Unix® System Management Primer Plus

Table of contents

1. Copyright
2. About the Author
3. Acknowledgments
4. Introduction
5. Starting From Scratch
   1. Planning Your Architecture
      1. Defining the Project Scope
      2. Classifying Your Systems
      3. Collecting Specifications
      4. Assessing Compatibility Needs
      5. Choosing Hardware and Software
      6. Evaluating Vendor Support Contracts
      7. Summary
      8. Review Questions
   2. Designing the Data Center Infrastructure
      1. Should You Build Your Own Data Center?
      2. Controlling the Data Center Environment
      3. Choosing Raised or Fixed Flooring
      4. Choosing and Using Equipment Racks
      5. Securing Access to Your Data Center
      6. Power Management
      7. Out-of-Band Management for Maintenance and Repair
      8. Emergency Remote Access
      9. Summary
      10. Review Questions
   3. Deploying Your Systems
      1. The Ordering Process
      2. Receiving Shipments
      3. Recording Your Deployment Procedures
      4. Hardware Installation
      5. Installing Software
      6. Handing Off to the Users
      7. Summary
      8. Review Questions
6. Maintenance
   1. Testing Your Systems
      1. The Testing Process
      2. Unit Testing
      3. Compatibility Testing
      4. Load Testing
      5. Regression Testing
      6. Alpha and Beta Testing
      7. Summary
      8. Review Questions
   2. Support Administration
      1. Matching Technical Support Infrastructure to Business Size and Customer Needs
      2. Developing On-Call Procedures
      3. Escalation Procedures
      4. Managing Communications Between Varying Levels of Expertise
      5. Support Tools
      6. Advertising Your Support Department
      7. Summary
      8. Review Questions
   3. Monitoring Services
      1. What Is Monitoring?
      2. Host Monitoring
      3. Network Monitoring
      4. Service Monitoring
      5. Logging
      6. Log Management
      7. Log Monitoring
      8. Internal Versus External Monitoring
      9. Monitoring Applications
      10. Summary
      11. Review Questions
   4. Patches, Upgrades, and Decommissions
      1. Preimplementation Testing in a Sandbox Environment
      2. Patching Operating Systems
      3. Hardware Upgrades
      4. Operating System Upgrades
      5. Firmware Upgrades
      6. Decommissioning Services
      7. Summary
      8. Review Questions
   5. Service Outages
      1. Types of Outages
      2. Scheduled Maintenance
      3. Unscheduled Outages
      4. Partial Service Outages
      5. Complete Outages and Degraded Service
      6. Distributed Service Outages
      7. Third-Party Outages
      8. Maintenance Windows
      9. Monitoring Compliance with Service Level Agreements
      10. Observing Production Values
      11. Outage Procedures
      12. Root Cause Analysis
      13. Summary
      14. Review Questions
   6. Preparing For Disaster Recovery
      1. What Is an IT Disaster?
      2. Power Outages
      3. Physical and Environmental Disasters
      4. Managing Data Loss
      5. Formulating a Disaster Recovery Plan
      6. Disaster Drills
      7. Summary
      8. Review Questions
7. A Well-Oiled Machine
   1. Providing High Availability in Your Unix System
      1. Providing High Availability
      2. Techniques for Providing High Availability
      3. Redundancy
      4. Failover
      5. Load Balancing
      6. Data Redundancy Using RAID
      7. Data Redundancy Using Split Mirrors
      8. Data Redundancy Using Snapshots
      9. Using Multiple Network Paths
      10. Using Server Clusters
      11. Location Redundancy
      12. High-Availability Options for Internet Services
      13. Summary
      14. Review Questions
   2. Performance Tuning and Capacity Planning
      1. Gauging CPU Performance and Capacity
      2. Tuning CPU Performance
      3. Planning for CPU Resources
      4. Gauging Storage Performance and Capacity
      5. Tuning Disk and File System Performance
      6. Planning for Storage Needs
      7. Gauging Memory Performance and Capacity
      8. Tuning Memory and Swap Performance
      9. Planning for Memory and Swap Capacity
      10. Gauging Network Performance and Capacity
      11. Tuning Network Performance
      12. Planning for Future Network Capacity
      13. Summary
      14. Review Questions
   3. Process Automation
      1. Scheduling Tools
      2. Automating Root Logins
      3. Automating File Synchronization
      4. Automating Local Configurations with cfengine
      5. Automating Temporary Space Management
      6. Automating Log Maintenance
      7. Using logrotate as a Generic Log Rotation Tool
      8. Summary
      9. Review Questions
   4. Implementing System Security
      1. Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting
      2. Types of Security Used in Unix Systems
      3. Understanding Least Privilege
      4. Separation of Services
      5. Managing Root Accounts
      6. Delegating Authority
      7. Exploits and Attacks
      8. Securing Data with Encryption
      9. Alternative Authentication Methods
      10. Simple Ways to Improve Your Security
      11. Staying Up-to-Date Through Security Forums
      12. Summary
      13. Review Questions
8. The Human Aspect
   1. Internal Communication
      1. Writing System Documentation
      2. Change Management
      3. Configuration Management with Revision Control Tools
      4. System Activity Schedules
      5. Naming Conventions
      6. Summary
      7. Review Questions
   2. Interacting With Users
      1. Types of Users
      2. Communicating with Users
      3. Dealing with Problem Users
      4. Preventing User Problems
      5. Dealing with Remote User Problems
      6. Summary
      7. Review Questions
   3. Computing Policies and Agreements
      1. Acceptable Usage Policies
      2. User Rights and Responsibilities
      3. Security Policies
      4. Security Waivers
      5. Using Implicit Agreements
      6. Summary
      7. Review Questions
9. Appendixes
   1. References
      1. Internet Resources
      2. Book Resources
   2. Answers to Questions
      1. Chapter 1
      2. Chapter 2
      3. Chapter 3
      4. Chapter 4
      5. Chapter 5
      6. Chapter 6
      7. Chapter 7
      8. Chapter 8
      9. Chapter 9
      10. Chapter 10
      11. Chapter 11
      12. Chapter 12
      13. Chapter 13
      14. Chapter 14
      15. Chapter 15
      16. Chapter 16
10. Index