The following jokes have been selected from jokes sent over the last few years on the jokes@floater.org (formerly jokes@pub.ro) mailing list and by Mihai Budiu on his private jokes list. Some of the jokes here might seem offensive to some people (they cover every sexual, religious, ethnic or politically incorrect issue you can think of). If you're easily offended, it's best if you hit Back on your browser now. You have been warned.
Over time, my collection of jokes and funny stories grew, and in order to preserve bandwidth, I've split it into several pages, one page per category, despite the fact that it makes searching more difficult.
If you have a joke that you think it's funny, please drop me a note at tudor@hulubei.net.
Finally, you may want to visit the Funny section in the Photography page.
Species
There are four major species of Unix sysadmins:
1. The TECHNICAL THUG. Usually a systems programmer who has been forced into system administration; writes scripts in a polyglot of the Bourne shell, sed, C, awk, and maybe also perl.
2. The ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST. Usually a retentive drone (or rarely, a harridan ex-secretary) who has been forced into system administration.
3. The MANIAC. Usually an aging cracker who discovered that neither the Mossad nor Cuba are willing to pay a living wage for computer espionage. Fell into system administration; occasionally approaches major competitors with indesp schemes.
4. The IDIOT. Usually a cretin, morpohodite, or old COBOL programmer selected to be the system administrator by a committee of cretins, morphodites, and old COBOL programmers
Situations
Low Disk Space
TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes a suite of scripts to monitor disk usage,
maintain a database of historic disk usage, predict
future disk usage via least squares regression
analysis, identify users who are more than a
standard deviation over the mean, and send mail to
the offending parties. Places script in cron. Disk
usage does not change, since disk-hogs, by nature,
either ignore script-generated mail, or file it away
in triplicate.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts disk usage policy in motd. Uses disk quotas.
Allows no exceptions, thus crippling development
work. Locks accounts that go over quota.
MANIAC:
# cd /home
# rm -rf `du -s * | sort -rn | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`;
IDIOT:
# cd /home
# cat `du -s * | sort -rn | head -1 | awk '{ printf
"%s/*\n", $2}'` | compress
Excessive CPU Usage
TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes a suite of scripts to monitor processes,
maintain a database of CPU usage, identify processes
more than a standard deviation over the norm, and
renice offending processes. Places script in
cron. Ends up renicing the production database into
oblivion, bringing operations to a grinding halt,
much to the delight of the xtrek freaks.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts CPU usage policy in motd. Uses CPU
quotas. Locks accounts that go over quota. Allows no
exceptions, thus crippling development work, much to
the delight of the xtrek freaks.
MANIAC:
# kill -9 `ps -augxww | sort -rn +8 -9 | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`
IDIOT:
# compress -f `ps -augxww | sort -rn +8 -9 | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`
New Account Creation
TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes perl script that creates home directory,
copies in incomprehensible default environment, and
places entries in /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, and
/etc/group. (By hand, NOT with passmgmt.) Slaps on
setuid bit; tells a nearby secretary to handle new
accounts. Usually, said secretary is still dithering
over the difference between 'enter' and 'return';
and so, no new accounts are ever created.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts new account policy in motd. Since people
without accounts cannot read the motd, nobody ever
fulfills the bureaucratic requirements; and so, no
new accounts are ever created.
MANIAC:
"If you're too stupid to break in and create your
own account, I don't want you on the system. We've
got too many goddamn sh*t-for-brains a**holes on
this box anyway."
IDIOT:
# cd /home; mkdir "Bob's home directory"
# echo "Bob Simon:gandalf:0:0::/dev/tty:compress -f" > /etc/passwd
Root Disk Fails
TECHNICAL THUG:
Repairs drive. Usually is able to repair filesystem
from boot monitor. Failing that, front-panel toggles
microkernel in and starts script on neighboring
machine to load binary boot code into broken
machine, reformat and reinstall OS. Lets it run over
the weekend while he goes mountain climbing.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Begins investigation to determine who broke the
drive. Refuses to fix system until culprit is
identified and charged for the equipment.
