Installation guide

1
Overview of Tru64 UNIX System
Administration
This chapter surveys many of the tasks that are performed by Tru64 UNIX
system administrators and points to the places in this manual and in other
sources that describe these tasks.
1.1 The Tru64 UNIX System Administrator
As administrator of a Tru64 UNIX operating system, you work in the
following environment:
• The hardware and software
The hardware environment is a client Alpha workstation in a local area
network being served by an Alpha server. The client and server
machines are running supported versions of the Tru64 UNIX operating
system software.
You should be familiar with, and have access to, the hardware
documentation for your system. In particular, you may periodically need
to enter SRM (system reference manual) console commands at the
console prompt. These commands are documented in the hardware
owner’s or operator’s manuals. You may also need to run the
environment configuration utility (ECU) to temporarily or permanently
change the basic hardware configuration. Note that if you do not have
access to the hardware documentation in printed form, it is often
possible to access on-line versions via the world-wide web.
• The administrative tasks
As administrator, you perform operational tasks to set up, monitor,
maintain, and exploit available software and hardware resources.
• The user interface to the operating system
For many system administration tasks, you can choose to use the UNIX
command line interface or the
SysMan graphical user interface.
This manual describes the UNIX command line interface for the tasks.
The SysMan interface is now recommended by Compaq for interacting
with the operating system. If possible, you should examine whether or
Overview of Tru64 UNIX System Administration 1–1