From the Publisher
This book is the only HP-UX 10.x system administration book available written in the popular "How To" style by the author of the highly successful guide to HP-UX 9.0. HP-UX 10.X is the latest version of the UNIX implementation from Hewlett-Packard, and eventually all HP-UX users will be moving up to this new platform.
From the Inside Flap
Welcome to HP-UX 10.X System Administration. Please look at this book as a "translation" of HP-UX system administration. A translation, you ask? Yes, what I have done with this book for HP-UX 10.X, and my previous book with HP-UX 9.X, is to translate HP-UX system administration into an understandable form. This translation includes a blueprint from which you can work, and 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 sometimes 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 everything 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 to know for every HP-UX system administrator. HP-UX 10.X System Administration 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 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 online manual pages. I am grateful for all of the hard work my HP associates have put into both the manual set and the online manual pages. Chapter 1 lists all of the HP-UX 10.X manuals available when this book was written. If you plan to performed detailed system administration work, you may want to scan this list and see which manuals apply to your work. 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. Most of the Series 700 examples were performed on a Model 712/60 and most of the Series 800 examples on a K400 with four processors. This provides a wide enough range in systems that the examples are useful. The terms workstation and Series 700 are interchangeable. Similarly, the terms server and Series 800 are interchangeable. I tend to use Series 700 and Series 800 more often than workstation and server in the book because Series 700 and Series 800 are more descriptive. You will find HP using workstation and server instead of Series 700 and Series 800.
HP-UX 10.X System Administration is comprised of the following chapters:
Chapter 1: Setting Up Your HP-UX System
Chapter 2: Networking
Chapter 3: System Administration Manager (SAM)
Chapter 4: The Art of System Administration
Chapter 5: Common Desktop Environment (CDE)
Chapter 6: Shell Programming for System Administrators Covered in these chapters is everything you need to get started in HP- UX system administration. Conventions Used in the Book I don't use a lot of complex notations in the book. Here are a few simple conventions I've used to make the examples clear and the text easy to follow: $ and # The HP-UX command prompt. Every command issued in the book is preceded by one of these prompts. Italics is used primarily in Chapter 3 when referring to functional areas and menu picks in the System Administration Manager (SAM). bold and " "
Bold text is the information you would type, such as the command you issue after a prompt or the information you type when running a script. Sometimes information you would type is also referred to in the text explaining it and the typed information may appear in quotes.
