Goals
In this session you will:
- get an overview of administering a standalone system
- add and configure users
- boot sequence
- boot PROM
Introductory notes
- Solaris 8 = Solaris 2.8 = SunOS 5.8
- Solaris from the BSD side of the code fork, with a dose of System V R4 introduced with Solaris 2 (binary incompatibility)
- Important changes
- registry-type accounting of software installed via package management tools.
- unified control of special devices through
devfsadm
- CDE 1.4
- Solaris Management Console 2.0
- perl 5.x part of standard distribution
- USB on intel (not on Sparc boxes)
- distribution of GPL software
- ability to unmount "busy" filesystems
- UDF FS (found in some packet writing schemes)
- better multi-CPU management
- RBAC (role based access control), cf sudo/su
admin for a standalone system
- pro
- your box will behave as you direct it
- the load largely will be your own; less contention for resources
- con
- required to be at the box; no telnet/ssh
- inability to reference work from internet or other hosts (patches, software, docs)
finding your feet
- what kind of box is it? Box? Monitor? KB? pointing device?
- what is the physical environment?
- who else has the root password?
- what user accounts are on the box? what are they used for?
- set up a normal user account for yourself (become root only when necessary)
untested useradd wrapper
- who is on the box (
w, who, whodo) and what are they doing
- when were they last on the box?
last, logins -x -l -p
- what is the shell for root? What is the window manager?
- become the only root: change the
passwd
- now log in as the normal user
- what is the default shell for your normal account?
- how much diskspace does the box have?
df note that older versions of Solaris may use 512kb block sizes
- how are the discs mounted
mount : record this info!
- what kind of processor and memory? FIXME dmesg
- what is my PATH? what is in it?
- do I have a compiler? Sun or GCC or other?
- is /etc/passwd shadowed
- what services/apps are currently running on the box?
- what editors do I have at my disposal?
- what is in
/var/adm, loginlog,
- what is in
/etc/default
- what is in
/etc/skel
add and configure users
- Before we start:
- home directories
- quotas
- login shells (including restricted logins, login straight to apps, etc)
- workgroups
- skelfiles: .profile, .login to provide
umask, etc.
- OS limitations - 8char usernames w/no funky chars
-
- temporarily suspending an account
- permanently removing an account
- reuse of uid/gid
boot process
- The boot prom contains the bootstrapping instructions (OpenBoot) on Solaris hardware. There is none on x86 architecture, so you can't
stop-a (p. 17) To reconfigure, use boot -r, touch /reconfigure, or run devfsadm.
- the strap.com program is run from whichever bootable device is available: floppy, hd, cdrom, network (if applicable).
- strap.com loads boot.bin
- config assistant and /etc/bootrc (
b rvas or i for interactive
- kernel loads (genunix, unix) with associated modules running, along with the / filesystem. Small static core; most are linked at boot time or on demand
- kernel mounts other filesystems, and starts the
init process which will bring the box up according to the init (rc) scripts. The default state is called "initdefault"; usually multiuser.
- you can see boot messages later with
dmesg
runlevels and rc scripts
- 8/7 runlevels; see p. 23 In short:
- 2,3 normal
- S administration including disk maintenance (users could log in if 1)
- 6 reboot
- 0 power down
- /sbin/rcn calls scripts in /etc/rcn.d which are hard links to /etc/init.d
- scripts executed in order by filename (ASCII sort order): s=start, k=kill
admin invocation of rc scripts
- no reboot necessary! just run the script the same way the boot process does
pgrep new to Solaris 8: p. 338-9
- scripts usually take start/stop argument
- you can make your own scripts: p31
- disable a script by lowercase or otherwise munging the scriptname
shutdown/reboot
pp. 36-39
Who is on the system now and what are they doing?
- automatic shutdown via watchdog
- shutdown via admin command:
shutdown is the default; elegant with delay, warning to users, takes system to a maintenance state. p36. Note the -g (grace period) and -i (init state) switches
- use
reboot to cycle the box back to the default mode
- use
poweroff (aka init 5 to power the box down
- explicit
init runlevel
adding new users
think first; work later. Frugal Gourmet say: before you pick up something hot, think about where the item will go.
- admintool
- commandline:
useradd userdel usermod groupadd groupmod groupdel
deleting users
modifying users
Avoid: changing usernames and homedirs whenever possible.
Homework
- solaris filesystems, real and virtual: pp 187, 190-94.
- backup: 421-39 (skim!)
- software management (no reading)
http://www.mousetrap.net/syllabus/solaris8/day1.html
$Id: day1.orb,v 1.13 2002/10/23 22:23:14 mouse Exp $
