SuperLinux Encyclopedia - System Administration

Network administration topics are supposed to be intermixed here with other systems administration, but some of it may have found a better (?) home in Networking. Similar statements could probably be made about other topics, such as Backup.

General Subject:

• Linux System Administrator's Guide   An LDP product.
• Linux SAG home page
• The Linux Network Administrators' Guide  An LDP product.
• Basic System Administration
• Clock Setting
• Network and systems administration  "A young lady's illustrated primer".
• Process Accounting mini-HOWTO  How to set up process accounting.
• SAGE  SAs organization.
• UGU - Unix Guru Universe  Info site for Unix SAs; with beginner's section.
• User Administration  "How to successfully manage your users." LJ Dec'97
• Stokely Consulting's Unix Sysadm Resources
• Unix Workstation System Administration Education Certification  At Indiana U.

Misc Topics:

• Communicating with users (excluding email):
  • mesg - Controls access to your "terminal" by others using write-type programs.
  • write - Send a message to another user on a "terminal" (VC or xterm).
  • wall - Send a message to everybody's "terminal".
  • talk - Engage in two-way talk with another "terminal" user.
  • xmessage -display host:display.screen "message" - to pop up a window with a message.
  • Protocol: A "-o" line or at end of line means "over - your turn". A "oo" line or at end of line means "over and out". (?? "roger" means "I understand"; "wilco" means "Will Comply or Co-operate" ??)
  • shutdown - This also can send a message to "terminals", warning of an impending shutdown or shutdown cancellation.

Installation of SW:

• Also see Packaging
• Keeping Scripts for SW Installs  Ext2 emag article.
• SmartInst  A wrapper of the "install" program. Keeps track of what most "make install" commands install, for later querying, etc.
• instmon - Run this before and after an install to keep track of what changed. Keeps database files.

Configuration (also see specific topics):

• Configuration files
• Config HOWTO  How to fine-tune and customize your Linux system.
• dotfiles.com  Database of configuration files. Upload yours.
• Visual Bell mini-HOWTO  How to disable audible bells, and enable visual bells.
• Managing your wandering system configuration files  Jul'95 LG
• Colorizing /etc/issue  Mar'96 LG
• So what is this MOTD thingy...  Jul'95 LG
• Hardware Charting  Nice page of HW (IRQ,DMA) info and suggestions for documenting HW.
• System Information Retrieval  "Collect your system configuration files and store them on a separate machine."; LJ Dec'97

Misc Tools:

