ULTRIX-32 Guidelines for System Management

This document is the "ULTRIX-32 Guidelines for System Management", an integral part of the ULTRIX-32 Programmer's Manual set (specifically Binder 3B). Published in May 1984 by Digital Equipment Corporation, it is intended for system managers responsible for maintaining installed ULTRIX-32 systems. The operating system itself is noted as being based in part on the Fourth Berkeley Software Distribution (4.2BSD) and uses UNIX as a trademark.

The manual is designed to assist in developing system maintenance procedures, providing introductory discussions on major issues and referencing specific command documentation for more detail. It assumes the reader has system management responsibilities, knowledge of their system configuration, and superuser privileges.

Key areas covered in the document include:

• Daily Operations: Guidelines for system shutdown, file system backup and restore procedures, and various methods for booting the system (single-user and multi-user modes).
• System Administration Files: Instructions for maintaining critical configuration files such as /etc/passwd (user accounts), /etc/group (group security), /etc/ttys (terminal configuration), /etc/fstab (file system table), sendmail aliases, the clock daemon, and the message-of-the-day.
• System Performance Management: Procedures for managing file system utilization (free space, disk usage, quotas), line printer systems, process scheduling priority, and system accounting information (user logins, command usage, printer/plotter usage).
• Crash Recovery: Discussions on what occurs during system crashes, how to manage crash dumps, and interpretations of common panic messages.
• File System Consistency: Guidance on identifying and correcting file system inconsistencies, primarily using the fsck command.
• System Overview: A detailed overview of the ULTRIX-32 file system hierarchy, describing the purpose and typical contents of various directories (e.g., /, /bin, /dev, /etc, /usr, /sys).
• Special Files and Maintenance Commands: Comprehensive lists of ULTRIX-32 special (device) files and various maintenance commands (utilities) with their brief descriptions.