PREFACE
Welcome to HP-UX System Administration Handbook & Toolkit. This book starts out with the basics and then proceeds to cover the details of HP- UX system administration. It is sometimes said that "The devil is in the details..." and I certainly believe that is true when working with operating systems. In this book I cover many HP-UX topics in detail that you won't find in any other book. For instance, I cover HP-UX system auditing by discussing the aspects of your system that you should regularly audit and provide several concise audit scripts that you can run on your system on a regular basis.
As the HP-UX system administration functions you perform become more advanced, you may also find it helpful to have at your disposal tools that can assist you. You may find, for instance, that as you load many applications on your system that you need to address performance issues. You may also find that you need to enhance interoperability between HP- UX and other operating systems such as Windows NT. That is why I have included two CD-ROMs that contain a lot of useful loaner software. CD- ROM #1 contains all of the latest HP-UX performance tools. CD-ROM #2 contains some of the HP-UX and Windows NT interoperabilty software covered in Chapter 9 from Hummingbird Ltd. such as X Windows and NFS software for Windows NT. This CD-ROM also contains several audit programs which you can build on to create a suite of custom audit pro- grams for your systems.
There is also a four-panel quick reference card included in the book to help you with the following "must know" topics of HP-UX system administration:
Logical Volume Manager (LVM) Building an HP-UX kernel Software Distributor HP-UX (SD-UX) System Administration Manager (SAM)
I selected these four topics because every HP-UX system administrator needs to know them. In fact, that is one of the objectives of all of my books - to cover the topics every system administrator needs to know.
Along with carefully selecting the topics that are covered in the book, I also have a unique approach to writing this book. You can view this book as a "translation" of HP-UX system administration. What I have done with this and my other HP-UX books is to translate HP-UX system administration into an understandable form. This translation includes a blueprint from which you can work, many tips and recommendations from my experience working with HP-UX, as well as what I have learned working with many HP-UX system administrators over the years.
My translation is a loose one. What I mean by this is that HP-UX system administration can't be translated literally like a programming language. There are guidelines in system administration, but there is too little structure in system administration for me to provide you with a literal translation. No matter how detailed a training course or manual, they always leave out some of the specific tasks you'll need to perform. Instead of getting mired down in excruciating detail, I'll provide the common denominator of information every HP-UX system administrator needs to know. I'll provide you with all the essential information you need so you'll be able to take on new and unforeseen system administration challenges with a good knowledge base.
The blueprint I provide consists of many things; among them is a setup flowchart. As I describe the specific steps in the flowchart, I'll also provide pertinent background information. This means that as you learn how to perform a specific system administration function, I'll also provide background that will help you understand why you are performing it and what is taking place on your system.
This sometimes means that I'll be describing a procedure and use a command or procedure covered earlier. As a result of this you may see the same command and corresponding output more than once in this book. I do this because it saves you the time and confusion of trying to flip back to where you originally saw the command. As an example of this I use the sysdef and ioscan commands in both the section on building a kernel and the section on device files. The ioscan and sysdef examples appear in both places. Both the kernel building and device file sections are in Chapter 1. Device files and building a kernel are both confusing topics and I don't wish to compound the difficulty of understanding these by making you turn pages looking for the spot where a command was explained earlier. I some- times include the same command and procedure in different chapters as well.
You may very well find that you'll need additional resources as your system administration challenges increase. No matter what anyone tells you, there is no one resource that can answer everything you need to know about HP-UX system administration. Just when you think you know every- thing there is to know about HP-UX system administration you'll be asked to do something you've never dreamed of before. That's why I'm not trying to be all things to all people with this book. I cover what everyone needs to know and leave topics in specific areas to other people. You may need training courses, manuals, other books, or consulting services to complete some projects. In any case, I'll bet that every topic in this book would be worthwhile for every HP-UX system administrator to know. HP-UX System Administration Handbook & Toolkit covers tasks all system administrators need to perform: It shows you how to perform each task, tells why you are doing it, and how it is affecting your system. Much of the knowledge I have gained has come from the fine HP-UX manual set, HP Education Center courses, and the concise online manual pages. Some of the procedures in the book are based on those in the HP-UX manual set and some of the command summaries in the book are based on the on-line manual pages. I am grateful for all of the hard work my HP associates have put into both the manual set and the on-line manual pages. If you plan to per- form detailed system administration work, you'll want to have a complete set of HP-UX manuals.
