IT toolbox

empc4000xl · April 2009

Electricians, plumbers and all types of tradesmen use there own tools to do there jobs. Now its a little different for us the the IT world as the majority of our tools are software, but I'm wondering I think if you work in a heavy IT roll shouldn't you have your own laptop with your own tools that you prefer to use. I took a old box we had laying around. Installed ubuntu, and got a few apps running in Wine and I've been working our network with it, replying to emails, and all and nobodies noticed. I'm wondering should companies have guys in differnet roles have there own boxes "as long as they are checked out by security" and let them use the tools they are more comfortable with to provide the best quality of work?

Psoasman · April 2009

I keep a flash drive with a bunch of utilities and software for troubleshooting on me.

msteinhilber · April 2009

I figured that was just a given (assuming measures are in place to keep sensitive data secure) as I've had a couple of notebook at my past two workplaces. I always keep one which is my notebook I use as a portable workstation for e-mail and all of that other basic work stuff. Then I have a 2nd notebook loaded with all of my tools that I use when I'm working out problems with any of our servers or networking gear.

Other than that I carry a flash drive with all of the software I need and a couple of 2.5" external hdd's, one which is filled with ISO's of various software and OS CD's and the other which I use when performing backups or migrations.

My wife always nag's at me because the back of my car is always filled with a couple notebook bags loaded with stuff and two toolboxes, one with all of my voice/data tools and other misc items if I need to pull cable as well as a bag with my Linkrunner and other misc gear. I always haul a bunch of gear around with me since I'm on the road often and try to avoid having to run back to my main office if I don't have something with me.

Plantwiz · April 2009

msteinhilber wrote: »

I figured that was just a given (assuming measures are in place to keep sensitive data secure) as I've had a couple of notebook at my past two workplaces. I always keep one which is my notebook I use as a portable workstation for e-mail and all of that other basic work stuff. Then I have a 2nd notebook loaded with all of my tools that I use when I'm working out problems with any of our servers or networking gear.

Other than that I carry a flash drive with all of the software I need and a couple of 2.5" external hdd's, one which is filled with ISO's of various software and OS CD's and the other which I use when performing backups or migrations.

....

Agreed. Most of us carry our own stuff. Things don't seem to disapear as quickly when you carry your own...and the CD/DVDs are typically noticed when they are missing (if you use your own) rather then a shared batch. Which nowadays, flash drives help with this too.

I think it would be the rare company that would prohibit you from using your own tools for tech work....at least in consulting work.

empc4000xl · May 2009

I have a company provided laptop and desktop, but they came with windows XP and I was left on my own tool wise. This was my 1st job out the navy and all we had was putty. I never knew about the world of Kiwi Cat tools, Tera Term, secure CRT, Pumpkin Notepad ++ and a few others that I use everyday. We couldn't' even install other programs on PC's. At my current job everybody kinda has there own tools. I was introduced to some of the tools above and i'm amazed at how much I get done with them vs what I had in the navy days. I just got to thinking about how easy it would be for people to get there machines and find what they need to do there job the best. In my months of toying around with everything, the only program so far that I had to purchase was SecureCRT, everything else i use is freeware in Ubuntu.

Forsaken_GA · May 2009

Trust me, if you work in a data center environment, your toolkit will easily expand into the realm of a hardware kit as well as a software kit.

I carry a flash drive that I've setup to boot an Ubuntu live CD. This has proven to be absolutely invaluable when trouble shooting a server that won't boot from it's hard drive for one reason or another. The flash drive also contains my ssh keys, and my .bashrc.

My laptop is loaded with the common software needed to troubleshoot problems. Software wise, some of my most valuable tools are nmap, netcat, the nanog variant of traceroute, mtr, and wireshark. nessus can also be quite useful, though I have to be careful what hosts I run it against. ssh, telnet, and rdesktop for remote access protocols, minicom for terminal emulation when I need to hook up to a serial port. I also keep quite a bit of documentation on the laptop.

hardware toolkit wise....

I have a set of normal screw drivers, and a set of precision screw drivers. I always carry a crossover cable and a straight through cable. It absolutely sucks to have to take timeout to make one when you need one, so I short circuit that and just always have them in the case. I carry a small 4 port Hub as well. The hub and crossover cable are very useful when I want to do some packet sniffing and I don't want to screw around with the switch's configuration to setup a mirror port.

I also carry a USB to Serial cable, since my laptop doesn't have any serial ports. Cisco rollover cables, and proper serial adapters are a must.

My toolbox also contains my wire stripper, and my punchdown tool with 66 and 110 blades. A small maglite in case I need to see something in an area that isn't well lit. A leatherman wave multitool. A Sharpie. A level. A velcro roll, and cable ties. A tape measure, electrical tape. A cable tester capable of doing coax and gigabit ethernet (damned important when you're punching cable.... nothing more annoying than using a tester that only tests 2 pairs, and it shows good, and when you try to make a gige connection, it doesn't work because one of the other pairs is shorted).

I also carry a few oddball items, among them toothpicks and silly putty. This combination is a lifesaver for when you just can't seem to get a screw out any other way (I'm not a big fan of screwdrivers with magnetic heads).

We have drills and bit sets strewn throughout the data center, so I don't carry my personal drill as part of my tech kit, though sometimes I wish I did, as they end up in the damndest places at times. Sooner or later I'll get around to adding an ac adapter kit. It's not a priority, but we have customers ship us things like USB hard drives all the time, and they either forget to ship the power adapter with it, or it's a power adapter with an international plug.

IT toolbox

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