sysadmin Memes

Sabrina Carpenter

Sabrina Carpenter
You know those ominous comments in config files that say "DO NOT MODIFY BELOW THIS LINE" or "TOUCH THIS AND YOU'RE FIRED"? Yeah, Linux treats those the same way Sabrina Carpenter treats paparazzi—complete and utter disregard. You can scream warnings all you want, but when push comes to shove, that config file is getting modified at 2 AM because something broke and StackOverflow said to change it. The Tux penguin just sits there with that smug expression, knowing full well it's about to watch you destroy your entire system configuration while ignoring every single warning comment left by the previous sysadmin who quit three years ago. Pro tip: those warnings exist because someone before you learned the hard way. But you'll ignore them too, because we all do.

Hypervisors Are Pretty Disloyal

Hypervisors Are Pretty Disloyal
Your hypervisor is out here playing the field like it's running a whole datacenter behind your back. You think you're special with your little VM setup, but nah—that hypervisor is simultaneously sweet-talking Windows Server 2019, Windows 11, and Kali Linux all at the same time. Talk about commitment issues. That's literally the job description though: running multiple operating systems concurrently while making each one think it's got exclusive access to the hardware. The ultimate player in the virtualization game, and we're all just VMs in its harem.

Systemctl

Systemctl
You know that feeling when someone pronounces it "system-control" all formal and professional in a meeting? Instant cringe. But the moment someone says "system-cuddle" you immediately know they've spent 3am debugging why nginx won't restart and have developed the appropriate coping mechanisms. The duality of Linux sysadmins: pretending to be serious professionals while internally baby-talking to our services. "Who's a good daemon? You are! Yes you are! Now please just start without throwing a cryptic error." Real talk though - after the thousandth time typing systemctl restart , you've earned the right to call it whatever keeps you sane.

Gentlemen A Short View Back To The Past

Gentlemen A Short View Back To The Past
Cloudflare outages have become the developer's equivalent of "my dog ate my homework" - except it's actually true half the time. The beauty here is that while your manager is frantically screaming at you to fix the site, you're just sitting there sipping coffee because literally nothing is under your control. The entire internet could be on fire, but as long as Cloudflare's status page shows red, you're untouchable. It's the perfect alibi: externally verifiable, affects millions of sites simultaneously, and best of all - there's absolutely nothing you can do about it except wait. Some devs have been known to secretly celebrate these outages as unexpected coffee breaks. The other guy clearly hasn't learned this sacred defense mechanism yet.

Internal Server Error

Internal Server Error
Someone built a Cloudflare error page generator so you can fake outages and buy yourself precious debugging time. Because nothing says "professional incident response" like gaslighting your users into thinking it's Cloudflare's fault when your spaghetti code just threw up. The tool literally lets you customize everything—error codes, locations, status messages—so you can craft the perfect alibi while you frantically grep through logs trying to figure out why your production database just decided to take a nap. It's the digital equivalent of pointing at someone else and running away. Peak DevOps strategy: deflect, delay, and deploy the blame elsewhere. Your manager will never know the difference between a real Cloudflare outage and your nil pointer exception. Probably.

Gotta Fixem All

Gotta Fixem All
Welcome to your new kingdom, fresh DevOps hire. That beautiful sunset? That's the entire infrastructure you just inherited. Every server, every pipeline, every cursed bash script held together with duct tape and prayers—it's all yours now. The previous DevOps engineer? They're gone. Probably on a beach somewhere with their phone turned off. And you're standing here like Simba looking over Pride Rock, except instead of a thriving ecosystem, it's technical debt as far as the eye can see. That deployment that breaks every Tuesday at 3 AM? Your problem. The monitoring system that alerts for literally everything? Your problem. The Kubernetes cluster running version 1.14 because "if it ain't broke"? Oh, you better believe that's your problem. Best part? Everyone expects you to fix it all while keeping everything running. No pressure though.