MANIAC, LARGE SYSTEM:
Rips drive from system, uses sledgehammer to smash
same to flinders. Calls manufacturer, threatens
pets. Abuses field engineer while they put in a new
drive and reinstall the OS.
MANIAC, SMALL SYSTEM:
Rips drive from system, uses ball-peen hammer to
smash same to flinders. Calls Requisitions,
threatens pets. Abuses bystanders while putting in
new drive and reinstalling OS.
IDIOT:
Doesn't notice anything wrong.
Poor Network Response
TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes scripts to monitor network, then rewires
entire machine room, improving response time by
2%. Shrugs shoulders, says, "I've done all I can
do," and goes mountain climbing.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts network usage policy in motd. Calls up Berkeley
and AT&T, badgers whoever answers for network
quotas. Tries to get xtrek freaks fired.
MANIAC:
Every two hours, pulls ethernet cable from wall and
waits for connections to time out.
IDIOT:
# compress -f /dev/en0
User Questions
TECHNICAL THUG:
Hacks the code of emacs' doctor-mode to answer new
users questions. Doesn't bother to tell people how
to start the new "guru-mode", or for that matter,
emacs.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts user support policy in motd. Maintains queue of
questions. Answers them when he gets a chance, often
within two weeks of receipt of the proper form.
MANIAC:
Screams at users until they go away. Sometimes
barters knowledge for powerful drink and/or
sycophantic adulation.
IDIOT:
Answers all questions to best of his knowledge until
the user realizes few UNIX systems support punched
cards or JCL.
Stupid User Questions
TECHNICAL THUG:
Answers question in hex, binary, postfix, and/or
French until user gives up and goes away.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Locks user's account until user can present
documentation demonstrating their qualification to
use the machine.
MANIAC:
# cat >> ~luser/.cshrc
alias vi 'rm \!*;unalias vi;grep -v BoZo ~/.cshrc > ~/.z; mv -f ~/.z ~/.cshrc'
^D
IDIOT:
Answers all questions to best of his
knowledge. Recruits user to system administration
team.
Process Accounting
TECHNICAL THUG:
Ignores packaged accounting software; trusts scripts
to sniff out any problems & compute charges.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Devotes 75% of disk space to accounting records
owned by root and chmod'ed 000.
MANIAC:
Laughs fool head off at very mention of accounting.
IDIOT:
# lpr /etc/wtmp /usr/adm/paact
Religious Wars
BSD vs. System V
TECHNICAL THUG:
BSD. Crippled on System V boxes.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
System V. Horrified by the people who use
BSD. Places frequent calls to DEA.
MANIAC:
Prefers BSD, but doesn't care as long as HIS
processes run quickly.
IDIOT:
# cd c:
System V vs. AIX
TECHNICAL THUG:
Weeps.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
AIX--doesn't much care for the OS, but
loves the jackboots.
MANIAC:
System V, but keeps AIX skills up, knowing full well
how much Big Financial Institutions love IBM...
IDIOT:
AIX.
Balky Printer Daemons
TECHNICAL THUG:
Rewrites lpd in FORTH.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts printer use policy in motd. Calls customer
support every time the printer freezes. Tries to get
user who submitted the most recent job fired.
MANIAC:
Writes script that kills all the daemons, clears all
the print queues, and maybe restarts the
daemons. Runs it once a hour from cron.
IDIOT:
# kill -9 /dev/lp ; /dev/lp &
OS Upgrade
TECHNICAL THUG:
Reads source code of new release, takes only what he
likes.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Instigates lawsuit against the vendor for having
shipped a product with bugs in it in the first
place.
MANIAC:
# uptime
1:33pm up 19 days, 22:49, 167 users, load average: 6.49, 6.45, 6.31
# wall
Well, it's upgrade time. Should take a few hours. And good luck on that
5:00 deadline, guys! We're all pulling for you!
^D
IDIOT:
# dd if=/dev/rmt8 of=/vmunix
Balky Mail
TECHNICAL THUG:
Rewrites sendmail.cf from scratch. Rewrites sendmail
in SNOBOL. Hacks kernel to implement file
locking. Hacks kernel to implement "better"
semaphores. Rewrites sendmail in assembly. Hacks
kernel to...
