In the time-sensitive and critical field of system administration, having the right tools at your disposal can make all the difference. System Administrator Tools are the unsung heroes of IT operations, from automating tedious tasks to ensuring seamless Infrastructure Management.
System Administrator Tools are developed to help Sys-Admins detect the issue at the very beginning and ensure that all the networks and computer systems are working properly and efficiently. The responsibilities of these tools are to enhance security, monitor the system’s performance, troubleshoot issues and automate tasks that provide help and support to the System Administrators.
System administrator tools can be classified into different categories based on their specific functions and purposes. Here are some common types of system administrator tools:
Configuration Management Tools automate the detection and documentation process in the hardware, software and other devices that are used to provide IT support. These tools make sure that all the new machines and software that are installed in the environment are correctly configured and installed as per the needs of the company. Configuration management tools essentially ensure all computing systems, servers, software and configuration are maintained in a desired state.
Most of the Configuration Management Tools support Linux, Windows and mixed-platform environments. These System Administrator tools make sure that they shorten IT problems and provide stability to the network. Enterprises use the CM tools to detect the change in the network after the installation of new hardware or software in the network.
Network Management Tools help you identify the issues in real-time and allow you to configure the critical network infrastructure to prevent damage to the computer network. They enable you to set the configuration of the network and devices remotely. Furthermore, they provide you access to devices remotely so that you can manage the power of the devices and troubleshoot the problem in real-time which helps you save time of finding the error in the network.
Network Management Tools are used to watch networks proactively and solve problems when they arise in real time without physically going to the site.
Backup and Recovery Tools are the tools that help you make a backup of your data easily and effectively. Most backup tools support automated backups on a schedule as well as supporting features like deduplication, retention policies, compression, Data Encryption and rotation. These tools are used by every enterprise because if their data got erased by any issue or malware they can at least recover the data and start their work from where they backed up the data last time. They help you against data loss and provide mechanisms for disaster recovery.
With the help of these tools, you can back up your data in any tape, disk or optical device and can recover the data whenever you need it.
Security tools play a vital role in keeping systems and data safe, and it’s important to understand how they work. Think of these tools as your system’s bodyguards—they’re designed to spot vulnerabilities, protect networks, and block any unauthorised access. They allow you to perform penetration testing, monitor security events, and respond quickly to potential threats.
With cyberattacks becoming more sophisticated daily, these tools aren’t just helpful—they’re essential. They help ensure your systems stay resilient and ready to handle the ever-evolving landscape of online threats.
Having the right security tools in place is like giving your infrastructure the armour it needs to stand strong.
Containerization tools make deploying and managing applications much simpler and more efficient. These tools package applications along with all their dependencies—such as libraries and configuration files—so they can run consistently across different environments.
Many Developers face the problem where after testing an application on their local environment it fails when they deploy it in production. Containerization tools facilitate the creation of a uniform environment from where they can run and debug their application in a similar environment to what it will have in production.
The application is packaged with its dependent runtimes, configuration files and orchestration mechanism which will be the same whether the application is running on Dev, staging or Production.
Unlike full virtualisation, which involves running an entire operating system, containerization focuses solely on isolating the application and its dependencies. This approach provides scalability, portability, and flexibility, making it especially valuable for managing cloud-native applications and microservices.
By using containerization, you can build application environments that are efficient, scalable, and consistent, ensuring smooth performance regardless of where the applications are deployed.
These tools are essential to maintaining the health, performance and availability of IT Infrastructure. They provide insights into system resources, applications and network performance enabling the system administrator to detect, diagnose and resolve issues proactively.
Key Features of Monitoring Tools:
As we step into 2025, some standout tools are revolutionising the world of system administration. These tools are all about boosting efficiency, simplifying workflows, and strengthening security.
Let’s explore these new tools for 2025 that every system administrator should consider:
When it comes to system administration, time is of the essence, and maximising efficiency is paramount. Attune emerges as a top-tier tool that empowers system administrators to streamline their processes and unlock a new level of productivity. By automating and orchestrating various tasks, Attune offers a comprehensive platform for deploying, scaling, migrating, and managing systems seamlessly.
What makes Attune a great tool is that it allows system admins from any platform to use the existing skills they already possess (Bash/PowerShell Scripting for instance) and apply a structured methodology to automate and track the execution of such scripts across multiple servers directly from their workstations. This ensures that they don’t have to manage separate automation servers as part of their infrastructure.
