IRIX® Admin: System Configuration and Operation 007-2859-021 COPYRIGHT © 1992-2003 Silicon Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved; provided portions may be copyright in third parties, as indicated elsewhere herein. No permission is granted to copy, distribute, or create derivative works from the contents of this electronic documentation in any manner, in whole or in part, without the prior written permission of Silicon Graphics, Inc. LIMITED RIGHTS LEGEND The electronic (software) version of this document was developed at private expense; if acquired under an agreement with the USA government or any contractor thereto, it is acquired as "commercial computer software" subject to the provisions of its applicable license agreement, as specified in (a) 48 CFR 12.212 of the FAR; or, if acquired for Department of Defense units, (b) 48 CFR 227-7202 of the DoD FAR Supplement; or sections succeeding thereto. Contractor/manufacturer is Silicon Graphics, Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy 2E, Mountain View, CA 94043-1351. TRADEMARKS AND ATTRIBUTIONS Silicon Graphics, SGI, the SGI logo, Challenge, Indigo, IRIS, IRIX, Octane, Onyx, and Origin are registered trademarks and Crimson, Indigo2, IRIS FailSafe, IRIS InSight, IRIS WorkSpace, IRIX Networker, NUMAlink, Performance Co-Pilot, Power Challenge, Power Indigo2, Power Onyx, and XFS are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Indy is a registered trademark, used under license in the United States and owned by Silicon Graphics, Inc., in other countries worldwide. Centronics is a trademark of GENICOM, L.L. C. Cray is a registered trademark of Cray, Inc. Documenter’s Workbench is a trademark of Novell, Inc. FrameMaker, Illustrator, and PostScript are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems, Incorporated. IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. LFS is a trademark of Platform Computing Corporation. R4000 and R8000 are registered trademarks of MIPS Technologies, Inc. RPC and Sun are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Tektronix is a trademark of Tektronix, Inc. Versatec is a trademark of Versatec Corporation. UNIX is a registered trademarkof the Open Group in the United States and other countries. Xylogics is a trademark of Xylogics, Inc. Cover Design By Sarah Bolles, Sarah Bolles Design, and Dany Galgani, SGI Technical Publications. New Features in This Guide Miscellaneous editing and formatting changes were made for the IRIX 6.5.20 release. 007-2859-021 iii Record of Revision Version Description 007 February 1999 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.3 release. 008 May 1999 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.4 release. 009 July 1999 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.5 release. 010 January 2000 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.7 release. 011 April 2000 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.8 release. 012 July 2000 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.9 release. 013 October 2000 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.10 release. 014 January 2001 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.11 release. 015 April 2001 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.12 release. 016 August 2001 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.13 release. 007-2859-021 v Record of Revision 017 November 2001 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.14 release. 018 February 2002 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.15 release. 019 May 2002 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.16 release. 020 November 2002 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.18 release. 021 May 2003 Incorporates information for the IRIX 6.5.20 release. vi 007-2859-021 Contents New Features in This Guide. iii Record of Revision . v Figures . xxv Tables . xxvii Examples . xxix Procedures . xxxi About This Guide. xxxiii What This Guide Contains . xxxiii Audience for This Guide . xxxv Related Publications . xxxvi Obtaining Publications . xxxvii Additional Resources . .xxxviii IRIX Man Pages . .xxxviii Conventions . xxxix Reader Comments . xl 1. Introduction to System Configuration and Operation . 1 Principles of Good System Administration . 2 Account Passwords . 2 Superuser (root) Account Access Restriction. 2 User Privacy . 3 Password File Check . 3 Hardware Change Check . 3 Software Upgrade Check . 