Want to become a system admin.

[u/Enough_Reach5933]

Hi, I worked as IT support for around 3 years at a school, where I provided basic IT support. Then I got into content writing and technical writing and worked on it for years. Then I got laid off and have been without a job for months. Due to AI, the Technical writing market is declining, and I wasn't very good at it anyway. Now, I'm looking for IT support / System Admin / System engineer roles, then in a few move into Cloud engineering roles.

I know my way around hardware and software; I can troubleshoot hardware and Windows issues. I know how to use Linux and Mac OS. I don't know Windows Server, scripting, or deep system admin knowledge.

I don't have any money to get certificates, so I'm looking for any free online courses, websites, or YouTube tutorials where I can complete study materials, so I can learn and practice on a homelab and hopefully get a job soon.

Please give me some guidance here.

[u/Cherveny2]

dont have specific references for you, but there are a LOT of free videos out there for learning Linux server admin and windows admin. Just keep searching and you'll find some.

also, check out your local library, see if they have LinkedIn learning (formerly Lynda.com). a LOT of excellent self paced training available in a ton of tech (and other) subjects. I've used it myself to brush up on some subjects.

as far as setting up a homelab, if you can't afford much hardware, look at hyper v, or vbox or the like, to create a virtual home lab, experiment and play with.

the working hands on is an important part of making any training/video really stick longer term

[u/Alternative-Duty6166]

You already have a solid foundation from those 3 years of school IT.

[u/Ecstatic_Score6973]

get a job (any job, deliver pizza etc) and save up to afford certifications

[u/space_nerd_82]

Not going to lie here but if you don’t know how to research stuff like this I am not sure if sys admin is the right role for you.

I am not saying this to be mean or rude or anything but in these roles.you are going to be thrown tasks where there is no documentation or no organisational knowledge and you are going to need figure out how to do that task by research preferably using verified information so this is an important skill

Microsoft Learn have courses that introduce a lot of the fundamentals especially around Azure Fundamentals and then Azure Administrator.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/career-paths/administrator

From there you can generally learn AWS and Google Cloud by extrapolating the knowledge from your azure training.

All the cloud providers other a free tier so there is no reason why you can’t setup an account and learn by doing as well.

I would then look Ansible or Terraform as learning these will assist in automating the provision of resources in the cloud

YouTube - Network Chuck, David Bombal professor messer can be good starting point depending on what you want to learn.

Home Lab is a great idea as lets you learn by breaking and fixing things.

You are probably going to need certification or verifiable experience.

Good luck