Monitoring Use of Machine Resources

As system administrator, you need to monitor system activity. You need to be aware of all aspects of your machines, including the following:

• What is the normal load?

• Who has access to the system?

• When do individuals access the system?

• What programs normally run on the system?

With this kind of knowledge, you can use the available tools to audit machine use and monitor the activities of individual users. Monitoring is very useful when there is a suspected breach in security. For more information on the auditing module, see Chapter 20, BSM (Overview).