With Attune, system administrators can bid farewell to repetitive and time-consuming tasks that hinder their productivity. The software solution enables them to automate routine processes, freeing up valuable time and resources. Whether it’s provisioning new servers, configuring network settings, or managing software deployments, Attune takes care of these tasks effortlessly, allowing system administrators to focus on more critical aspects of their job.
Supported Operating Systems: Windows and macOS
If you’re a system administrator juggling multiple remote systems, MobaXterm is a tool you’ll want in your arsenal. It’s an all-in-one remote management solution that simplifies your workflow by combining essential protocols like SSH, RDP, FTP, and SFTP into a single, easy-to-use interface.
Here’s what makes MobaXterm stand out:
With its versatility and powerful features, MobaXterm has become an indispensable resource for administrators working in remote environments.
Supported Operating Systems: Windows
Docker makes it easier to deploy and manage applications by packaging them into containers. Here’s why it’s so useful:
In short, Docker simplifies deployment and helps your apps run smoothly, making it a must-have tool for modern system administration.
Supported Operating Systems: Linux, macOS and Windows
As cyber threats continue to evolve, it’s more important than ever to outsmart attackers. Metasploit helps system administrators do just that. As a powerful penetration testing tool, it identifies vulnerabilities and strengthens defences before they can be exploited.
Check out why it’s so important:
Metasploit is an essential tool for administrators serious about protecting their systems from evolving cyber threats.
Supported Operating Systems: Linux, macOS and Windows
Renowned for its exceptional speed and impressive data compression capabilities, 7-Zip stands as an open-source file archiver. It offers support for an extensive range of formats including zip, rar, Gzip, bzip2, tar, xz, and WIM, alongside its own proprietary 7z format capable of generating self-extracting archive files. Whether utilised through a user-friendly graphical interface or directly from the command line, 7-Zip’s adaptability and swift handling of compressed files establish it as an invaluable asset in the arsenal of any administrator.
Supported Operating Systems: Windows, Linux and macOS
Designed to cater to both administrators and clients who prefer graphical user interfaces (GUI) over command line interfaces, FileZilla stands as a lightweight, cross-platform FTP client. It empowers users to effortlessly connect to SSH-secured hosts, providing a user-friendly approach to file transfers. Additionally, the Pro version of FileZilla extends its capabilities by incorporating support for various cloud storage platforms such as Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Cloud Storage, and Microsoft OneDrive. Whether you require basic FTP functionality or seek to integrate cloud storage services, FileZilla proves to be an excellent choice.
Supported Operating Systems: Windows, Linux and macOS
While handling numerous accounts and software tools daily, it becomes essential to rely on a reliable password manager to manage it all effectively. This is precisely where KeePass comes into play. KeePass, a free and open-source password manager, not only generates robust, random passwords but also securely stores them. By using KeePass, you can effortlessly maintain secure passwords for all your accounts without the need to jot them down anywhere. This invaluable tool allows you to focus on your work with peace of mind, knowing that your passwords are safeguarded against potential security breaches.
Supported Operating Systems: Windows, Linux and macOS
Whether you are managing a small network of servers or a complex ecosystem of applications, real-time monitoring and proactive alerting are essential to maintaining uptime and delivering a seamless user experience. This is where Zabbix, an Open-source monitoring platform, comes into play.
Zabbix is a free and open-source tool that allows you to monitor networks, cloud-hosted services, custom applications and more using a cross-platform agent for common Operating systems as well as commonly used protocols (SNMP, REST among others) to monitor applications. Offered as a free on-premise solution as well as a cloud-hosted subscription-based tool it can cater to a wide variety of system administrators.
It offers powerful features like customizable dashboards, and automated alerts and supports a wide range of data collection methods. With its scalability, customizability and extensive community support, Zabbix is trusted by organizations of all sizes, from home labs to startups to enterprises.
Supported Operating Systems: Linux for Zabbix Server, Linux, Windows, macOS for Agents
Check_mk is another open-source monitoring environment platform that offers an efficient way to track the health and performance of your IT environment. Supporting a wide range of technologies and platforms and providing an intuitive interface for managing and analyzing performance metrics.
It uses unique agent-based and agentless monitoring capabilities, making it suitable for diverse use cases, from small setups to enterprise-scale infrastructure.
Its features include automated configuration, extensibility via plugins and robust alerting mechanisms helping you to focus on what matters enabling you to proactively react to issues.
