Installation guide

Maintaining a System
HP-UX version 11.00.03 Setting Up the System 2-5
Maintaining a System
An active system requires regular monitoring and periodic maintenance to ensure
proper security, adequate capability, and optimal performance. The following are
guidelines for maintaining a healthy system:
■ Set up a regular schedule for backing up (copying) the data on your system.
Decide how often you must back up various data objects (full file systems,
partial file systems, data partitions, and so on) to ensure that lost data can
always be retrieved.
■ Make sure your software is up to date. When new releases of current software
become available, install them if warranted. Installing some software could
affect availability, so consider the administrative policy for your site to
determine when, or if, to upgrade software.
■ Control network and user access to system resources. Controls can include
maintaining proper user and group membership, creating a trusted system,
managing access to files (for example, by using access control lists), and
restricting network access through network control files (for example,
nethosts, hosts, hosts.equiv, services, exports, protocols,
inetd.conf, and netgroup) and other tools.
■ Monitor system use and performance. The HP-UX operating system provides
several monitoring tools, such as sar, iostat, nfsstat, netstat, and
vmstat. To closely monitor system use, install and enable the auditing
subsystem, which can record all events that you designate.
■ Maintain system activities logs and review them periodically. Record any
information that could prove useful later, including the following:
– dates and descriptions of maintenance procedures
– printouts of diagnostic and error messages
– dates and descriptions of user comments and suggestions
– dates and descriptions of hardware changes
■ Inform users of scheduled or unscheduled system maintenance prior to
attempting the maintenance procedure(s). Tools to inform users include
electronic mail, the message of the day file (/etc/motd), and the wall
command.