UNIX System Administration Handbook - Evi Nemeth [440]
3. Yes, the Federated Naming Service. It’s the Solaris scheme for managing naming services such as /etc/hosts, DNS, NIS, NIS+, and LDAP. Try not to be intimidated by this acronym; individual services behave in fairly standard ways.
4. The convention of naming printers with a “-lw” ending is a historical remnant from the original Apple LaserWriter. You might consider developing your own naming system.
5. Why a SysV-based printing system like Solaris uses the term filters instead of interfaces escapes us.
6. Perhaps the UNIX standards committee was on vacation the day that LPRng came up for review...
24 Maintenance and Environment
Over the years, UNIX has served as the underlying operating system for a wide range of hardware platforms. Once upon a time, dozens of programmers shared a single system, such as the now-famous VAX. In that era, a tremendous amount of effort went into maintaining equipment and providing a nurturing environment for it. Seasoned UNIX system administrators often knew as much about ethylene glycol cooling systems as they did about UNIX account management.
The 90s brought an influx of desktop workstations and a move away from “big iron” computing platforms. For a while, it appeared that the days of the central machine room might be numbered. Recently, the client/server computing paradigm has resulted in an increased dependence on server platforms running an operating system that provides flexibility, reliability, security, and performance. UNIX has moved in to fill that marketplace, and as a result, herds of UNIX servers have moved into those once-abandoned machine rooms (though in many cases, the machine rooms themselves have been downsized). Providing a healthy, well-maintained environment for these servers is as important as ever.
This chapter offers some hints on handling and maintaining hardware, as well as on giving it a good home. Some of these suggestions will most likely void your manufacturers’ warranties. Follow our advice at your own risk.
24.1 MAINTENANCE BASICS
Hardware maintenance was traditionally something that was covered by an expensive annual maintenance contract. While such contracts are still readily available, today it is often possible to use the “fly by the seat of your pants” approach to hardware maintenance. Maintenance contract rates are typically 10%–12% of a component’s list price per year. If you can afford such a contract from the manufacturer or a reputable third-party vendor, by all means use it. If not, you can soon develop a sense of the ways in which machines fail and create a maintenance plan of your own.
If you keep a log book, a quick glance at the records for the last six to twelve months will give you an idea of your failure rates. It’s a good idea to keep a careful record of failures and replacements so that you can accurately evaluate the different maintenance options available to you. Some parts fail more often than anticipated by the manufacturer, so contracts are sometimes not only convenient but also financially advantageous. But remember, there comes a time when all hardware should be replaced, not maintained. Know your hardware and let it go gracefully when its time has finally come. You might even consider donating outdated equipment to your local university or school. For them, equipment is rarely too old to be useful.
See page 812 for more information about retiring hardware.
Desktop workstations usually contain wave-soldered motherboards with no user-serviceable parts inside. These are cheap and very reliable. However, when something does go wrong, often you must replace the whole motherboard.
The best maintenance scheme is probably the “selective warranty” strategy. Disk drive manufacturers offer warranties up to five years long, and some memory modules even come with a lifetime guarantee. Many workstations have at least a year of