System Administration Guide, Volume I is part of a three-volume set that includes a significant part of the SolarisTM system administration information. It contains information for both SPARCTM based and IA based systems.
This book assumes that you have already installed the SunOSTM 5.8 operating system, and you have set up all networking software that you plan to use. The SunOS 5.8 operating system is part of the Solaris product family, which also includes many features, including the Solaris Common Desktop Environment (CDE). The SunOS 5.8 operating system is compliant with AT&T's System V, Release 4 operating system.
For the Solaris 8 release, new features interesting to system administrators are covered in sections called What's New in ... ? in the appropriate chapters.
The Solaris operating environment runs on two types of hardware, or platforms--SPARC and IA. The Solaris operating environment runs on both 64-bit and 32-bit address spaces. The information in this document pertains to both platforms and address spaces unless called out in a special chapter, section, note, bullet, figure, table, example, or code example.
This book is intended for anyone responsible for administering one or more systems running the Solaris 8 release. To use this book, you should have 1-2 years of UNIX® system administration experience. Attending UNIX system administration training courses might be helpful.
Here is a list of the topics covered by the three volumes of the System Administration Guides.
"Managing Users and Groups Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 1
"Managing Server and Client Support Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 1
"Shutting Down and Booting a System Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 1
"Managing Removable Media Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 1
"Managing Software Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 1
"Managing Devices Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 1
"Managing Disks Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 1
"Managing File Systems Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 1
"Backing Up and Restoring Data Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 1
"Managing Printing Services Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 2
"Working With Remote Systems Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 2
"Managing Terminals and Modems Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 2
"Managing System Security Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 2
"Managing System Resources Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 2
"Managing System Performance Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 2
"Troubleshooting Solaris Software Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 2
"Network Services Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 3
"IP Address Management Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 3
"Modem-Related Network Services Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 3
"Accessing Remote File Systems Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 3
"Mail Services Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 3
"Monitoring Network Services Topics" in System Administration Guide, Volume 3
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The following table describes the typographic conventions used in this book.
Table P-1 Typographic Conventions
Typeface or Symbol |
Meaning |
Example |
---|---|---|
AaBbCc123 | The names of commands, files, and directories; on-screen computer output |
Edit your .login file. Use ls -a to list all files. machine_name% you have mail. |
AaBbCc123 | What you type, contrasted with on-screen computer output |
machine_name% su Password: |
AaBbCc123 | Command-line placeholder: replace with a real name or value |
To delete a file, type rm filename. |
AaBbCc123 |
Book titles, new words or terms, or words to be emphasized. |
Read Chapter 6 in User's Guide. These are called class options. Do not save changes yet. |
The following table shows the default system prompt and superuser prompt for the C shell, Bourne shell, and Korn shell.
Table P-2 Shell Prompts
Shell |
Prompt |
---|---|
C shell prompt | machine_name% |
C shell superuser prompt | machine_name# |
Bourne shell and Korn shell prompt | $ |
Bourne shell and Korn shell superuser prompt | # |
Be aware of the following conventions used in this book.
When following steps or using examples, be sure to type double-quotes ("), left single-quotes (`), and right single-quotes (') exactly as shown.
The key referred to as Return is labeled Enter on some keyboards.
The root path usually includes the /sbin, /usr/sbin, /usr/bin, and /etc directories, so the steps in this book show the commands in these directories without absolute path names. Steps that use commands in other, less common, directories show the absolute paths in the examples.
The examples in this book are for a basic SunOS software installation without the Binary Compatibility Package installed and without /usr/ucb in the path.
If /usr/ucb is included in a search path, it should always be at the end of the search path. Commands like ps or df are duplicated in /usr/ucb with different formats and options from the SunOS commands.