Planning and Configuring HP-UX DCE 1.9

Chapter 6

Conﬁguring HP-UX DCE Cells

Choosing a Cell Conﬁguration Tool

HP-UX DCE 1.9 offers two cell conﬁguration tools: a script-based tool, dce_config, and a SAM-based tool,

DCM (DCE Conﬁguration Manager). SAM (System Administration Manager) is an HP-UX menu-driven

system administration program that includes several other system administration utilities, in addition to the

DCE cell conﬁguration component.

DCM and dce_conﬁg

DCM is essentially a graphical front-end to dce_config. However, in addition to the ease-of-use that a

graphical interface confers, DCM has some important functional differences that offer advantages over

running dce_config. Therefore, we recommend that you use DCM, and not dce_config, to conﬁgure cells in

almost all cases. See “Limitations of DCM” on page 48" for more detailed information.

Advantages of DCM

Some of the advantages of DCM are:

• DCM has a template mode that allows you to create prototype conﬁgurations that can be tested before

actually creating them.

• DCM checks systems before performing the conﬁguration.

• DCM prevents you from creating an invalid conﬁguration.

• DCM allows you to conﬁgure all HP-UX DCE Version systems in your cell remotely, from a single

administrative node. However, DCM does not conﬁgure and may not discover all aspects of other vendors'

system conﬁguration.

• DCM remembers the last successful conﬁguration. This information is used only when the cell is "down"

or critical DCE servers are not running.

• DCM includes complete online documentation.

Limitations of DCM

While using DCM is completely compatible with using the dce_config script, there are a few limitations to

DCM, as follows.

• When DCM examines the cell, it initiates a "discovery" process to determine the status of the cell. If the

cell is down, or critical DCE servers are down, the discovery process may fail and DCM will revert to the

last successful conﬁguration.

• DCM does not ask if you want to create a LAN proﬁle.

• DCM does not permit you to enter the name of the clearinghouse when you create a CDS replica. It

defaults to hostname.ch. It also, therefore, does not ask if more directories should be replicated.