• Projects to ease SA in a global way:
  • ACAP -- Application Configuration Access Protocol  RFC 2244; "designed to support remote storage and access of program option, configuration and preference information"
  • ACUA  "designed to facilitate the administration of user accounts and the enforcement of access restrictions on a Linux system. ACUA is most often used on systems that host modem pools"
  • AGX-UserProfile  A control-panel-driven set of scripts for sys.admin.
  • Autoconf:
    • Autoconf Tutorial  At lanl.gov.
    • Learning Autoconf and Automake  Tutorial at washingtion.edu.
  • cfengine  "configuration engine"; "a very high level language for building expert systems which administrate and configure large computer networks"
  • COAS - Caldera Open Administration System  Project.
  • The Dotfile Generator:
    • the dotfile generator  Makes config files for several common Linux tools.
    • The Dotfile Generator  May'97 LG
  • Ganymede  "portable and customizable directory management system"
  • Linuxconf:
    • Linuxconf project  Looks good.
    • Linuxconf FAQ
    • RH 5.1 linuxconf FAQ 
    • Jonathan's Unofficial Linuxconf on Redhat 5.1 FAQ
• Other lists:
  • Freshmeat: Administration
  • Freshmeat: OS
  • Freshmeat: System
  • Freshmeat: Utilities
  • Freshmeat: Administration
  • Freshmeat: System
• Freshmeat: Batch Processing
• Binstats: Finding Unusable Binaries  Finds programs with missing libraries and unused libraries. Sep'96 LG
• BuildKernel  Automates the building of a Linux kernel.
• gpasman  Stores passwords (encrypted) for those with too many to remember.
• Graphical System Management  Section about tools at linas.org; with links.
• gtkfind  GUI version of "find" command.
• Log files:
  • Freshmeat: Log Analyzers
  • Log Scanner  Scans log files.
  • Xlogmaster  Log file (incl. /proc/*) monitoring and control.
  • Logging with Inittab  Nov'95 LG
  • Programs:
    • faillog - Examine faillog and set login failure limits.
    • lastlog - Examine lastlog file.
    • logger - Make entries in the system log.
    • logrotate - Rotates, compresses, and mails system logs.
    • syslogd - The logging daemon. Has a man page.
    • tmpwatch - Removes files which haven't been accessed for a period of time (by Red Hat)
    • Others: klogd, sysklogd, updwtmp, logwtmp
  • Files:
    • /etc/syslog.conf - Controls logging by syslogd. Has a man page.
    • /var/log/utmp, wtmp - Login logging info. Not for humans.
    • Others too numerous to mention.
• Mounting "devices":
  • Mounting your cdrom and floppies the easy way  Jul'95 LG
• SFI Director  "tool for managing distributed, hetergeneous UNIX Systems. Its functionality includes System Configuration, Application Distribution, NIS & NIS+ Management, and User Management and Dynamic System Documentation." In use at several sites of 50-200 computers.
• System Monitoring:
  • Also see Network monitoring.
  • Freshmeat: Monitoring (text)
  • Freshmeat: Monitoring (X11)
  • Gathering Usage Stats  Feb'98 LG
  • bgcheck  process monitor; can limit number of BG process per user.
  • Big Brother  "Systems and Network Monitor"; web browser UI.
  • LoadMeter
  • MAT - Monitoring and Administration Tool (FTP dir)  "an enterprise monitoring and administration tool"; (file is mat-*).
  • MON  "resource monitoring system, which can be used to monitor network service availability, server problems, environmental conditions such as the temperature in a room, or any number of things"
  • Gmemusage: A Distinctive Memory Monitor   Feb'98 LG
  • ProcMeter:
    • ProcMeter  Modular, customizable in real-time.
    • ProcMeter review  Aug'96 LG
  • QPS, A New Qt-Based Monitor  Jul'97 LG
  • top: Shows list of processes sorted by CPU usage; with lots of other info. You have it. See the man page.
  • whowatch  "a ncurses who-like utility which displays informations about the users currently on the machine in real time"
  • Xosview  "displays many system related stats such as cpu usage, memory usage, swap usage, network usage, interrupt activity, serial activity, and load average inside of an X Window."
  • Xmemuse review  Aug'96 LG
  • xps  "display the Unix processes as a tree or forest"; Minimizes CPU usage when not visable.
  • yamm  "system monitor/tool" similar in purpose to top
  • xload - Comes with most Linuxes.
  • XLoadtime  New-and-improved "xload".
  • Disk Usage:
    • DiskHog: Using Perl and the WWW to Track System Disk Usage  Jun'97 LG
    • xdiskusage  GUI shows what dirs are using most disk.
    • Quota mini-HOWTO  How to set up disk quotas.
    • SLEW: Space Low Early Warning  Jan'97 LG
• KIM  "interactive (ncurses) user friendly process manager"
• psntools  "a set of utilities specifically designed for easily administering large numbers of user accounts"
• PIKT - Problem Informant/Killer Tool  "a set of programs, scripts, data and configuration files for administering networked workstations"
• Webmin  Allows much sys admin via web browser; mostly free; looks good.
• which  Home of the classic "which" program.
• Misc Misc (stuff to be moved):
  • usernetctl: Allow a user to manipulate a network interface, if permitted.
  • traceroute: Show the route packets take to a remote host.
  • newgrp: Temporarily switch to new user group.

Optimization and Tuning of the OS:

• Also see "High-Performance" for "Load Balancing".
• Benchmarks
• irqtune  IRQ Tuning; claimed to fix slower-than-expected modem transfers.
• Practical Performance Prediction  "performance analysis and planning of your UNIX systems"
• Network parameters  Info on some of the configurable network parameters.
• Memory Tuning
• Fix for "File Table Overflow" error message, errno 23 (ENFILE): (NOTE: I don't know if one can simply change this one thing. I just copied part of a question off Usenet.) NR_FILE = 1024 in /usr/src/linux/include/linux/fs.h; increasing it and rebuildin the kernel might fix the problem.
• Stuff that COULD be tuned in kernel
• There are many psuedo-files under /proc (mostly under /proc/sys) that can be written to (by root) to change kernel parameters. These have been known to change and I'm not sure where, if anywhere, they are documented. (The kernel change documents would be a good place to start looking.) Many of the files under /proc are bound to be useful only when read and are not meant to be written to. Judging from some of the names, it's not clear that the R/W permissions are a good guide as to which files may be written to and which may not.
• Other:
  cytune program for tuning Cyclades driver parameters.
  tune2fs program for tuning the filesystems.
  tunelp program for tuning the "lp" (printer) ports.
  xvidtune program for tuning the X server.

End of page.