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System Administration Guide: Basic Administration
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Document Information

Preface

1.  Oracle Solaris Management Tools (Road Map)

2.  Working With the Solaris Management Console (Tasks)

3.  Working With the Oracle Java Web Console (Tasks)

4.  Managing User Accounts and Groups (Overview)

5.  Managing User Accounts and Groups (Tasks)

6.  Managing Client-Server Support (Overview)

What's New in Managing Client-Server Support?

Support for Specifying Platform by Using the bootadm -p Command

nfs4_domain Keyword Impacts Diskless Client Boot

x86: Diskless Client Changes That Apply toGRUB

x86: Changes to the smdiskless Command

Where to Find Client-Server Tasks

What Are Servers, Clients, and Appliances?

What Does Client Support Mean?

Overview of System Types

Description of a Server

Stand-Alone Systems

Diskless Clients

Description of an Appliance

Guidelines for Choosing System Types

Diskless Client Management Overview

OS Server and Diskless Client Support Information

Diskless Client Management Features

Working With Diskless Client Commands

Required RBAC Rights for Diskless Client Management

Adding OS Services

Adding OS Services When the OS Server Has Been Patched

Disk Space Requirements for OS Servers

7.  Managing Diskless Clients (Tasks)

8.  Introduction to Shutting Down and Booting a System

9.  Shutting Down and Booting a System (Overview)

10.  Shutting Down a System (Tasks)

11.  Modifying Oracle Solaris Boot Behavior (Tasks)

12.  Booting an Oracle Solaris System (Tasks)

13.  Managing the Oracle Solaris Boot Archives (Tasks)

14.  Troubleshooting Booting an Oracle Solaris System (Tasks)

15.  x86: GRUB Based Booting (Reference)

16.  x86: Booting a System That Does Not Implement GRUB (Tasks)

17.  Working With the Oracle Solaris Auto Registration regadm Command (Tasks)

18.  Managing Services (Overview)

19.  Managing Services (Tasks)

20.  Managing Software (Overview)

21.  Managing Software With Oracle Solaris System Administration Tools (Tasks)

22.  Managing Software by Using Oracle Solaris Package Commands (Tasks)

23.  Managing Patches

A.  SMF Services

Index

Overview of System Types

System types are sometimes defined by how they access the root (/) and /usr file systems, including the swap area. For example, stand-alone systems and server systems mount these file systems from a local disk. Other clients mount the file systems remotely, relying on servers to provide these services. This table lists some of the characteristics of each system type.

Table 6-1 Characteristics of System Types

System Type
Local File Systems
Local Swap Space?
Remote File Systems
Network Use
Relative Performance
Server
root (/)

/usr

/home

/opt

/export/home

Available
Not available
High
High
Stand-alone system
root (/)

/usr

/export/home

Available
Not available
Low
High
OS Server
/export/root
Diskless client
Not available
Not available
root (/)

swap

/usr

/home

High

High

Low

Low

Appliance
Not available
Not available
Not available
High
High

Description of a Server

A server system contains the following file systems:

Servers can also contain the following software to support other systems:

Stand-Alone Systems

A networked stand-alone system can share information with other systems in the network. However, it can continue to function if detached from the network.

A stand-alone system can function autonomously because it has its own hard disk that contains the root (/), /usr, and /export/home file systems and swap space. Thus, the stand-alone system has local access to OS software, executables, virtual memory space, and user-created files.


Note - A stand-alone system requires sufficient disk space to hold its necessary file systems.


A non-networked stand-alone system is a stand-alone system with all the characteristics just listed, except it is not connected to a network.

Diskless Clients

A diskless client has no disk and depends on a server for all its software and storage needs. A diskless client remotely mounts its root (/), /usr, and /home file systems from a server.

A diskless client generates significant network traffic due to its continual need to procure OS software and virtual memory space from across the network. A diskless client cannot operate if it is detached from the network or if its server malfunctions.

For more overview information about diskless clients, see Diskless Client Management Overview.

Description of an Appliance

An appliance, such as the Sun Ray appliance, is an X display device that requires no administration. There is no CPU, fan, disk, and very little memory. An appliance is connected to a Sun display monitor. However, the appliance user's desktop session is run on a server and displayed back to the user.

The X environment is set up automatically for the user and has the following characteristics:

Guidelines for Choosing System Types

You can determine which system types are appropriate for your environment by comparing each system type based on the following characteristics:

Centralized administration:

Performance

Disk space usage

How much disk space is required to effectively deploy this configuration?

This table describes how each system type scores in terms of each characteristic. A ranking of 1 is most efficient. A ranking of 4 is least efficient.

Table 6-2 Comparison of System Types

System Type
Centralized Administration
Performance
Disk Space Usage
Stand-alone system
4
1
4
Diskless client
1
4
1
Appliance
1
1
1