admin

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing

<job> Activities performed by a system administrator (or "admin", "sysadmin", "site admin") such as monitoring security configuration, managing allocation of user names and passwords, monitoring disk space and other resource use, performing backups, and setting up new hardware and software.

system administrators often also help users, though in a large organisation this may be a separate job.

Compare postmaster, sysop, system management, systems programmer. [Other tasks?]

(1999-05-02)

The Jargon File

Short for ‘administrator’; very commonly used in speech or on-line to refer to the systems person in charge on a computer. Common constructions on this include sysadmin and site admin (emphasizing the administrator's role as a site contact for email and news) or newsadmin (focusing specifically on news). Compare postmaster, sysop, system mangler.