Course Description

IRIX System Administration will teach a basic Unix user the skills needed to administer their own Unix infrastructure. The student will learn how to build & install IRIX, perform system backups, allocate storage, and diagnose system problems. IRIX Networking skills will also be covered in detail so the student will feel comfortable configuring NFS, Mail, and other critical services. This is a perfect course for anyone who can say they know "some" IRIX, but need to be functional as an administrator. At PARSEC our trainers consult and our consultants train. Thus, you’ll be taught by an experienced administrator, not a person who only knows what’s in the book.

Who Should Attend

• Experienced Unix users wishing to learn administration skills
• System Admins who have never used IRIX, but know other Unix variants
• Developers who need in-depth knowledge of IRIX system mechanics

Prerequisites

Students should have a fundamental understanding of Unix. They should be able to operate as a user in their environment, use the vi editor, understand file operations, and have at least a cursory familiarity using terminal emulation programs.

Benefits of Attending this Class

Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to:

• Install IRIX and configure installation options
• Setup network services such as Mail, NFS, FTP, and more
• Administer users and groups under IRIX
• Create NFS shares and use them on client machines
• Use permissions and ACLs to control file & directory access
• Learn advanced usage for tools like Sed and Awk using regular expressions
• Automate operations using shell scripts
• Take advantage of specialized tools to administer IRIX

Course Contents

Introduction

• The Function of an Admin
• IRIX Features for Admins
• Using System Manager
• IRIX Firmware Basics

File Systems

• XFS and CXFS Filesystems
• CD and DVD Filesystems
• Creating Filesystems
• Filesystem Troubleshooting

Administering the XVM Volume Manager

• XVM Concepts and Limits
• Working with Physical Volumes
• Managing Sub-Volumes
• Stripes, Mirrors, and Concat Layout
• Advanced XVM Operations and Features

Startup and Shutdown

• The IRIX Boot Process
• Single User Mode
• Shutting down IRIX
• Troubleshooting Boot Problems

User Administration

• Adding and Dropping IRIX Users
• Modifying User Characteristics
• Advanced User Management Tools

Process Control for Admins

• Viewing Process Attributes
• Altering Process Priorities
• Stopping Processes

Network Services

• Configuring Network Interfaces
• Network Diagnostics
• Secure Shell Configuration
• Setting up Services using inetd
• Configuring Sendmail
• Setting Up an NFS Server
• Configuring Automount
• Network Access Control Options

Managing Printing in IRIX

• Creating Print Queues
• Administering Network Printers
• Removing Print Jobs & Queues

System Security

• Unix Permissions Review
• Implementing Filesystem ACLs
• Password Security Settings
• Applying Patches
• Detecting a Security Breach
• IRIX System Hardening

Performance Monitoring & Capacity Planning

• Gathering Data with Unix Monitoring Tools
• Employing gr_osview and other X11 tools
• Using vmstat, iostat, and sar
• Planning for Upgrades

Backup & Restore

• Creating Basic Backups with tar and cpio
• Creating Bootable Media
• System and File Restore Operations

System Tuning

• Using IRIX tuning tools
• Tuning Methods

Fixing Hardware Issues

• Syslog Configuration
• Using and Interpreting hinv
• Firmware Topics
• Using Diagnostics
• Enhancing Error Reporting