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Part I and II
Solaris 7
Administrator
Certification
T R A I N I N G G U I D E
Bill Calkins
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Publisher David Dwyer
Associate Publisher Al Valvano
Managing Editor Gina Brown
Product Marketing Manager Stephanie Layton
Publicity Manager Susan Petro
Acquisitions Editor Stacey Beheler
Development Editor Shannon Leuma
Project Editor Caroline Wise
Copy Editor Gayle Johnson
Technical Editors John Philcox
Grant Carstensen
Indexer Cheryl Lenser
Manufacturing Coordinator Chris Moos
Cover Designer Aren Howell
Software Development Specialist Michael Hunter
Proofreader Debra Neel
Composition Ron Wise
Copyright 2001 by New Riders
FIRST EDITION:October
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic or
mechanical,including photocopying,recording,or by any information storage and retrieval system,without written permis-
sion from the publisher,except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
International Standard Book Number:1-57870-249-6
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:00-101486
05 04 03 02 01 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Interpretation of the printing code:The rightmost double-digit number is the year of the book’s printing; the rightmost single-
digit number is the number of the book’s printing. For example,the printing code 00-1 shows that the first printing of the
book occurred in 2001.
Composed in Times New Roman and MCPdigital by New Riders
Printed in the United States of America
Trademarks
All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. New
Riders cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the
validity of any trademark or service mark. Solaris is a trademark of Sun Microsystems,Inc.
Warning and Disclaimer
This book is designed to provide information about Solaris 7 Administrator Certification. Every effort has been made to make
this book as complete and as accurate as possible,but no warranty or fitness is implied. The information is provided on an as-is
basis. The authors and New Riders shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss
or damages arising from the information contained in this book or from the use of the discs or programs that may accompany it.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
B
ill Calkinsis owner and president of Pyramid Consulting,a computer
training and consulting firm located near Grand Rapids,Michigan,
specializing in the implementation and administration of UNIX and
Windows NT-based systems. He has more than 17 years of experience in
UNIX system administration and consulting at more than 90 different companies. He has
also worked as an instructor in both corporate and university settings,and he has helped
hundreds of administrators get their certification. His experience covers all varieties of
UNIX,including Solaris,HP-UX,AIX,IRIX,Linux,and SCO. When he’s not working in
the field,he conducts training and educational seminars on various system administration
topics. He draws on his many years of experience in system administration and training to
provide a unique approach to UNIX training.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I
would like to thank John Philcox and Grant Carstensen,who did a great
job reviewing the technical content of this book from front to back. I met
these guys through emails they sent with suggestions from the Solaris 2.6
series. They were so thorough that we thought they would make perfect
technical editors on this follow-up book. Their combined experience provided valuable contri-
butions throughout this book. John and Grant,I thank you for your dedication to this project.
Thank you also to Shannon Leuma,Laurie Petrycki,Stacey Beheler,and the rest of the
team at New Riders for their assistance in getting this book to print.
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ABOUT THE TECHNICAL REVIEWERS
T
hese reviewers contributed their considerable hands-on expertise to the
entire development process of this book. As this book was being written,
these dedicated professionals reviewed all the material for technical con-
tent,organization,and flow. Their feedback was critical to ensuring that
this book fits our readers’needs for the highest-quality technical information.
John Philcoxis owner and director of Mobile Ventures Limited,a computer consultancy
based in Cheltenham,Gloucestershire,in the United Kingdom,specializing in UNIX systems
and networks. He has more than 20 years of experience in IT—14 of those with the SunOS
and Solaris environments. He is a certified Solaris system administrator as well as a member
of the Institution of Analysts and Programmers and the Institute of Management of
Information Systems. He has worked in a number of large multivendor networks in both the
public and private sectors. He was technical editor on Solaris 2.6 Administrator Certification
Training Guide,Part IIand is currently authoring his own book on Solaris system manage-
ment with New Riders.
Grant Carstensenprovided technical insight from an end-user’s perspective for this project.
