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Auditing security

Helping users

How to find files on the Internet

System administration under duress

System Administration Personality Syndrome

Recommended reading

CHAPTER 2 BOOTING AND SHUTTING DOWN

Bootstrapping

Automatic and manual booting

Steps in the boot process

Kernel initialization

Hardware configuration

System processes

Operator intervention (manual boot only)

Execution of startup scripts

Multiuser operation

Booting PCs

How a PC is different from proprietary hardware

The PC boot process

LILO: the Linux boot loader

Configuring LILO

The FreeBSD boot loader

Multibooting on PCs

Multibooting gotchas

LILO multiboot configuration

FreeBSD multiboot configuration

Booting in single-user mode

Solaris single-user mode

HP-UX single-user mode

Linux single-user mode

FreeBSD single-user mode

Startup scripts

SystemV-style startup scripts

Solaris startup scripts

HP-UX startup scripts

Red Hat startup scripts

FreeBSD startup scripts

Rebooting and shutting down

Turning off the power

shutdown: the genteel way to halt the system

halt: a simpler way to shut down

reboot: quick and dirty restart

Sending init a TERM signal

telinit: change init’s run level

Killing init

CHAPTER 3 ROOTLY POWERS

Ownership of files and processes

The superuser

Choosing a root password

Becoming root

su: substitute user identity

sudo: a limited su

Other pseudo-users

daemon: owner of unprivileged system software

bin: owner of system commands

sys: owner of the kernel and memory images

nobody: the generic NFS user

CHAPTER 4 CONTROLLING PROCESSES

Components of a process

PID: process ID number

PPID: parent PID

UID and EUID: real and effective user ID

GID and EGID: real and effective group ID

Niceness

Control terminal

The life cycle of a process

Signals

kill: send signals

Process states

nice and renice: influence scheduling priority

ps: monitor processes

top: monitor processes even better

Runaway processes

CHAPTER 5 THE FILESYSTEM

Pathnames

Mounting and unmounting filesystems

The organization of the file tree

File types

Regular files

Directories

Character and block device files

UNIX domain sockets

Named pipes

Symbolic links

File attributes

The setuid and setgid bits

The sticky bit

The permission bits

Viewing file attributes

FreeBSD bonus flags

chmod: change permissions

chown and chgrp: change ownerships

umask: assign default permissions

CHAPTER 6 ADDING NEW USERS

The /etc/passwd file

Login name

Encrypted password

UID number

Default GID number

GECOS field

Home directory

Login shell

The FreeBSD /etc/master.passwd file

The FreeBSD /etc/login.conf file

The Solaris and Red Hat /etc/shadow file

The /etc/group file

Adding users

Editing the passwd and shadow files

Setting an initial password

Creating the user’s home directory

Copying in the default startup files

Setting the user’s mail home

Editing the /etc/group file

Setting disk quotas

Verifying the new login

Removing users

Disabling logins

Vendor-supplied account management utilities

CHAPTER 7 SERIAL DEVICES

Serial standards

Alternative connectors

The mini DIN-8 variant

The DB-9 variant

The RJ-45 variant

The Yost standard for RJ-45 wiring

Hard and soft carrier

Hardware flow control

Cable length

Serial device files

Software configuration for serial devices

Configuration of hardwired terminals

The login process

The /etc/ttys and /etc/ttytab files

The /etc/ttytype file

The /etc/gettytab file

The /etc/inittab file

The /etc/gettydefs file

Solaris and sacadm

Terminal support: the termcap and terminfo databases

Special characters and the terminal driver

stty: set terminal options

tset: set options automatically

How to unwedge a terminal

Modems

Modulation, error correction, and data compression protocols

Dial-out configuration: