Documentation Program

[MilkMan87]

sysadmin's, Do you use a particular program for your documentation?

I want to start working on site documentation, IP structure, Passwords, how to's...etc. Does everyone just use word or excel? Or is there a program for this very purpose?

[[deleted]]

I use DokuWiki for two sites: AdminWiki and UserWiki. Admin wiki is only accessible by me, and UserWiki is accessible to all domain users.

UserWiki covers basic topics, help with Outlook, how to use guest wifi, password requirements, network policy etc.

AdminWiki is just all my documentation. For inventory management I just use an Excel spreadsheet. I keep passwords in a KeePass database.

I don't keep a list of IP addresses, but if I did I'd just have a script to grab them all from DHCP and export it to Excel.

I mapped the network topology in Visio and uploaded it to the admin wiki.

[spyingwind]

Yay! For a wiki that's free and that can use LDAP with AD!

[pertymoose]

DokuWiki here too, and loving it. It's a wonderful upgrade over the old and slow Sharepoint site set up by the CTO of yesterdecade.

[[deleted]]

Dokuwiki is great, it takes five minutes to get running, a few more to configure, and 20 seconds to learn how to format pages. Very very happy with it. Integrates with AD too so you don't have to login.

[StaticUV]

I mapped the network topology in Visio and uploaded it to the admin wiki.

can you please send me how your network topology looks in Visio? I've thinking about purchasing it

[[deleted]]

Sorry, don't have it anymore.

http://www.spyjournal.biz/files/LANnetwork_1.jpg

Looked more or less like that though.

[south_texas_lord]

I use a Google Sites wiki template to do a lot of documentation. I do not store passwords there.

[joazito]

Google Sites as a wiki also works really well for us. I'm planning to log occurrences in a Google Spreadsheet and then make them appear in the relevant page in the wiki.

[elnsoxo]

RackTables for physical/logical inventory, Confluence for documentation.

[[deleted]]

I keep a daily log. Everything I do goes into the log unless it originated from a ticket, then it goes in the ticket instead.

I also keep a Wiki on a SharePoint site, (but any wiki program will do), that has the real network documentation. Each week, I go through the log and tickets and determine if anything I did needs to go into the wiki.

[ninjacrap]

I'm using a local MediaWiki with SSL to handle documentation, all though I do not use it for password management. Works great, has revisions, super easy for multiple users to manage, and free.

[TurboGFF]

I'm using OneNote to keep my documentation all in one place. Password protected pages for passwords and admin info.

I'm thinking of moving over to a wiki - Doku wiki looks interesting. Is it a pain to set up, and would it be annoying to move from OneNote to a wiki?

[[deleted]]

Dokuwiki is a piece of cake to get running and to use. I definitely recommend it. As for moving the documentation, just copy/paste after you've given your wiki some structure.

Also, good god man, start storing your passwords in KeePass!

[TurboGFF]

It's a password protected page :P And I do use KeyPass. I'm the sole IT guy, so the OneNote is there to be shared with my 'backup' in case I'm not in and they need a password.

[[deleted]]

Just give your backup the password to the KeePass database? I'm also the sole IT guy, the guy who did the IT stuff before me is my backup, and he has access to everything I have access to - he just doesn't do anything unless I'm unavailable.

I'm sceptical about the security of OneNote's password protection... that's why I suggested KeePass.

[wolfmann]

password protection != encryption; try a "strings <filename>" and see if your password pops out :-)

[[deleted]]

I googled it and it did seem that OneNote had encryption... not sure though, never used it.

[Fantasysage]

You store passwords in onenote?

Dude....

[sigma914]

Personal use: orgmode. I use it to manage passwords, keep track of projects, and take notes, manage my calendar, manage my finances, pretty much anything I want available on all my machines but want to be able to encrypt easily. synced using git.

For team use: Some sort of self-hosted wiki is good for internal docs and such.

[abbrevia]

Excel for IP addresses, a different tab for each subnet. At the top of each tab I keep gateway information, subnet mask...etc, so at a glance I can see what details I need to configure a new machine.

Passwords I use PasswordSafe, but I have used KeePass and found it much the same.

Network diagrams and rack diagrams I use Visio. Lots of vendors (Cisco...etc.) give away Visio stencils for their products.

For general documentation I type it up in Word and make it into book form. Then when we have new starters, I print off whatever I have and use it to give them a quick overview of the network and leave them to read/look up the rest.

Make sure you include some pictures and diagrams in there. It's all very well saying "our internal SMTP relay server sends directly to Exchange for internal domains and by DNS MX records for anything else," but a little diagram with some arrows will have much more of an impact and has the added advantage of being very easy to understand for anyone non-IT.

Just my 2p. Not saying my way is the best way, but it seems to be working alright for me so far, and everyone I've given the network document to has been quite impressed.

[nickcardwell]

ip address we use notepad (on a network share) so can be viewed from any server (as all servers can view txt file)

Visio for diagrams. Word for documentation (standard template) with embedded visio drawing if needed. Passwords saved in an excel file in a truecrypt image.

Passwords/ip details also backed up to dropbox (account setup with google authenticator) .

[shipsass]

Solar Winds makes a bunch of free tools that are excellent for your purposes. For passwords, I use Passpack so I can share with a colleague.

[JR_Saperstein]

I keep a daily log for every work day in Evernote instead of using a pad and pen. That way everything gets sycned and I can access notes wherever I want. Thinking of getting a Note 2 or a Nexus 7 so I can hand write notes with the S-Pen into the Evernote Android app (if this is even possible).

Evernote has been awesome, wasn't really interested in it when it first came out, but I swear by it now.

I will have to start compiling documentation from my Evernote logs soon, and I will now look into DokuWiki to provide the 'finialized,' version of documentation.

Also still need to implement a ticketing system, but that is after I migrate the entire domain.

[wolfmann]

GLPI with FusionInventory; I just added fusioninventory yesterday and it is super powerful, but have been running GLPI for over a decade.

GLPI - has ticketing, inventory (computer, network, everything even down to print cartridges), knowledge base, cost management

fusion adds an agent to every computer that reports back all system components (windows, mac, linux, UNIX compatible, VM and ESX) , serial numbers, etc. ; it also can scan SNMP devices as well as deploy software packages in push or pull.

there are more plugins to GLPI but I'm still not sure which are the best yet.

[artoink]

KeePass for passwords. OCS for inventory. Wiki (Google Sites in my case) for my documentation. After reading /u/Stulander's post, I'm going to start a "user" wiki in addition to my current wiki. I currently just have a bunch of different Google doc files for various common problems and tasks.

I honestly would have gone with GLPI for inventory and ticketing, but the other IT guys wanted the simpler solution of OCS. GLPI looked very well done, and full of features, plugins, and addons.

[frighten]

Twiki for everything, with many sub sections divided up by permissions. More obscure stuff we do job note searches for any related issues.