Preface

The Sun N1 System Manager Administration Guide helps system administrators to understand and administer the Sun N1^TM System Manager. This book provides detailed examples and procedures to explain how you can use the N1 System Manager to manage users and roles, discover servers to be managed, provision OSs on the servers, install OS and firmware updates, and set up monitoring.

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Note –

Most of the information in this book focuses on the command-line interface of the N1 System Manager. Instructions are provided when the browser interface can also be used for the same task. Click the Help button in the upper right corner of the browser interface to access the searchable online help system.

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Who Should Use This Book

This guide is intended for system administrators who are responsible for managing provisionable servers running the Sun N1 System Manager software. These system administrators are expected to have the following background:

• Knowledge of the Solaris^TM Operating System and Red Hat Linux, and the network administration tools provided by each operating system

• Knowledge of network equipment and network devices from a variety of vendors such as Sun Microsystems, Cisco, Foundry, and Extreme

• Knowledge of network device interconnections and cabling

• Knowledge of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Some elements of the N1 System Manager use software that is based on SNMP.

Before You Read This Book

Read the following documents:

• Sun N1 System Manager 1.2 Introduction

• Sun N1 System Manager 1.2 Site Preparation Guide

• Sun N1 System Manager 1.2 Installation and Configuration Guide

How This Book Is Organized

Chapter 1, Managing the N1 System Manager on the Management Server describes the following:

• How to type commands in the N1 System Manager by using the command-line interface and the browser interface

• Session roles and the n1sh script file

• Security and how to add, remove, and manage users and roles

• How to backup and recover database and configuration files

Chapter 2, Discovering, Grouping, and Replacing Servers in the Sun N1 System Manager describes the following:

• The discovery process

• How to add provisionable servers to groups

• How to replace failed servers

Chapter 3, Provisioning Operating Systems, OS Updates, and Firmware Updates describes the following:

• Conceptual and procedural information about how to manage OS installations

• Conceptual and procedural information about performing OS updates

• Conceptual and procedural information about performing firmware updates

Chapter 4, Managing Servers and Server Groups describes the following:

• How to refresh servers and groups

• How to replace servers and groups

• How to rename servers and groups

• How to reboot servers and groups

• How to remove servers and groups

Chapter 5, Monitoring Your Servers describes the following:

• An overview of how monitoring works

• How to support monitoring by ensuring key features are installed

• How to switch on monitoring for servers and groups

• How to set and manage thresholds

• How to view and manage jobs

• How to view, manage and create event notifications

Chapter 6, Troubleshooting describes how to identify and manage the following possible troubleshooting scenarios:

• Possible problems with server discovery

• Possible problems with security

• Possible problems with OS distributions

• OS deployment failures

• Possible problems with OS updates

• Problems with firmware updates

• Problems after restarting services

Related Books

The following books are useful for installing and using the N1 System Manager.

• Sun N1 System Manager 1.2 Introduction

• Sun N1 System Manager 1.2 Site Preparation Guide

• Sun N1 System Manager 1.2 Installation and Configuration Guide

• Sun N1 System Manager 1.2 Command Line Reference Manual

• Sun N1 System Manager 1.2 Release Notes

Documentation, Support, and Training

The Sun web site provides information about the following additional resources:

• Documentation

• Support

• Training

Typographic Conventions

The following table describes the typographic conventions that are used in this book.

Table P–1 Typographic Conventions

Typeface	Meaning	Example
AaBbCc123	The names of commands, files, and directories, and onscreen computer output	Edit your .login file. Use ls -a to list all files. machine_name% you have mail.
AaBbCc123	What you type, contrasted with onscreen computer output	machine_name% su Password:
aabbcc123	Placeholder: replace with a real name or value	The command to remove a file is rm filename.
AaBbCc123	Book titles, new terms, and terms to be emphasized	Read Chapter 6 in the User's Guide. A cache is a copy that is stored locally. Do not save the file. Note: Some emphasized items appear bold online.

Shell Prompts in Command Examples

The following table shows the default UNIX® system prompt and superuser prompt for the C shell, Bourne shell, and Korn shell.

Table P–2 Shell Prompts

Shell	Prompt
C shell	machine_name%
C shell for superuser	machine_name#
Bourne shell and Korn shell	$
Bourne shell and Korn shell for superuser	#

In this book, unless otherwise specified, the term command line is used to describe the n1sh shell, which uses the N1–ok> prompt. The n1sh shell is defined as any of the following:

• The shell available from the Command Line pane of the browser interface

• The shell available after typing n1sh in a terminal console window on the management server

You can also use N1 System Manager commands from a standard UNIX shell by preceding them with the n1sh command.