It comes in four editions, with varying levels of support namely:
Supported Operating Systems: Linux for Check_mk Server, Linux, Windows, FreeBSD for Agents
The PowerShell ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) allows you to run numerous commands in real-time which has been built on the .NET Framework. It is one of the most interactive environments built on the .NET Framework. It is specially designed for power users and system administrators who are required to automate the processes of related apps that run on operating systems and administration of operating systems (Windows only). Besides, you can also run cmd.exe commands in the PowerShell environment.
Supported Operating Systems: Windows
While it may come as a surprise, Slack has emerged as one of the most widely used System Administrator Tools available. The popularity of Slack stems from its ability to facilitate fast and efficient collaboration within IT teams. It serves as a reliable platform for seamless communication regarding network performance and ensures that any issues are promptly addressed. Slack’s noteworthy feature, channels, allows teams to establish dedicated spaces for discussions on specific topics. Furthermore, its integrations with various tools such as Google Drive, DataDog, Asana, and numerous other IT and developer tools enable effortless resource sharing and ensure everyone remains informed and engaged. By harnessing the power of Slack, IT teams can streamline their operations and enhance overall productivity.
Supported Operating Systems: Windows, Linux and macOS
Wireshark is one of the best and most reputed network traffic monitoring tools. It has a clear and logical graphical interface based on GTK+ and a powerful filter system that provides a better interface and works with most protocols. Besides, it is capable of working under platforms like Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, and many more. Wireshark reveals the most smallest and minute details of network traffic and protocols. If the person has the required knowledge, you can effectively diagnose a variety of problems that arise while using the network.
Supported Operating Systems: Windows, Linux and macOS
Clonezilla is one of the free and open-source system administrator tools designed to clone disks and individual hard disk partitions and it also provides a system backup and disaster recovery facility. There are 2 types of Clonezilla available in the market right now:
Clonezilla is one of the fastest backup and cloning applications. You just have to hit ENTER a few times after the LiveCD boot-up and it will start backing up partitions or an entire HDD to another HDD, which can be used as an external USB drive. Clonezilla supports various types of file systems such as FAT, NTFS, JFS, VMFS, and many more. For one-time reservation operations, Clonezilla is an excellent tool. Although, it does not distinguish software RAID; as it breaks it into separate devices.
For example, when dozens of PCs of the same type have no OS. Clonezilla SE can install the OS and different types of software on the first PC take screenshots and then share the screenshots across all the PCs on the same network. Additionally, Clonezilla SE can back up PCs over the network at night or any time you want.
Supported Operating Systems: Windows, Linux and macOS
Netwrix Account Lockout Examiner is a free tool that allows system administrators and help desk staff to identify lockout root causes in a single Enter. By just entering the username and password you will be able to see what bug is getting the same account locked over and over again without having to dig into cryptic events logs.
The freeware advantages are:
a) Helps find out the main reason for lockouts:
Netwrix Account Lockout Examiner easily points out the root cause of the lockouts with a single click, whether it is a service or scheduled task running under stale credentials, an improperly mapped network drive, or an outdated password saved on a mobile device.
b) Reduce time of troubleshooting:
It saves time by minimising the troubleshooting time by 90% by pointing out the main causes of lockouts. It uncovers the most complex reasons in minutes which helps you to identify what needs to be fixed.
c) Turns down the pressure on your help desk:
By making sure that your service desk pros have all the lockout details they require at their fingertips. Enabling them to resolve user account issues and minimise business downtime whenever the service account or domain controller gets locked out efficiently and effectively.
Supported Operating Systems: Windows
PuTTy is one of the greatest terminal emulators that is fast and extremely lightweight. It supports the SSH, SCP, and login protocols on various operating systems, including both Windows and Linux and many more on the secure remote terminal. PuTTy allows user control over the SSH encryption key and protocol version, as well as alternate ciphers such as 3DES, Arcufour, and many more public-key authentication.
PuTTy comes included with the command-line SCP and SFTP clients pscp and psftp, as well as plink, a command-line connection tool that is used for non-interactive sessions. In conclusion, PuTTy is one of the best tools for configuring router switches and serves remotely.
Supported Operating Systems: Windows and Linux
Ensuring that the connection to remote systems is secured is of paramount importance to system administrators. A Virtual Private Network extends your private network over an unsecured public network. To ensure that your connection is secure VPNs usually employ secure encryption mechanisms.
