What This Guide Contains

What This Guide Contains

This guide has been prepared with the understanding that most readers will view it with the InSight online viewing system and use it as a reference work. It is not necessary to read this Guide in a linear fashion. All information relevant to a given topic will be presented in the section of the Guide devoted to the topic. There is no prerequisite reading or knowledge other than that stated in this introductory chapter.

The IRIX Admin: System Configuration and Operation guide contains the following chapters:

Chapter 1, "Introduction To System Configuration and Operation": Provides an overview of the guide, the audience expectations and assumptions, and the tasks expected of a system administrator. It describes the various tools available to the administrator and the various pieces of the administration documentation.
Chapter 2, "Making the Most of IRIX": Describes IRIX features that are useful for administrators and not common with all operating environments.
Chapter 3, "System Startup and Shutdown": Provides short instructions on booting up and shutting down your system.
Chapter 4, "Configuring The IRIX Operating System": Describes the tasks and processes necessary to configure a new or changing system.
Chapter 5, "Configuring User Accounts and Managing User Issues": Describes the processes of adding and deleting user accounts, user groups, manipulating the user's environment, and communicating with users.
Chapter 6, "Configuring Disk and Swap Space": Describes simple disk space management. Procedures for checking disk space and establishing user disk usage quotas are described, along with less intrusive strategies for maintaining reasonable disk usage. Also, techniques for managing system swap space are provided. This chapter does not describe the process for adding an additional disk or creating and maintaining file systems. Those topics are covered in the IRIX Admin: Disks and Filesystems guide.
Chapter 7, "Managing User Processes": Describes how to monitor user's CPU usage, set process priority, and terminate processes.
Chapter 8, "Managing cadmin": Describes the cadmin object system of system administration utilities. The cadmin system provides utilities to access media and other physical resources on the local system and other systems on the local area network.
Chapter 9, "Maintaining the File Alteration Monitor": Provides information about the famd alteration monitor daemon. This program provides information to applications concerning changes to files used simultaneously by several programs.
Chapter 10, "Using The Command (PROM) Monitor": Describes the boot-level utilities provided to configure and test your system. It describes the boot environment of the workstation and each of the Command Monitor commands.
Chapter 11, "System Performance Tuning": Describes how to analyze system performance and adjust system parameters to influence system performance.
Appendix A, "IRIX Kernel Tunable Parameters": Describes the various tunable parameters used in system performance tuning.
Appendix B, "Troubleshooting System Configuration Using System Error Messages": Provides some troubleshooting pointers related to common system error messages.
Appendix C, "IRIX Directories and Files": Provides a list of the directories and files that are important in IRIX administration.
Appendix D, "Encapsulated PostScript File v.3.0 vs. PostScript File Format": Describes two common PostScript file formats used on IRIX systems.
Appendix E, "Bibliography and Suggested Reading": Provides a bibliography of commonly available books that are useful for the system administrator.