Organization of the Solaris Management Console

The SMC is shown in the following figure, with the Trusted Solaris toolbox loaded and the User Tool open.

Figure 2-1 Typical Trusted Solaris SMC

At the top of the SMC there is a menu bar, a tool bar, and a location bar. At the bottom is the status bar. The status bar indicates the number of items in the navigation pane (at the left). The middle panel in the status bar is an indicator that a task is in progress and the right panel displays messages describing the current phase of the task.

The main part of the SMC consists of three panes:

• Navigation pane (at the left)--For accessing tools (or sets of tools), folders, or other toolboxes. Icons in the navigation pane are called nodes and are expandable if they are folders or toolboxes. In this example, the Trusted Solaris Management Console toolbox icon is expanded; it contains the User Tool collection, the Interface Manager Tool, and the Computers and Networks Tool collection. The User Tool collection is selected and expanded also.

• View pane (at the right)--For viewing information related to the node selected in the navigation pane, either the contents of the selected folder, subordinate tools, or data associated with the selected tool. In this example, it displays the contents of the User Tool collection (which is also expanded in the navigation pane). Note that you can double-click a node in either the view pane or the navigation pane to open it.

• Information pane (at the bottom)--For displaying context-sensitive help or console events.