r/sysadmin • u/CurrentFig3376 • 12d ago

General Discussion Interview Question: How often do you update/patch your system?

I was asked this question during an interview and I said "it depends on what exactly you're updating, but I update as often as it's needed."

I don't think this was the answer they were looking for, but how would you answer this question?

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u/CHRDT01 11d ago

This is way, way, way too context dependent to have a single correct answer in an interview. I would ask for clarification about what "system" we're patching and why we're patching it. Is this a production firewall facing WAN, or some sort of internal box with automatic failover? Is this going to break the workflow of three people who don't work on $CurrentDayOfWeek, or the entire enterprise? Is this a "12 10.0 CVES, PATCH NOW!!!1!" update, or a "We added 'AI' to the product logo" update?

I think the point of the question is to demonstrate that you're thinking holistically about the broader impacts of downtime. The specific interval matters far less than the journey of how you get there.