He is a Senior Systems Administrator with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC),a major
provider of information technology services based in El Segundo,California. He has more
than 15 years of experience in IT—seven of those with different flavors of UNIX. For the
last four years he has focused on systems and network administration of predominantly
SunOS and Solaris environments. His recent projects include being part of a team of admin-
istrators who rolled out Solaris 7 to more than 300 workstations. He subsequently assisted
the team responsible for upgrading more than 4,000 systems to Solaris 8. He has a bachelor
of science degree in Business Administration/Information Systems,and he has certifications
in Microcomputer Repair and Computer Programming (COBOL).
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DEDICATION
To my children,William,Nicole,Neal,and Dean. May you use your talents to pursue all
your ambitions,whatever they may be.
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CONTENTS AT A GLANCE
SECTION I PART I
Chapter 1 System Startup 10
Chapter 2 OpenBoot 32
Chapter 3 Installing the Solaris 7 Software 70
Chapter 4 Introduction to File Systems 90
Chapter 5 Solaris File Systems: Advanced Topics 120
Chapter 6 System Security 148
Chapter 7 Setting Up User Accounts 178
Chapter 8 Software Package Administration 194
Chapter 9 Writing Shell Scripts and Programs 206
Chapter 10 The LP Print Service 222
Chapter 11 Process Control 248
Chapter 12 Backup and Recovery 272
SECTION II PART II
Chapter 13 Device Administration 298
Chapter 14 Installing a Server 320
Chapter 15 JumpStart 354
Chapter 16 Device Configuration and Naming 394
Chapter 17 Networking 416
Chapter 18 The NFS Environment 436
Chapter 19 Name Services 474
Chapter 20 Solstice AdminSuite 502
Chapter 21 Administration and Configuration of the CDE 534
SECTION III APPENDIXES
Appendix A The History of UNIX 556
Appendix B The Fundamentals of Client/Server Computing 564
Appendix C Overview of SCSI Devices 568
Appendix D On the Web 574
Appendix E Web Start 578
Index 594
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECTION I PART I 8
Chapter 1 System Startup 10
Booting the System 11
Power On 11
Boot PROM and Program Phases 12
Kernel Initialization Phase 12
The boot Command 13
System Run States 16
Swapper 18
INIT Phase 18
rc Scripts 20
Using the Run Control Scripts to Stop or Start Services 23
Adding Scripts to the Run Control Directories 23
System Shutdown 25
Commands to Shut Down the System 26
/usr/sbin/shutdown 26
/sbin/init 27
/usr/sbin/halt 28
/usr/sbin/reboot 28
/usr/sbin/poweroff 29
Stopping the System for Recovery Purposes 29
Turning Off the Power 30
Summary 30
Chapter 2 OpenBoot 32
OpenBoot Environment 33
Accessing the OpenBoot Environment 33
OpenBoot Firmware Tasks 34
OpenBoot Architecture 34
OpenBoot Interface 35
The Restricted Monitor 36
The Forth Monitor 36
Getting Help in OpenBoot 37
PROM Full Device Names 38
OpenBoot Device Aliases 41
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OpenBoot Non-Volatile RAM (NVRAM) 43
OpenBoot Security 48
OpenBoot Diagnostics 50
Input and Output Control 53
boot 54
Kernel 59
Summary 68
Chapter 3 Installing the Solaris 7 Software 70
Requirements and Preparation for Installing the Solaris 7 Software 71
Unsupported Frame Buffers 73
Unsupported Sun4c Architectures 73
Minimum System Requirements 74
Software Terminology:Packages,Clusters,and Configuration Clusters 74
Software Package 74
Software Clusters and Configuration Clusters 74
System Configuration to be Installed 77
Server 77
Client 77
Diskless Client 78
JavaStation Client 78
Solstice AutoClient 78
Stand-Alone 79
Performance of Clients Relative to a Stand-Alone System 80
Disk Storage Systems 80
Basic Considerations for Planning Partition Sizes 82
Partition Arrangements on Multiple Disks 83
Device Drivers 83
Physical Device Name 84
Instance Name 84
Logical Device Name 85
Block and Character Device Files 86
Methods of Installing the Solaris 7 Software 87
Interactive 87
Custom JumpStart 87
Web Start 88
Installing Over the Network 88
The Solaris Installation Process 88
Summary 89
