Network admins’ top 10 checklist for holiday prep
From syncing NTP to having readily accessible DNS maps, here are 10 things you can do to keep your networks reliable during the holiday lull.
Key takeawaysThis key takeaway was generated through LLMs crawling the page and coming up with an overview of the content.This article provides a concise holiday preparedness checklist for network administrators to keep DNS, DDI, and general network services reliable during low-staff periods. It outlines operational best practices—NTP synchronization, DNS zone transfer verification, credential availability, centralized logging (syslog/SIEM), SNMP monitoring, and accessible DNS mapping backups—plus DNSSEC-specific checks and BlueCat customer items like BAM license and X.509 certificate validity. The guidance emphasizes planning around holiday maintenance windows, ensuring required skills are available, and having backup plans to minimize operational impact and avoid emergency callbacks during the holidays.
Why is NTP synchronization important over the holidays and what problems can it prevent?
Keeping systems synchronized with NTP is critical because time drift can cause a range of failures that are especially disruptive when staffing is low. The article highlights that unsynced clocks can lead to SSL/TLS certificate rejections and break communication between systems due to time differentials, which can prevent services from authenticating or exchanging data. Ensuring NTP resilience before the holiday lull reduces the risk of these time-related failures, helping avoid after-hours emergency interventions and ensuring routine automated tasks continue to function correctly.
What DNS and DNSSEC checks should administrators perform before leaving for the holidays?
Administrators should verify that DNS zone transfers (AXFRs) are operating correctly after any server changes and allow time to confirm proper behavior before leaving. For DNSSEC deployments, the checklist calls for ensuring key signing keys will not expire during the holiday period and that SOA serial numbers are synchronized across delegated zones where consistency is required. Additionally, maintaining documented and readily accessible DNS mapping backups is recommended to simplify recovery from hardware or configuration failures while staff coverage may be limited.
What BlueCat-specific items does the checklist recommend validating prior to holiday downtime?
For BlueCat customers, the article advises confirming that BlueCat Address Manager (BAM) licenses are valid and will not expire over the holiday period, since expired licenses could disrupt management functionality. It also recommends validating BAM X.509 SSL certificates to ensure secure connections remain trusted and unaffected by certificate expiration. These checks are listed alongside general operational items to help BlueCat users avoid avoidable service interruptions while administrative staff are away.
However your celebrations might look this year, there are several things that you can do to ensure that your networks stay reliable during the holiday lull. Even if you’re just staying home, the last thing you want is for the network to go down and to unexpectedly get called back into work mode.
A small group of IT professionals who are part of our open DDI and DNS expert conversations recently discussed these tips. All are welcome to join the community conversation in Network VIP on Slack.
BlueCat’s network admin checklist for holiday preparedness
Below is BlueCat’s top 10 checklist for network admin holiday preparations to ensure everyone gets to enjoy their end-of-the-year festivities. System administrators deserve a break, too.
While most of these tips apply to all network configurations, some are specific to DNSSEC implementations and BlueCat customers. Something for everyone this holiday season!
- NTP synced. Make sure your systems are synced up on NTP. Keeping your NTP resilient avoids issues with certificates being rejected and preventing communication between systems because of time differentials.
- DNS zone transfers all working. Make sure your DNS zone transfers (or AXFRs) are all working after you make any server changes. With changes that affect AXFRs, it’s wise to give yourself enough time to ensure that everything is operating properly before the holiday exodus.
- Root/admin credentials accessible in the password vault. Make sure that the admins who are monitoring things over the holidays have access to your credentials as needed.
- Syslog target configured. Make sure that your security information and event management (SIEM) solution is well-fed, in case you need to see what happened if something does go wrong.
- SNMP collectors active and plotting. Make sure that your Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) collectors are running so you can stay on top of network monitoring.
- Backup of DNS mappings readily accessible. Make sure that you have documented your DNS mappings and have backups. Hardware failures are bad enough without difficulty restoring your configuration.
If you implement DNSSEC on your network:
- DNSSEC key signing keys not expiring. If you are using DNSSEC, make sure that your key signing keys won’t expire over the holidays.
- SOA serials synced for DNSSEC. If you are using DNSSEC and have delegations that require consistency, make sure that your serial numbers on all your start of authority (SOA) records for your DNS zones are synchronized.
If you are a BlueCat customer:
- Valid BAM license. For BlueCat customers, make sure your BlueCat Address Manager (BAM) licenses are valid and aren’t going to expire over the holidays.
- Valid BAM X.509 certificates. For BlueCat customers, make sure that your SSL certificates are valid, too.
Pay attention to planned maintenance
It’s also important to be aware of and understand any maintenance occurring over the holidays, especially if it might require intervention. Certainly, network teams like to take advantage of the quiet time during the holidays to get changes done. That’s all well and good, but make sure that you plan ahead to have all the people and skillsets available that you might need. And make sure you have a good backup plan, too.
Surely there are 50 more to add to this list. So, in the spirit giving, here’s one more:
Don’t forget to leave out the cookies for DNS Claus!
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Rebekah Taylor is a former journalist turned freelance writer and editor who has been translating technical speak into prose for more than two decades. Her first job in the early 2000s was at a small start-up called VMware. She holds degrees from Cornell University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
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