The TA for the course is
Pat Garvens
his email is pgarvens@mscs.mu.edu
his office hours are

• Mon 3:15-4:15, 7:00-8:00
• Wed 7:00-8:00
• Thurs 3:15-4:15

The model for System Administration

Following the "User-Provider-Agent" model, our job in managing any system is to see that it provides a variety of services for its users, utilizing whatever agents have been installed.

The users are of course ordinary users who log in from a directly attached terminal, but also those who act as clients for a server on the machine, expecting to receive printing or file or web services, or secure login services.

So typically there is some kind of "daemon" running on the system which is expecting to receive queries from a client and send replies.

In the case of the ordinary user that daemon is a "getty" process running under a configuration established by the /etc/inittab file. In the case of a print server we will show how to use the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) to set up a proper printing environment, both for clients from our system and users from another system. In the case of file service we will show how to use the Network File System (NFS) to and from other Unix machines, and the Server Message Block (SAMBA) system to and from Windows machines. In the case of web services we will show how to configure the Apache web server and Tomcat servlet server. In the case of secure login services we will show how to configure and use the SSH/SSHD client and daemon. There will be a number of other services that we show how to use.

We also consider managing the devices on a machine. For example creating file systems on both Unix and Windows machines, and configuring network devices.

Our text

We will use a textbook, Essential System Administration, Third Edition, by Aeleen Frisch, published by O'Reilly.

As those of you who know (about) me are aware, I will not slavishly follow the text. Rather, it will be a reference for you. We will consider many topics not specifically covered in that text, and you can refer to the text for other things you need to know that are not covered in class.

It is a carefully written and accurate book, and thus one you can keep with you and use as a guide. The book and I will not disagree on topics, merely present different perspectives.

Windows 2000 and related

I will frequently also provide information about Windows, particular Windows 2000 Professional, including some little known commands that are part of its usual installation, and free or low-cost software related to system administration. You might also want to consider the book XXX which is by the same author as our text.