CHAPTER 1
Introducing Solaris System Administration

Defining the System Administrator's Job

Understanding Superuser Status

Communicating with Users

Starting Up and Shutting Down Systems

Monitoring Processes

Reviewing Essential Administration Tools

Winchester Mystery House [in San Jose, California] . . . was designed to baffle the evil spirits that haunted Sarah Winchester, eccentric heiress to the Winchester Arms fortune and mistress of the house. With 160 rooms and 2,000 doors, 13 bathrooms, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces, blind closets, secret passageways and 40 staircases, the house is so complex that even the owner and servants needed maps to find their way.

--AAA, California / Nevada TourBook, 1991

Sarah Winchester, listening to the advice of psychics, believed that if she kept adding rooms to the house, she would not die and be subject to the influences of spirits who had been killed with the Winchester rifles manufactured by her husband.

The UNIX operating system is much like the Winchester Mystery House without, we hope, the evil spirits. The original operating system has been continually enhanced and expanded. There are many ways to get about, and, like the owner and the servants in the Winchester house, system administrators frequently need a map to help them get from place to place.

To add to the complexity, there are many versions of the UNIX operating system based on either Berkeley (or BSD) UNIX or AT&T's System V. This book serves as a map to some of the most frequently used "rooms" of the SunOS 5.x system software, which is an enhanced implementation of UNIX System V, Release 4 (usually referred to as SVR4). The book also provides comparative information to help you learn the differences between the SunOS 4. x versions (the BSD UNIX operating system) and the SunOS 5.x version (the SVR4 operating system).

Defining the System Administrator's Job

The system administrator's job is to keep the software (and perhaps hardware) functioning for a stand-alone system or for a set of systems on a network so that others can use them.

Typical duties of system administrators vary, depending on the number of systems supported and how the duties are divided up. It is not uncommon for system administrators to be experts in administering one or more areas and be inexperienced in others. Some administrators specialize in network administration; others in user accounts; and still others in areas such as printing.

Here's a list of typical system administration duties that are described in part or in full in this book:

•  Administering devices

•  Using tape cartridges

•  Formatting diskettes

•  Monitoring disk use

•  Understanding the Service Access Facility

•  Setting up a bidirectional modem

•  Administering file systems

•  Mounting and unmounting file systems

•  Backing up and restoring files and file systems

•  Administering network services

•  Finding network information

•  Transferring files between systems

•  Administering NIS+ databases

•  Administering printing

•  Setting up a print client and print server

•  Using printing commands

•  Administering users and groups

•  Adding users

•  Removing users

•  Changing user information

•  Creating new group accounts

•  Understanding shells

•  Using Generic shell commands

•  Using Bourne shell commands

•  Using C shell commands

•  Using Korn shell commands

•  Administering systems

•  Finding system information

•  Creating local mail aliases

•  Configuring additional swap space

•  Administering the system date and time

•  Recognizing file access problems

•  Problems with search paths

•  Problems with permission and ownership

•  Problems with network access

The organization of this book matches the tasks listed above. To accomplish these tasks, you need to know when and how to:

•  Gain full access to all file systems and resources

•  Communicate with users

•  Shut down and start up systems

•  Monitor processes

However, information about the following system administration tasks is beyond the scope of this book: installing system software, installing third-party software, setting up and administering network services, setting up and administering mail services, adding and removing hardware, administering security and accounting, and monitoring system and network performance.

The rest of the sections in this chapter, which describe how to accomplish the system administrator's tasks, introduce some basic commands and administrative tools.