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts mail use policy in motd. Locks accounts that go
over mail use quota. Keeps quota low enough that
people go back to interoffice mail, thus solving
problem.
MANIAC:
# kill -9 `ps -augxww | grep sendmail | awk '{print $2}'`
# rm -f /usr/spool/mail/*
# wall
Mail is down. Please use interoffice mail until we have it back up.
^D
# write max
I've got my boots and backpack. Ready to leave for Mount Tam?
^D
IDIOT:
# echo "HELP!" | mail tech_support.AT.vendor.com%kremvax%bitnet!BIFF!!!
Users Want Phone List Application
TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes RDBMS in perl and Smalltalk. Users give up
and go back to post-it notes.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Oracle. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
MANIAC:
Tells the users to use flat files and grep, the way
God meant man to keep track of phone numbers. Users
give up and go back to post-it notes.
IDIOT:
% dd ibs=80 if=/dev/rdisk001s7 | grep "Fred"
Typical root .cshrc
TECHNICAL THUG:
Longer than eight kilobytes. Sources the output of a
perl script, rewrites itself.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST: Typical lines include:
umask 777
alias cd 'cd \!*; rm -rf ching *hack mille omega rogue xtrek >& /dev/null &'
MANIAC:
Typical lines include:
alias rm 'rm -rf \!*'
alias hose kill -9 '`ps -augxww | grep \!* | awk \'{print $2}\'`'
alias kill 'kill -9 \!* ; kill -9 \!* ; kill -9 \!*'
alias renice 'echo Renice\? You must mean kill -9.; kill -9 \!*'
IDIOT:
Typical lines include:
alias dir ls
alias era rm
alias kitty cat
alias process_table ps
setenv DISPLAY vt100
Hobbies
Technical
TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes entries for Obsfuscated C contest. Optimizes
INTERCAL scripts. Maintains ENIAC emulator. Virtual
reality.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Bugs office. Audits card-key logs. Modifies old TVs
to listen in on cellular phone conversations.
Listens to police band.
MANIAC:
Volunteers at Survival Research Labs. Bugs office.
Edits card-key logs. Modifies old TVs to listen in
on cellular phone conversations. Jams police band.
IDIOT:
Ties shoes. Maintains COBOL decimal to roman
numeral converter. Rereads flowcharts from his
salad days at Rand.
Nontechnical
TECHNICAL THUG:
Drinks "Smart Drinks." Attends raves. Hangs out at
poetry readings and Whole Earth Review events and
tries to pick up Birkenstock MOTAS.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Reads Readers Digest and Mein Kampf. Sometimes
turns up car radio and sings along to John
Denver. Golfs. Drinks gin martinis. Hangs out in
yuppie bars and tries to pick up dominatrixes.
MANIAC:
Reads Utne Reader and Mein Kampf. Faithfully attends
Dickies and Ramones concerts. Punches out people who
say "virtual reality." Drinks damn near anything,
but favors Wild Turkey, Black Bush, and grain
alcohol. Hangs out in neighborhood bars and tries to
pick up MOTAS by drinking longshoremen under the
table .
IDIOT:
Reads Time and Newsweek and *believes* them. Drinks
Jagermeister. Tries to pick up close blood relations
- often succeeds, producting next generation of
IDIOTs.
Compound System Administrators
TECHNICAL FASCIST:
Hacks kernel & writes a horde of scripts to prevent
folk from ever using more than their fair share of
system resources. Resulting overhead and load brings
system to its knees.
TECHNICAL MANIAC:
Writes scripts that SEEM to be monitoring the
system, but are actually encrypting large lists of
passwords. Uses nearby nodes as beta test sites for
worms.
TECHNICAL IDIOT:
Writes superuser-run scripts that sooner or later do
an "rm -rf /".
FASCISTIC MANIAC:
At first hint of cracker incursions, whether real or
imagined, shuts down system by triggering
water-on-the-brain detectors and Halon system.
FASCISTIC IDIOT:
# cp /dev/null /etc/passwd
MANIACAL IDIOT:
Napalms the CPU.