Solaris 8 System Administration II

Course Overview

The Solaris 8 OS System Administration II course provides students with the skills necessary to administer Sun systems running the Solaris 8 Operating System in a network environment. Students are taught how to maintain Sun systems, configure and troubleshoot the NFS, and configure the Network Information System (NIS) environment.

Audience

Students who can benefit from this course are technical and application support staff responsible for administering a network server running the Solaris Operating System.

Skills Gained

Upon Completion Of This Course, Students Should Be Able To:

• Identify and describe the files and commands used to control and monitor access to various machines in a network environment
• Set up event logging
• Administer disks using a volume-management utility
• Redirect all core dumps to a single coredump directory
• Configure NFS to support the client-server environment
• Use the automounter
• Set up and configure CacheFS file systems
• Use Solaris Management Console to perform administrative system management duties
• Set up a role
• Describe the various naming services: Domain Name System (DNS), NIS, Network Information System Plus (NIS+), and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
• Configure and administer the NIS environment
• Use JumpStart software to automate a Solaris Operating Environment installation

Prerequisites

To succeed fully in this course, students should be able to:

• Install the Solaris Operating System on a standalone system, including update patches
• Understand and perform booting and shutdown procedures and options
• Log in to a UNIX system and change passwords, add users, and set up file permissions
• Make directories, set up partitions, and manage files
• Use the Solaris Operating System device naming conventions to configure and name devices

Course Outline

Module 1 - Introducing the Client-Server Relationship

• Describe the network capabilities of the Solaris 8 Operating System in terms of a client-server relationship
• List and define at least two types of servers used in the Solaris 8 network environment
• Describe the Sun Ray Appliance client-server relationship

Module 2 - Introducing the Solaris Network Environment

• Define the function of each layer within the seven-layer Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model and the five-layer Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP) model
• Describe the contents of various network control files
• Construct command strings to perform basic monitoring operations on an active network
• Start and stop network services using the command line

Module 3 - Solaris Operating System syslog()

• Configure syslog() message routing
• Modify log message priority and severity
• Determine the effect of the LOGHOST variable on syslog()
• Describe the two methods of starting the syslogd daemon
• Add entries to a system log using the logger utility

Module 4 - Introducing Disk Management

• List the three utilities used to create, check, and mount file systems
• Identify the physical path name differences between physical disks and virtual disks
• List the potential advantages between Solstice DiskSuite and Sun StorEdge Volume Manager software
• List the main advantages of using a concatenated virtual file system
• List the main advantage of using a striped virtual file system
• Install the Solstice DiskSuite applications
• Use the Solstice DiskSuite application to dynamically grow a file system

Module 5 - Solaris Pseudo File Systems and Swap Space

• Define the Solaris pseudo file system types
• Describe the relationship between system processes and the /proc directory
• Describe how the tmpfs file system improves performance
• Define an fdfs file system entry in the /etc/vfstab file
• Use the dumpadm program to display and configure system dump behavior
• Use the coreadm command to display and configure core file behavior
• Create and add a swap file or partition to the swap space

Module 6 - NFS

• Describe the functions of an NFS server and an NFS client
• Make resources available and unavailable for mounting
• Edit the /etc/dfs/dfstab file on an NFS server to enable automatic sharing of resources
• Display a server's available resources for mounting
• Mount a resource from another system
• Edit the /etc/vfstab file to mount resources on an NFS client
• Describe the function of these commands: mountall, umountall, shareall, and unshareall
• Describe and configure NFS logging

Module 7 - AutoFS

• List the benefits of using the automount utility
• Describe the purpose of each of the types of automount maps
• Configure the auto_master map to specify which direct, indirect, and special maps the automountd daemon reads
• Create the auto_direct map with the full path names and mount options for automatically mounting remote file resources
• Modify the auto_home map as an example of an indirect map providing a consistent view of home directories across the network, regardless of where the user is logged in

Module 8 - CacheFS File Systems

• Describe the CacheFS file system
• Use the appropriate commands to configure the CacheFS file system
• Use the appropriate commands to check the status and consistency of the CacheFS file system
• Set up CacheFS file system logging
• Describe the steps necessary to perform a check of the CacheFS file system
• List the steps to dismantle and delete a CacheFS file system

Module 9 - Solaris Management Console

• List the benefits of the Solaris Management Console and the SMC Toolbox Editor
• Configure access to multiple toolbox servers from the home server
• Open alternate toolboxes for Solaris Management Console access
• Add tools to the server toolbox application categories
• Insert a tool folder to contains legacy tools
• Embed legacy applications within the Solaris Management Console, to include command-line interfaces (CLIs), X applications (XAPPs), and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) Universal Resource Locators (URLs)
• Demonstrate the usage of the Solaris Management Applications (SMApps)

Module 10 - Role-Based Access Control

• Build an association between users and roles with authorizations and execution profiles
• Define authorizations and their attributes
• List a profile's assigned authorizations
• Define the privileged operations that are assigned to a profile
• Identify help files that are associated with profiles and authorizations
• Configure a user's execution profile to allow access to a specified subset of system administrator privileges

Module 11 - Naming Services Overview

• Describe the concept of a naming service
• List the available naming services
• Compare the functionality of naming services
• Describe the name service switch process, and determine which configuration is appropriate for your network

Module 12 - Network Information Service

• Describe the Network Information Service (NIS) components: master server, slave server, and client, and the NIS processes
• Configure an NIS master, slave, and client
• List the steps to add a new NIS map
• Use commands to update and propagate an NIS map

Module 13 - JumpStart - Automatic Installation

• List the main components for setting up a JumpStart network installation
• Set up boot services on a subnet using the setup_install_server script
• Describe the JumpStart client boot sequence
• List the files necessary to support JumpStart boot operations
• Describe the use of the sysidcfg file with and without name service support
• Set up a JumpStart installation server to provide the Solaris 8 Operating System with the software necessary to install clients
• Describe the use of the add_to_install_server and modify_install_server scripts
• Add install clients to the install servers and boot servers
• Create a configuration server with customized rules and class files
• Use the pfinstall command to test configuration and installation files
• Boot install clients
• Configure NIS name service support for the JumpStart program

Module 14 - Solaris Administrator Workshop

• Install the Solaris 8 Operating System using Solaris Web Start software
• Partition a disk to a specified format
• Build new file systems and mount file systems
• Configure the automounter
• Set up an NIS domain
• Create additional swap space
• Set up an NFS mount
• Configure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to allow a non-root user to shut down a system
• Create a local or a network printer

Follow On Courses

Before:

• Solaris 8 System Administration I (SA-238)
• Shell Programming for System Administrators (SA-245)

After:

• Solaris 8 TCP/IP Network Admin (SA-389)
• Solaris System Performance Management (SA-400)