Solaris 10 Systems Administration Part 1 — A 5-Day Course

 Open Public Course Closed In-House Course

Synopsis

This five-day course is designed to cover the essential administration tasks confronting today's Sun systems administrators. It covers all basic workstation administration functions, with full hands-on experience at all stages.

The course is run using SPARC systems, with a fully detailed Intel system supplement provided. This course is based on Solaris 10 (Solaris 2.10, SunOS 5.10). It is also suitable for customers using Solaris 8, 7, and 2.6. The Solaris 10 Visual Administration Solaris Management Console (SMC) is also covered. For administrators requiring networking and advanced skills, this course should be followed by the Solaris 10 System Administration (Part 2) course. Network administration is covered on our Solaris Network Administration course. This course provides training to a level needed for the Solaris Certified System Administrator (SCSA) exam CX-310-200 part 1.

This course is comparable with the SUN SA-200-S10 System Administration for the Solaris 10 Operating System Part 1 course (formerly Intermediate Solaris 10 Systems Administration), but about 33% less in cost.

Course Objectives

To attain a level of competence performing Solaris administration tasks to that defined in the Solaris 10 Certified Administrator Part 1 exam. This involves mainly essential local administration tasks.

Prerequisites

Knowledge of Solaris up to a level taught in our Introduction to Solaris course is important, and some previous administration experience is helpful. Please call if you require any advice.

Follow-ups

Solaris 10 System Administration (Part 2), which covers essential network administration.

The above two courses are the equivalent of Sun's SA-202-S10 course, which leads to the Sun Certified Administrator (part 2) CX-310-202 exam.

The Solaris Network Administration course is a further stage, providing training to a level required for the Solaris Network Administrator exam CX-310-302.

Our Solaris Utilities and Shell Programming is another popular course for administrators wishing to gain knowledge of shell programming and Solaris utilities, with special emphasis on the needs of the administrator.

Publicly scheduled dates, locations, and prices

Contents

System Administration Overview

• Review of administration functions
• The administrator account.
• Administration best practices.

File System Structure

• File system structure and slicing
• The Solaris directory hierarchy
• Identification of files and file types
• Using symbolic and hard links

Disk Storage Management for local disk drives.

• Disk concepts and structure; slices (partitions) and Solaris device naming conventions
• Physical disk connection, listing and reconfiguring the systems devices.
• How devices are named, and how device information is created.
• Slicing and labelling disks with the format and fmthard utilities and the Solaris Management Console (smc).
• Creating a Solaris file system with newfs. Using tunefs to change file system parameters.
• Using multi-terabyte file systems.
• Deciding how to mount the new file system; updating /etc/vfstab for permanent mounts.
• Using fsck to perform file system integrity checks.
• Monitoring disk usage and directory sizes.
• Using removeable (USB and firewire). The rmformat command.

The ZFS File System

• Introduction and Simple Example
• Storage Pool Basics
  • Mirrors, RAIDZ and RAIDZ2
  • Mount points, examining pool status
  • Extending pools; extending pools with attach
  • Offlining and replacing components
  • Hot Spares (Update 3 only)
  • Informational commands
  • Command History
  • Exporting and Importing
• ZFS GUI
• ZFS File systems (datasets) in detail
  • Creating, Deleting and Renaming.
  • Properties
  • Properties - read-only and settable.
  • Properties - Setting a quota example
  • Properties - inheriting example
  • Properties - Sources
  • Properties - Query Examples
  • Mounting/Unmounting
  • Quotas and reservations
  • Setting properties when creating
  • Snapshots and Clones
  • Backup and Restore
  • Replicating Directories Remotely
  • Emulated Volumes
  • ZFS and Zones
  • Data recovery; troubleshooting
  • Scrubbing
  • Troubleshooting disk problems.

File System Maintenance and Security

• The mount command
• Mount options
• The LOFS file systems
• Handling CDs, DVDs and floppy disks, USB and Firewire devices.
• Making room on the file system.
• File system security.
• SMC file system functions.
• Utilities for file system monitoring.

System Build (Installing Solaris)

• Planning disk layout. Booting from CD, DVD or network to build.
• Building Solaris from scratch; selecting software options, disk slicing, etc.
• Ensuring Secure by Default settings are understood and used.
• Post-installation procedures.
• Overview of automatic installation.
• Upgrading from a previous Solaris release.
• ZFS as the root file system.

Patch Administration

• Obtaining and installing the latest patches, including clusters and individual patches
• Examining the current patch level of a machine
• Removing patches
• Using the smpatch utility and Sun Connection for automatic updates and patches
• Patches and Solaris zones.