One popular VPN implementation is OpenVPN. OpenVPN is an Open source solution that provides secure, encrypted tunnels for data transmission over the internet. It is mostly used for creating point-to-point and site-to-site connections to safeguard sensitive networks and is mostly used by system admins to securely connect to remote sites and data centres that they support over a public network.
Features of OpenVPN include but are not limited to:
Supported Operating Systems: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android
Amanda (Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver) is an open-source backup solution that can be deployed as a backup server in an enterprise deployment. With Amanda, a Single server can be used to backup multiple hosts over a network to multiple storage devices (Tape Drives, Disk Storage or the cloud). What makes it stand out is the ability to use common Linux utils (gnutar and dump) and supports multiple storage backends.
Other features include:
Supported Operating Systems: Linux for Server, Clients exist for both Windows and Linux
A Windows backup utility that can be used to perform full system backups, Volume backups, system state and specific files and folders. Windows backup is included with both Server and consumer editions of Windows out of the box and includes the features below:
Supported Operating Systems: Windows
System Administrator tools help in issue detection and ensure efficient network and system operation. System Administrator tools enhance security, monitor performance, troubleshoot problems, and automate tasks.
Administrative tools function as versatile multitools for administering computer systems. They assist in configuring system settings and managing hardware, acting as a control panel for changing how your computer functions and connects with other devices. Also, these tools make user administration easier, allowing you to establish, change, or delete user accounts while assuring security and restricting access.
Administrative tools also play an important part in system monitoring, serving as a dashboard that displays system performance, resource utilisation, and possible faults. They function as virtual assistants, notifying you when something requires attention and assuring peak performance. These tools also make software installation and updates easier by functioning as digital assistants that allow you to add, update, or uninstall programs quickly. Administrative tools are essential software that protects your systems, ensures smooth performance, and eases numerous administration activities.
The system administrators’ open-source tools, which automate, monitor, provide remote system access, ensure security, and analyse network traffic, are listed below. These tools help to make system administration chores easier to handle.
Here are the tools that make up a Linux administrator’s toolset and allow for effective system management, troubleshooting, and automation in many parts of server administration. Linux is a dominant Operating system in the server space and powers the majority of servers globally from web servers to database servers and cloud platforms. It is also the backbone of many critical technologies like Virtualization, Web hosting, Containerization and Mobile development. It has also proven to be highly stable and easily customizable.
The following points make it a vital system admin’s toolkit:
Core Linux commands like ‘ls’ (list), ‘cd’ (change directory), ‘cp’ (copy), ‘and’ (move) are essential for exploring and managing files and directories, and they constitute the foundation of command-line operations.
SSH provides secure remote access to Linux systems by creating encrypted communication. It allows administrators to safely perform instructions and transfer data, making it a valuable tool for remote system management.
Vi and Vim are sophisticated text editors that are frequently used for file editing and configuration operations. These editors are well-known for their efficiency, and they offer comprehensive functionality for altering and editing text in a terminal. Even though there are a plethora of easy-to-use Linux text editors (for example nano, joe, pico or gedit), vi will always be available on all Unix/Linux systems including the most minimal Linux distributions and recovery environments where it might be the only text editor.
These are tools used to automate the installation, configuration and removal of packages on Linux Environments. They automate the local package database and can be used to update/upgrade the packages installed in the system. The RedHat family of Operating systems (RedHat Enterprise Linux, Oracle Linux and AlmaLinux) use the RedHat package manager (rpm) format while Debian Based Operating systems (Ubuntu, Debian and Kali Linux) use the Debian package format(deb). In addition to the base package managers and format both families use more advanced package managers that can resolve dependencies and provide frontends to the package formats. Examples of such package managers include yum (Yellowdog update manager) for the Redhat Family and apt (advanced package tool) for the Debian Family.
Systemd is a comprehensive system and service manager for Linux. It is responsible for system initialisation and management, coordinating background activities and services to guarantee seamless operation and effective resource utilisation.
This tool is a time-based job scheduler that automates repetitive operations on Linux systems. Administrators can schedule scripts and commands to run at certain intervals, allowing for automatic maintenance chores, backups, and upgrades.
Top and Htop are system monitoring programs that give real-time information on resource usage. They show a live picture of processes, CPU, RAM, and other system data, allowing administrators to discover performance bottlenecks and fix problems.
Mark Doyle
This is a solid list been using filezilla and keepass for years and they’ve never let me down
Richard
I am new to system administration, and this list is incredibly helpful!!
Bara roy
Attune seems like a fantastic automation tool…