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HP-UX System Administration

This system administration course prepares students for the fundamental day-to-day tasks of managing an HP-UX 11i system. Students learn how to boot the system, install the operating system, manage logical volumes, build the kernel, and create device files. The course continues with managing user accounts, backup, Ignite-UX and recovery, and process monitoring and performance.

Throughout the course, the command line manual process is detailed, and supplemented by examples using SAM. Other HP-specific products such as SD-UX (Software Distributor) will be introduced and used.

 
Who Should Attend
Users or system administrators new to HP-UX 11i system administration.
 
Prerequisites
Introduction to UNIX or equivalent experience. MindIQ prerequisite courses include TP100 and HP150.
 
Features of this Course
Hands-on lab exercises reinforce concepts to promote understanding through doing.
 
Benefits of Attending this Class

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:

  • Boot an HP-UX system and use BCH and MP commands
  • Install, upgrade and patch HP-UX operating system software
  • Create, mirror, and extend logical volumes
  • Build a kernel
  • Create an execution script for startup
  • Manage user accounts
  • Perform device and file system management tasks
  • Use backup commands
  • Monitor and control processes
 
Course Contents

Preface/Introduction

Overview/Background Expected
Common command review
cat, echo, pwd, ls, more or less, file, *sh
Common shells in system administration review
Bourne, Korn, C and Bash
CDE and Gnome desktop review
GUI administration

System Essentials

Startup
Basic startup
/etc/init
runlevels
rc scripts
Shutdown
shutdown vs. reboot and halt
Administration Tools:
SAM vs. Command line
Editors
GUI text editors
vi is still your friend
Navigation
GUI and text use of SAM

User Management

Adding a new user
Password
Home Directory
Profile
Deleting a User
Deactivating an Account
Change password
Change shell
Archiving
To removable media
Make on-line read-only
Wait, then remove

Permissions for Users and Groups and Others

Authorization
File Protection and Ownership
Setting special file permissions
Setting default creation permissions
Guidelines
Tools and tips
Advanced permissions
ACL and ACL management

File Types

Regular files
Directories
Character special files
Block special files
The HP-UX /dev directory
Major/Minor device numbers
ioscan command
Creating device files
mksf command
Symbolic links
Named pipes
Sockets

Filesystems

Disk Geometry: from blocks to partitions
Partitions and directories - mount
Higher-level abstraction: LVM
Journaling filesystems
Advanced filesystem features
Demo lab – create filesystem

Filesystem Care and Feeding

Df and bdf
Du
Find
Files that grow
Filesystem integrity
Data and Meta-Data
Tripwire and Aide

Initial Setup

Computer Roles
Desktop
Server
Hardware
Central Unit
Power and Cooling
Keyboard/Mouse
Monitor
ASCII Terminal (headless)
KVM switch
Unconfiguring a system prior to movement
sys-unconfig
Software Install
CDROM/DVD

Automatic Jobs

Cron
Permissions
Authorization
At
Permission
Authorization

Backup and Restore

Media
Tape
Optical
CD-ROM
DVD
Magnetic Disk
Firewire
Hot-Plug
Logical – directory structure
tar
cpio
Physical – partition structure
Dd
Dump/restore
Fbackup
Consistent: Point in Time/Snapshot/Quiescent
Disaster recovery - bootable backups
Demo lab of recovery

Printing

Printer Types
Imaging: Ink Jet/Laser
Language: Postscript/PCL
Interface: Serial/Parallel/Network/USB
Adding Printers
Managing Print Queues

Basic Networking

TCP/IP Network Basics
Ipv4 vs Ipv6
NAT
Hardware Connectivity
Coax
UTP
WiFi
Basic NIC configuration
DHCP vs. manual
NIC names
Address
Netmask
Default Route
Name Service
nsswitch.conf
/etc/hosts
DNS
Firewalls and security
tcp wrappers

Additional administrative tasks

Basic Performance Tuning
Summary of common tools
vmstat, iostat, netstat, swapon, etc.
Baseline performance documentation
Kernel configuration
Loading kernel modules
Dynamic changes
Static (kernel rebuild) changes
Managing software licenses:
Vendor licenses
3rd party software licenses
X Windows – network login
Software Updates
Software packages and depots
swinstall
Application Software
Helpful topics:
NTP
Ssh
rsync
Aeleen Frisch’s (author of Essential System Administration) top five:
Amanda
LDAP
GRUB
Nagios
Cfengine
Closed-source multi-platform tools
Openview
Tivoli

Other Sysadmin Tasks (see the Practice of System and Network Administration)

Handling User Requests
Trouble Ticket System
Change/Configuration Management
Test/Staging/Production
Monitoring/Paging

From Client to Server – Network Services

Workgroup
Printing
File Sharing
SMB Services
Enterprise
e-mail
web server
DNS
Streaming Media
Directory Services – LDAP

(Appendix) Other Helps:

Man Pages
Vendor-Specific Documentation
Web Resources
Usenix
SAGE
O’Reilly Associates Books
Users’ Groups

 
 

 
 
Disclaimer: HP-UX, Tru64 Unix, OpenVMS and are registered trademarks of the Hewlett Packard Corporation. Solaris and Java are registered trademarks of Sun Corporation. AIX is a registered trademark of IBM. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation.