System Administration Overview

• Review of administration functions.
• The administrator account.
• Administration best practices.

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.
• How devices are named, and how device information is created.
• Slicing and labelling disks with the format and fmthard utilities and the Solaris Management Console (smc).
• Creating a Solaris file system with newfs. Using tunefs to change file system parameters.
• Using multi-terabyte file systems.
• Deciding how to mount the new file system; updating /etc/vfstab for permanent mounts.
• Using fsck to perform file system integrity checks.
• Monitoring disk usage and directory sizes.
• Using removeable (USB and firewire). The rmformat command.

The ZFS File System

• Introduction and Simple Example
• Storage Pool Basics
• Mirrors, RAIDZ and RAIDZ2
• Mount points, examining pool status
• Extending pools; extending pools with attach
• Offlining and replacing components
• Hot Spares (Update 3 only)
• Informational commands
• Command History
• Exporting and Importing
• ZFS GUI
• ZFS File systems (datasets) in detail
• Creating, Deleting and Renaming.
• Properties
• Properties - read-only and settable.
• Properties - Setting a quota example
• Properties - inheriting example
• Properties - Sources
• Properties - Query Examples
• - Mounting/Unmounting
• Quotas and reservations
• Setting properties when creating
• Snapshots and Clones
• Backup and Restore
• Replicating Directories Remotely
• Emulated Volumes
• ZFS and Zones
• Data recovery; troubleshooting
• Scrubbing
• Troubleshooting disk problems.

File System Maintenance and Security

• The mount command. Mount options.
• The LOFS file systems.
• Handling CDs, DVDs and floppy disks. USB and Firewire devices.
• 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 CD, DVD or network to build.
• Building Solaris from scratch; selecting software options, disk slicing, etc.
• Ensuring Secure by Default settings are understood and used.
• Post-installation procedures.
• Overview of automatic installation.
• Upgrading from a previous Solaris release.
• ZFS as the root file system.

Patch Administration

• Obtaining and installing the latest patches, including clusters and individual patches.
• Examining the current patch level of a machine.
• Removing patches.
• Using the smpatch utility and Sun Connection for automatic updates and patches.
• Patches and Solaris zones.

Software Configuration and Package Administration

• Root user environment configuration including shells and manual pages.
• Examining, Installing and removing software packages.
• Using command line utilities (pkgadd, pkginfo, pkgchk, pkgrm)
• Identifying package directory and datastream format, and converting formats
• Adding Solaris distribution options.
• Creating package response files for non-interactive package installs.
• Using the Webstart installer mechanism to install software.
• Using the Solaris Product Registry. (prodreg)
• Packages and Solaris Zones.

Network Interface Configuration

• Adding a machine to the network - Procedure, /etc/inet/hosts.
• Internet Address Classes (Ipv4) - Reference Notes, Multicast, obtaining your own address.
• Examining the interface settings with ifconfig.
• Using ifconfig to change settings.
• DHCP Address Configuration; the /etc/dhcp.interface file, client Hostname configuration.
• ifconfig dhcp options.
• Adding a machine to the network - actual connection and testing.

Boot PROM

• Monitor prompt commands (boot, probe-scsi, probe-ide, test-net, devalias etc.)
• Identifying system settings such as the default boot device, device aliases, etc.
• Setting up a device alias.
• Using the eeprom command to view and change settings.
• Using luxadm with FCAL disks.
• Troubleshooting boot failure.

Start-up and Shutdown

• Boot Archives - the boot_archive and failsafe files
• Boot Archives - dealing with boot problems
• Boot Archives - Example bootadm commands
• Loading the kernel - /etc/system
• In-depth explanation of the new Service Management Facility (SMF).
• Using SMF utilities to monitor and control boot processes.
• Modifying SMF properties with svccfg.
• Self healing and Process Contracts.
• SMF repositories and recovery.
• Adding your own scripts and SMF service manifests
• SMF milestones. Understanding and changing run levels.
• The init process and legacy scripts.
• 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. Account lockout. Password history recording.
• Real and effective id. Using SMC for user management..

Solaris Groups

• Overview. The group file. Group identification of files and directories.
• The groupadd, groupmod, newgrp, groups and chgrp commands.
• Complete practical 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.
• Introduction to Access Control Lists (ACLs).

Adding a Printer

• PostScript Printers.
• Physical direct connection of a printer.
• Using a Network connected printer. Physical connection to a Network - configuring RARP.
• Configuring the Spooling System.
• Adding a Printer with lpadmin to a physical port.
• Using lpadmin to change configuration details.
• Adding a printer with Solaris Printer Manager.
• Adding a connection to a printer on another system.
• Adding a network-connected printer. Protocols used. Further examples. lpset and printers.conf.
• Printer Types - terminfo.
• PPD files; adding a printer using PPD files with lpadmin.
• Using ppdmgr to manage PPD files.
• Printer filters - background information (reference purposes).
• Issuing print requests with lp.
• The lpsched printer daemon and the ipp-listener.
• Routine Printer Administration - Status. Cancelling print requests. Accept and reject, enable and disable.
• Troubleshooting. Directory Structure.
• Removing a printer.
• Log Files.
• User Access Lists.
• Printers, the Name Service and user preferences.

System Processes

• Examining and controlling processes using ps, prstat, kill, pgrep, pkill 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.
• Considerations for disaster recovery.
• The tar, cpio and mt utilities.
• Backups versus archives.

Intel supplement

• This supplement to the notes covers Intel differences and extra features in full detail. It covers:-
• Architecture differences, Solaris Installation Differences, Solaris Installation Check Tool and Device Detection Tool.
• Installing Solaris in Interactive mode.
• Disk Device naming, Disk Utilities for x86, Adding a new disk (Creating an fdisk partition, creating Solaris slices, Adding a system disk).
• GRUB-based booting (Single-User boot, the bootadm utility.
• Boot archives, Boot archives failsafe, Kernel loading and bootenv.rc).
• System recovery (Example system disk partitioning, newfs and ufsrestore, installing the bootstrap).
• x86 device drivers and configuration, PCI device identification.
• Window system configuration (Xorg, Xsun, gdm)