Software Configuration and Package Administration

• Root user environment configuration including shells and manual pages
• Examining, Installing and removing software packages using command line utilities (pkgadd, pkginfo, pkgchk, pkgrm)
• Identifying package directory and datastream format, and converting formats
• Adding Solaris distribution options.
• Creating package response files for non-interactive package installs.
• Using the Webstart installer mechanism to install software.
• Using the Solaris Product Registry. (prodreg)
• Packages and Solaris Zones.

Network Interface Configuration

• Adding a machine to the network - Procedure, /etc/inet/hosts.
• Internet Address Classes (Ipv4) - Reference Notes, Multicast, obtaining your own address.
• Examining the interface settings with ifconfig.
• Using ifconfig to change settings.
• DHCP Address Configuration; the /etc/dhcp.interface file, client Hostname configuration.
• ifconfig dhcp options.
• Adding a machine to the network - actual connection and testing.

Boot PROM

• Monitor prompt commands (boot, probe-scsi, probe-ide, test-net, devalias etc.)
• Identifying system settings such as the default boot device, device aliases, etc.
• Setting up a device alias.
• Using the eeprom command to view and change settings.
• Using luxadm with FCAL disks.
• Troubleshooting boot failure.

Start-up and Shutdown

• Boot Archives - the boot_archive and failsafe files
• Boot Archives - dealing with boot problems
• Boot Archives - Example bootadm commands
• Loading the kernel - /etc/system
• In-depth explanation of the new Service Management Facility (SMF).
• Using SMF utilities to monitor and control boot processes.
• Modifying SMF properties with svccfg.
• Self healing and Process Contracts.
• SMF repositories and recovery.
• Adding your own scripts and SMF service manifests
• SMF milestones. Understanding and changing run levels.
• The init process and legacy scripts.
• Shutting down, suspending and powering off the system.
• Power management.

Adding and Maintaining Users

• Concepts. Ownership of files, directories and processes.
• Classes of user. Adding a user manually, via command line tools and graphically.
• User initialisation file management. Password control. Account lockout. Password history recording.
• Real and effective id. Using SMC for user management..

Solaris Groups

• Overview
• The group file
• Group identification of files and directories
• The groupadd, groupmod, newgrp, groups and chgrp commands.
• Complete practical example of creating and using a group.
• Using SMC with groups.

System Security

• Monitoring access to the system
• Using the su (Switch User) command, and monitoring its use
• Restricting file and directory access using protection mechanisms, including access modes, s and t bits, umask, chown and chmod
• Introduction to Access Control Lists (ACLs)

Adding a Printer

• PostScript Printers.
• Physical direct connection of a printer.
• Using a Network connected printer. Physical connection to a Network - configuring RARP.
• Configuring the Spooling System.
• Adding a Printer with lpadmin to a physical port.
• Using lpadmin to change configuration details.
• Adding a printer with Solaris Printer Manager.
• Adding a connection to a printer on another system.
• Adding a network-connected printer. Protocols used. Further examples. lpset and printers.conf.
• Printer Types - terminfo.
• PPD files; adding a printer using PPD files with lpadmin.
• Using ppdmgr to manage PPD files.
• Printer filters - background information (reference purposes).
• Issuing print requests with lp.
• The lpsched printer daemon and the ipp-listener.
• Routine Printer Administration - Status. Cancelling print requests. Accept and reject, enable and disable.
• Troubleshooting. Directory Structure.
• Changing print requests.
• Removing a printer.
• Log Files.
• Printer Classes.
• User Access Lists.
• Printers, the Name Service and user preferences.

System Processes

• Examining and controlling processes using ps, prstat, kill, and the Process Manager
• Automating commands with crontab and at, for one-off and regular command execution

Back-Up and Restore Utilities, including snapshots

• Overview and Preparation
• Tape types and capacities
• Sample ufsdump commands
• Backup strategies
• Taking a complete backup with ufsdump Summary of ufsdump command options
• Using fssnap to snapshot the file system and take a clean backup
• Restoring individual files and directories
• Restoring an entire system
• Considerations for disaster recovery
• The tar, cpio and mt utilities
• Backups versus archives

Intel supplement

This supplement to the notes covers Intel differences and extra features in full detail. It covers:-

• Architecture differences, Solaris Installation Differences, Solaris Installation Check Tool and Device Detection Tool.
• Installing Solaris in Interactive mode.
• Disk Device naming, Disk Utilities for x86, Adding a new disk (Creating an fdisk partition, creating Solaris slices, Adding a system disk).
• GRUB-based booting (Single-User boot, the bootadm utility.
• Boot archives, Boot archives failsafe, Kernel loading and bootenv.rc).
• System recovery (Example system disk partitioning, newfs and ufsrestore, installing the bootstrap).
• x86 device drivers and configuration, PCI device identification.
• Window system configuration (Xorg, Xsun, gdm).