Admintool

One of the major differences between SunOS release 4 and SunOS release 5.7 that affects system administration is the availability of Admintool to perform basic system administration tasks. This tool employs a graphical user interface to simplify tasks, such as managing users, hosts, printers, and serial devices, on local desktop systems.

Admintool applications enable you to manage the following tasks on a local system:

• System database files such as aliases and netmasks

• User account and group information, including tasks such as adding users and groups, modifying password aging features, and removing user account information

• Printer setup for local and remote printers

• Terminal and modem setup

• Package management

Using a graphical user interface (GUI) like Admintool to perform administration tasks has the following benefits:

• It is faster than using numerous SunOS commands to perform the same tasks

• System files are updated automatically without the risk of making editing errors

• The application programs interact with appropriate system daemons and notify you when the two are out of sync

You do not need to be root to start Admintool but you do need to be a member in the sysadmin group (GID=14). Use the groups(1) command to display your group membership.

To display Admintool, type the following command in any window.

$ admintool &