INTRO(8)

NAME
intro - introduction to system maintenance and operation commands

DESCRIPTION

This section contains information related to system bootstrapping, operation and maintenance. It describes all the server processes and daemons that run on the system, as well as standalone (PROM monitor) programs.

An 8V section number means one or more of the following:

•   The man page documents System V behavior only.

•   The man page documents default SunOS behavior, and System V behavior as it differs from the default behavior. These System V differences are presented under SYSTEM V section headers.

•   The man page documents behavior compliant with IEEE Std 1003.1-1988 (POSIX.1).

Disk formatting and labeling is done by format(8S). Bootstrapping of the system is described in boot(8S), openboot(8S) and init(8). The standard set of commands run by the system when it boots is described in rc(8). Related commands include those that check the consistency of file systems, fsck(8); those that mount and unmount file systems, mount(8); add swap devices, swapon(8); force completion of outstanding file system I/O, sync(2); shutdown or reboot a running system shutdown(8), halt(8), and reboot(8); and, set the time on a machine from the time on another machine rdate(8C).

Creation of file systems is discussed in mkfs(8) and newfs(8). File system performance parameters can be adjusted with tunefs(8). File system backups and restores are described in dump(8) and restore(8).

Procedures for adding new users to a system are described in adduser(8), using vipw(8) to lock the password file during editing. panic(8S) which describes what happens when the system crashes, savecore(8) which can be used to analyze system crash dumps. Occasionally useful as adjuncts to the fsck(8) file system repair program are clri(8), dcheck(8), icheck(8), and ncheck(8).

Configuring a new version of the kernel requires using the program config(8); major system bootstraps often require the use of mkproto(8). New devices are added to the /dev directory (once device drivers are configured into the system) using makedev(8) and mknod(8). The installboot(8S) command can be used to install freshly compiled programs. The catman(8) command preformats the on-line manual pages.

Resource accounting is enabled by the accton command, and summarized by sa(8). Login time accounting is performed by ac(8). Disk quotas are managed using quot(8), quotacheck(8), quotaon(8), and repquota(8).

A number of servers and daemon processes are described in this section. The update(8) daemon forces delayed file system I/O to occur and cron(8) runs periodic events (such as removing temporary files from the disk periodically). The syslogd(8) daemon maintains the system error log. The init(8) process is the initial process created when the system boots. It manages the reboot process and creates the initial login prompts on the various system terminals, using getty(8). The Internet super-server inetd(8C) invokes all other internet servers as needed. These servers include the remote shell servers rshd(8C) and rexecd(8C), the remote login server rlogind(8C), the FTP and TELNET daemons ftpd(8C), and telnetd(8C), the TFTP daemon tftpd(8C), and the mail arrival notification daemon comsat(8C). Other network daemons include the `load average/who is logged in' daemon rwhod(8C), the routing daemon routed(8C), and the mail daemon sendmail(8).

If network protocols are being debugged, then the protocol debugging trace program trpt(8C) is often useful. Remote magnetic tape access is provided by rsh and rmt(8C). Remote line printer access is provided by lpd(8), and control over the various print queues is provided by lpc(8). Printer cost-accounting is done through pac(8).

Network host tables may be gotten from the ARPA NIC using gettable(8C) and converted to UNIX-system-usable format using htable(8).

  RPC and NFS daemons

RPC and NFS daemons include:

    portmap
        used by RPC based services.
    ypbind
        used by the Network Information Service (NIS) to locate the NIS server. Note: the Network Information Service (NIS) was formerly known as Sun Yellow Pages (YP). The functionality of the two remains the same; only the name has changed.
    biod
        used by NFS clients to read ahead to, and write behind from, network file systems.
    nfsd
        the NFS server process that responds to NFS requests on NFS server machines.
    ypserv
        the NIS server, typically run on each NFS server.
    rstatd
        the server counterpart of the remote speedometer tools.
    mountd
        the mount server that runs on NFS server machines and responds to requests by other machines to mount file systems.
    rwalld
        used for broadcasting messages over the network.

LIST OF MAINTENANCE COMMANDS

Name	Appears on Page	Description