Sun Solaris

Systems Administration Part I

Prerequisites

Knowledge of Solaris up to a level taught in our Introduction to Solaris (SI) course is important, and some previous administration experience is helpful. Please call if you require any advice.

Follow-up

Solaris 9 System Administration Part 2 (S2A2), which covers essential network administration, followed by Solaris  Advanced System Administration (S2ASA)

(The above courses combined are the equivalent of the Sun SA-299 Advanced Administration course.)

Our Solaris Utilities and Shell Programming (SA) is another popular course for administrators wishing to gain knowledge of shell programming and Solaris utilities, with special emphasis on the needs of the administrator This course is part of a program which can lead you to Solaris Certification.

System Administration Overview

• Sun Hardware types.
• Solaris Operating Environment configurations.
• Review of administration functions.
• File System Structure.
• File system structure and slicing.
• The Solaris directory hierarchy; identification of files and file types; using symbolic and hard links.
• Disk Storage Management for local disk drives.
• Disk concepts and structure; slices (partitions) and Solaris device naming conventions.
• Physical disk connection. listing and reconfiguring the systems devices.
• Slicing and labelling disks with the format utility and the Solaris Management Console (smc).
• Creating a Solaris file system with newfs.
• Deciding how to mount the new files system; updating /etc/vfstab for permanent mounts.
• Using fsck to perform file system integrity checks.
• Monitoring disk usage and directory sizes.

File System Maintenance and Security

• The mount command
• Mount options
• The cachefs and LOFS file systems
• Handling CD and floppy disks
• Making room on the file system
•  
• File system security
• SMC file system functions
• Utilities for file system monitoring

System Build (Installing Solaris)

• Planning disk layout
• Booting from the CD or network to build
• Building Solaris from scratch; selecting software options, disk slicing, etc
• (Includes Webstart) Post-installation procedures
• Overview of automatic installation
• Upgrading from a previous Solaris release

Patch Administration

• Obtaining and installing the latest patches, including clusters and individual patches
• Examining the current patch level of a machine
• Removing patches

Software Configuration and Package Administration

• How to set up and customise a variety of tools, including shells, Common Desktop Environment, manual pages and AnswerBook
• Examining, Installing and removing software packages using command line utilities, including Solaris distribution options
• Using the Webstart installer mechanism to install software
• Using the Solaris Product Registry
• (prodreg)

Boot PROM

• Monitor prompt commands (boot, probe-scsi, test-net, devalias etc)
• Identifying system settings such as the default boot device
• Using the eeprom command to view and change settings
• Troubleshooting boot failure

Start-up and Shutdown

• Kernel load, init, inittab and the rc scripts
• Adding your own scripts at system boot
• Understanding and changing run levels
• Shutting down, suspending and powering off the system
• Power management

Adding and Maintaining Users

• Concepts
• Ownership of files, directories and processes
• Classes of user
• Adding a user manually, via command line tools and graphically
• User initialisation file management
• Password control
• Real and effective id
• Using SMC for user management
• Introduction to Role Based Access Control (RBAC) facilities

Solaris Groups

• Overview
• The group file
• Group identification of files and directories
• The newgrp, groups and chgrp commands
• Complete example of creating and using a group
• Using SMC with groups.

System Security

• Monitoring access to the system
• Using the su (Switch User) command, and monitoring its use
• Restricting file and directory access using protection mechanisms, including access modes, s and t bits, umask, chown and chmod
• Access Control Lists (ACLs)

Adding a Printer

• Overview. Printer types and connection methods, including network printers
• Software modifications
• Spooling system commands
• Administrator control commands
• Remote printer facilities
• Printer classes
• Using the Solaris GUIs for printer management
• Specifying both system and user default printer destinations

System Processes

• Examining and controlling processes using ps, kill, and the Process Manager
• Automating commands with crontab and at, for one-off and regular command execution

Back-Up and Restore Utilities, including snapshots

• Overview and Preparation
• Tape types and capacities
• Sample ufsdump commands
• Backup strategies
• Taking a complete backup with ufsdump Summary of ufsdump command options
• Using fssnap to snapshot the file system and take a clean backup
• Restoring individual files and directories
• Restoring an entire system
• The tar, cpio and mt utilities
• Backups versus archives