Speaking of examples, I sometimes use a workstation (Series 700) and sometimes a server (Series 800) in the examples. When it is required, I use both a workstation and server to show the differences. Sometimes I use the term workstation instead of Series 700 and sometimes server system instead of Series 800. In general though I use Series 700 and Series 800.
HP-UX System Administration Handbook & Toolkit is comprised of the following chapters:
1: Setting Up Your HP-UX System
2: HP-UX File System and Related Commands
Chapter 3: Networking
Chapter 4: System Administration Manager (SAM)
Chapter 5: The Art of System Administration
Chapter 6: Common Desktop Environment (CDE)
7: Shell Programming for System Administrators
8: HP-UX System Auditing
9: HP-UX and Windows NT Interoperability Topics
10: The vi Editor
Covered in these chapters is everything you need to get started and work through advanced topics in HP-UX system administration.
Software Supplied with This Book
There are two CD-ROMs that accompany this book. Information on the suppliers of this software, order forms, and other such material are supplied on the CD-ROMs. Here is a brief description of the contents of each of the two CD-ROMs.
CD-ROM #1 This CD-ROM contains extensive trial performance software for HP-UX, Sun, AIX, and NCR. This is a full suite of software including: HP GlancePlus; HP Measureware Agent; and HP PerfView. Most of the software on this CD-ROM will run for a 60-day trial period, after which you can use the information on the CD-ROM to buy a permanent license for the software. Every HP-UX installation should run some of the performance software on this CD-ROM in order to monitor system performance as well as tune the system. There is no better way to determine the software that best suits the needs of your environment than to test the software for 60 days and make your own determinations.
CD-ROM #2
This CD-ROM has on it several pieces of useful software. The first is a suite of software from Hummingbird Communications, Ltd. This soft- ware is covered in the Windows NT and HP-UX interoperability chapter of this book and includes X Windows and NFS products. This software runs on Windows NT.
Other software on this CD-ROM includes audit programs and examples of running audit pro- grams. These audit programs will run on most HP-UX systems with minor changes. HP-UX system auditing is covered in a chapter of the book and there are many useful audit scripts that you can customize and use on your system.
There is also detailed background information on HP OpenStudio, not the OpenStudio application software. This is a software product covered in the interoperability chapter that supports software development on both Windows NT and HP-UX.
The software an
All you need for smarter, more effective HP-UX system administration!
When it comes to HP-UX system administration, nobody has more experience than Marty Poniatowski. In this book, he delivers advanced coverage of today's hottest system administration issues, plus an amazing library of state-of-the-art tools for HP-UX sysadmins!
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- Networking-from TCP/IP to Ethernet, host name mapping to NFS
- HP-UX shell programming for system administrators
- Support for the Common Desktop Environment
- System auditing-including complete sample scripts
- Windows NT and HP-UX interoperability topics, including NFS and X Window
Master the System Administration Manager's centralized tools for account management, security, backup and recovery, kernel configuration, peripherals, printers, performance monitoring, software management and more. You'll even find a convenient 4-page fold-out/tear-out HP-UX system administration reference card!
If you're responsible for HP-UX system administration, your life will be a whole lot easier with a copy of The HP-UX System Administration Handbook and Toolkit nearby!
2 CD-ROMs full of advanced performance, productivity and interoperability tools!
Disk #1 delivers full-featured trial versions of HP's state-of-the-art cross-platform management suite-all you need to optimize your systems and take control of your environment! You get:
- HP GlancePlus for resource and performance monitoring, data collection and tuning
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- HP PerfView centralized management software for analysis, monitoring and planning in complex distributed environments
Disk #2 delivers state-of-the-art trial software from Hummingbird for integrating HP-UX and Windows desktops:
- Exceed: fast, reliable X11R6 application support for Windows NT workstations
- NFS Maestro 5.1.1, best-of-breed NFS support for Windows desktops
- There's more: exclusive audit programs and scripts, plus up-to-the-minute information about the new HP OpenStudio integrated HP-UX/Windows development environment!
