VAX/VMS System Manager's Guide

This "VAX/VMS System Manager's Guide," published in August 1978, is a comprehensive reference designed for individuals responsible for managing a VAX/VMS installation. Its dual objectives are to provide a foundational understanding of system management tasks and to offer practical rules and guidelines for performing them. The guide targets data processing generalists, not necessarily system programmers.

The document categorizes the system manager's duties into five core areas (with system startup details referred to another guide):

1. Setting Up User Accounts: This involves managing the User Authorization File (UAF), defining user groups, establishing resource limits, assigning process priorities, and granting system privileges.
2. Managing Public Files and Volumes: This covers initializing and mounting public disk volumes, regularly backing up files, installing commonly used and privileged executable images (known images), creating permanent global sections from shareable images, and assigning system logical names.
3. Controlling Overall System Performance: Key tasks include maintaining start-up command procedures and setting up and managing spooling, batch queues, print queues, and terminal queues.
4. Monitoring System Activity: This section details the use of tools like the Display Utility Program (DISPLAY) and the operator's log file (OPERATOR.LOG) to monitor various performance statistics, I/O rates, processor modes, and process activity.
5. Recognizing and Dealing with Errors and Failures: The guide explains the error logging facility for detecting hardware and software issues, and the process for reporting software problems using Software Performance Reports (SPRs).

The guide emphasizes that successful system management requires a thorough understanding of both user needs and the VAX/VMS operating system's capabilities to optimize performance, efficiency, and security. It details the components of the VAX/VMS operating system as the environment in which system managers operate.