What's A TXT Record

What's A TXT Record
Someone just asked what a TXT record is and now the entire DNS infrastructure is having an existential crisis. The rant starts off strong: naming servers? Pointless. DNS queries? Never needed. The hosts.txt file was RIGHT THERE doing its job perfectly fine before we overengineered everything. Then comes the kicker—sysadmins apparently want to know "your server's location" and "arbitrary text" which sounds like something a "deranged" person would dream up. But wait... that's literally what TXT records do. They store arbitrary text strings in DNS for things like SPF, DKIM, domain verification, and other critical internet infrastructure. The irony is thicker than a poorly configured DNS zone file. The punchline? After this whole tirade about DNS being useless, they show what "REAL DNS" looks like—three increasingly complex diagrams that nobody understands, followed by a simple DNS query example. The response: "They have played us for absolute fools." Translation: DNS is actually incredibly complex and essential, and maybe we shouldn't have been complaining about TXT records in the first place. It's the classic developer move of calling something stupid right before realizing you don't actually understand how it works.

Lil Guy Got A Switch For Christmas

Lil Guy Got A Switch For Christmas
The kid asked Santa for a Nintendo Switch and instead got a network switch. That's what happens when your parents work in IT and have a twisted sense of humor. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" quite like 24 ports of Ethernet connectivity and VLAN support. Sure, he can't play Zelda on it, but he can now segment his home network like a proper sysadmin. The look on his face perfectly captures the soul-crushing disappointment of receiving enterprise networking equipment when you just wanted to catch Pokémon. Plot twist: in 10 years he'll be making six figures configuring these things while his friends are still gaming in their parents' basements.

Corporate Security Be Like

Corporate Security Be Like
Nothing screams "enterprise-grade security protocols" quite like a Post-it note slapped on a thermostat declaring "ADMIN ACCESS ONLY." Because clearly, the biggest threat to your organization isn't SQL injection or zero-day exploits—it's Karen from accounting cranking the heat to 78 degrees. The sheer irony of protecting a physical device with the cybersecurity equivalent of a "Please Don't Touch" sign is *chef's kiss*. We've got firewalls, VPNs, multi-factor authentication, and password managers with 256-bit encryption... but when it comes to the office thermostat? Just write something intimidating on a sticky note and call it a day. Security through obscurity has officially evolved into security through passive-aggressive office supplies. The IT department would be proud—if they weren't too busy dealing with actual security incidents while someone's still adjusting the temperature anyway.

Gentlemen A Short View Back To The Past

Gentlemen A Short View Back To The Past
Cloudflare going down has become the developer's equivalent of "my dog ate my homework" - except it's actually true about 40% of the time. The other 60% you're just on Reddit. The beautiful thing about Cloudflare outages is they're the perfect scapegoat. Your code could be burning down faster than a JavaScript framework's relevance, but if Cloudflare has even a hiccup, you've got yourself a get-out-of-jail-free card. Boss walks by? "Can't deploy, Cloudflare's down." Standup meeting? "Blocked by Cloudflare." Missed deadline? You guessed it. The manager's response of "Oh. Carry on." is peak resignation. They've heard this excuse seventeen times this quarter and honestly, they're too tired to verify. When a single CDN provider has enough market share to be a legitimate excuse for global productivity loss, we've really built ourselves into a corner haven't we?

Sir, Another Update Has Hit The Server Room

Sir, Another Update Has Hit The Server Room
Cloudflare updates have achieved 9/11 status in the IT world. Every time they push an update, half the internet goes down and you're just standing there watching your monitoring dashboard light up like a Christmas tree. The priest performing last rites on the server infrastructure is honestly the most accurate representation of a sysadmin's emotional state during a CDN outage. At least when your own servers crash, you can blame yourself. When Cloudflare goes down, you get to explain to your boss why the entire internet is broken and no, you can't just "restart the cloud."

They Hide Amongst Us

They Hide Amongst Us
Cute cat doing cute cat things until you realize it edited your bootloader. The escalation from "sneaked in your house" to "modified critical system files" is the kind of chaos energy only a sysadmin would appreciate. Sure, sit on my couch, eat my pasta, but touch /usr/bin/vim and we're gonna have problems. That smug little face in the last panel knows exactly what it did. No remorse. Just vibes and filesystem destruction.