4 System Unavailability Notification . 4 Malicious Activity Policy . 5 007-2859-021 vii Contents System Log Book Maintenance . 6 User Request Service . 7 System Administrator Task List . 7 Administration Tools Overview . 9 2. Making the Most of the IRIX System . 11 IRIX Shells . 11 Using Regular Expressions and Metacharacters . 12 C Shell Shortcuts . 14 tcsh Shell . 17 Bourne Shell . 17 Korn Shell Shortcuts . 17 Displaying Windows on Remote Workstations. 18 Creating a Custom Shell Window . 19 Finding and Manipulating Files . 21 Locating Files with the find Command . 21 Using find and cpio to Locate and Copy Files . 23 sed Editor . 24 Recursive Commands . 24 Task Scheduling with the at, batch, and cron Commands . 25 Scheduling Tasks with the at Command . 25 Scheduling Tasks with the batch Command . 26 Scheduling Tasks with the cron Command . 26 Disabling Login with the /etc/nologin File . 27 Using Mouse Shortcuts . 28 Copying and Pasting Text with the Mouse . 28 Creating a Shell Window with the Mouse . 29 Creating Man Pages . 30 System Monitoring Tools . 32 Saving a Crash Dump with savecore . 32 icrash System Crash Analysis Utility . 33 fru Hardware Error Analysis Tool . 34 sysmon, the System Log Viewer. 36 availmon, the System Availability Monitoring Tool . 37 viii 007-2859-021 Contents Registering availmon . 38 Configuring an availmon Site Log File . 39 Administering availmon . 40 Using availmon with Automatic Reporting . 40 Using availmon at Secure Sites with Internal Report Mailing. 41 Using availmon at Secure Sites without Report Mailing . 41 availmon Reports . 42 Mailing availmon Reports with amsend . 43 Viewing availmon Reports with amreport . 43 3. System Startup, Shutdown, and Run Levels . 45 Starting the System . 45 Shutting Down the System from Multiuser Mode . 46 Shutting Down the System from Single-User Mode . 48 IRIX Operating System Run Levels (System State) . 48 How init Controls the System State . 50 Multiuser State from System Shutdown . 52 init Process: Early Initialization . 52 init Process: Run-Level Preparation . 53 init Process: getty . 54 Changing System Run Levels . 54 Run-level Directories . 54 Modifying Run-level Files . 55 Changing Multiuser Mode to Single-User Mode with the shutdown Command. 56 Powering Off the System Using /etc/inittab . 57 4. Configuring the IRIX Operating System . 59 System Configuration Check . 59 Checking Installed Hardware with hinv . 59 Checking Installed Hardware in /hw . 65 How IP Network Interfaces Are Assigned to Hardware Devices . 65 Checking Installed Software with versions . 66 Checking Installed Graphics Hardware with gfxinfo . 67 Checking Basic System Identification with uname . 68 007-2859-021 ix Contents Getting Printer Status with lpstat . 68 Checking Software Configuration Options with chkconfig . 68 Configuring Software . 71 Setting Software Configuration Options with chkconfig . 71 Setting and Changing System Defaults . .73 Changing the System Display . 73 Changing Processor Assignment on Multiprocessor Systems . 74 Excluding a CPU from Performing Work . 75 Changing the System Name . 76 Setting the Network Address . 77 Setting the Default Printer . 77 Setting the Time Zone . 78 Changing the System Date and Time . .81 Changing File and Directory Access Permission . 82 Directory Permissions . 84 File Permissions . 84 Changing Permissions . 85 Setting Permissions with umask . 86 Access Control Lists (ACLs) and Capabilities . 87 Partitioning Your System . 87 Advantages of Partitioning . 89 Disadvantages of Partitioning . 89 Installing Partitioning Software . 89 Networking Setup between Partitions . .89 Connecting the System Console to the Controller . 91 Partition Setup . 91 mkpart Partition Configuration Command . 91 Partitioning from the PROM. .93 partmgr Partition Configuration Tool. 94 Supported Configurations . 98 Partitioning Guidelines . 99 PCI Hot-Plug Support . 100 PCI Bus Speed Restrictions . 101 x 007-2859-021 Contents Insertion Procedure . .101 Removal and Query Operations . .102 5. System Administration in a Multiuser Environment . .103 User Account Administration . .103 User ID Numbers . .103 Group ID Numbers . .104 Project ID Numbers . .105 Adding User Accounts Using Shell Commands . .106 Editing the /etc/passwd File to Add a User Account . .107 Editing the /etc/group File to Add a User . .109 Setting Up a Home Directory for a New User . .110 Verifying a New Account . .111 Adding User Groups Using Shell Commands. .112 Changing.