System Administration Guide: Basic Administration

Using Site Initialization Files

The user initialization files can be customized by both the administrator and the user. This important task can be accomplished with centrally located and globally distributed user initialization files that are called, site initialization files. Site initialization files enable you to continually introduce new functionality to the user's work environment, while enabling the user to customize the user's initialization file.

When you reference a site initialization file in a user initialization file, all updates to the site initialization file are automatically reflected when the user logs in to the system or when a user starts a new shell. Site initialization files are designed for you to distribute site-wide changes to users' work environments that you did not anticipate when you added the users.

You can customize a site initialization file the same way that you customize a user initialization file. These files typically reside on a server, or set of servers, and appear as the first statement in a user initialization file. Also, each site initialization file must be the same type of shell script as the user initialization file that references it.

To reference a site initialization file in a C-shell user initialization file, place a line at the beginning of the user initialization file similar to the following line:


source /net/machine-name/export/site-files/site-init-file

To reference a site initialization file in a Bourne-shell or Korn-shell user initialization file, place a line at the beginning of the user initialization file similar to the following line:


. /net/machine-name/export/site-files/site-init-file