firewall activity and audit for account login failures for a few weeks or so.

And when you ask him for his Site Management Bible (which all good admins have), be sure to be carrying a heavy ballpeen hammer in case it gets ugly and you need to smashy-smashy some fingers.

I tell you, it's a dog-eat-dog world. Be the wolf!

Webmaster

Ask him as much as you can learn from him. And ask his manager to tell him to leave behind proper documentation, as should have been done in the first place.

Oh, I see Sie mentioned that already...

Sie wrote:

If hes good at his job he should have the network documented including all the changes etc so you shouldnt have to ask much, though unfortunatly this isnt always the case.

blargoe

Documentation, Documentation, Documentation...

Ask him for the password to his account on his way out (or get management to get it from him). You might need it.

I would NOT delete his Windows domain account first thing... I've been burned by this before. We found some EFS encrypted files a few weeks after the fact and we had no way to get in to them since the password on the account was changed administratively, and the account was deleted a couple days later, and there was a problem with using the recovery agent to get the files back (I don't remember the details now).

I would disable the account, set it to expire to a date in the past, and require smart card logon (any of these would prevent him from getting in using HIS account). If there are separate VPN appliances for remote access to the network be sure to remove his account there. Whatever the remote access solution make sure there aren't any potential back doors.

Log in as the domain administrator account and change that password, do the same for local admin accounts on other servers, and for admin access to business applications.

Make sure there isn't anyone else in the Domain Admins group or in any Administrator groups on their servers, and if there are, ask those people to change their passwords immediately, since the outgoing guy might know them.

Change all router passwords, passwords for domain registration information, firewalls or anything else that could impact the business.