60 lines
3.3 KiB
HTML
60 lines
3.3 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
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<!--Converted with LaTeX2HTML 96.1-c (Feb 29, 1996) by Nikos Drakos (nikos@cbl.leeds.ac.uk), CBLU, University of Leeds -->
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<TITLE>Maintaining Your System</TITLE>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY LANG="EN">
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<A HREF="node1.html"><IMG WIDTH=65 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="contents" SRC="contents_motif.gif"></A> <BR>
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<B> Next:</B> <A HREF="node21.html">System Security</A>
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<B>Up:</B> <A HREF="node3.html">Introduction to Networking</A>
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<B> Previous:</B> <A HREF="node19.html">Where to Get the </A>
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<BR> <P>
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<H1><A NAME="SECTION003500000">Maintaining Your System</A></H1>
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Throughout this book, we will mainly deal with installation and
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configuration issues. Administration is, however, much more than that---.
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After setting up a service, you have to keep it running, too. For most of
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them, only little attendance will be necessary, while some, like <A HREF="node186.html#SECTION0015">mail</A> and <A HREF="node255.html">news</A>, require that you perform routine tasks to keep your system up-to-date. We will discuss these tasks in later chapters.
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<P>
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The absolute minimum in maintenance is to check system and per-application
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log files regularly for error conditions and unusual events. Commonly, you
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will want to do this by writing a couple of administrative shell scripts
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and run them from <A HREF="../sag/node12.html">cron</a> periodically. The source distribution of
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some major applications, like <A HREF="node198.html#SECTION0016">smail</A> or <A HREF="node259.html">C-News</A>, contain such scripts.
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You only have to tailor them to suit your needs and preferences.
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<P>
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The output from any of your cron jobs should be mailed to an
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administrative account. By default, many applications will send error
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reports, usage statistics, or logfile summaries to the root account.
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This only makes sense if you log in as root frequently; a much
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better idea is to forward root's mail to your personal account
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setting up a mail alias as described in chapter-<A HREF="node198.html#smail"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="gif" SRC="cross_ref_motif.gif"></A>.
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<P>
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However carefully you have configured your site, Murphy's law guarantees
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that some problem <em>will</em> surface eventually. Therefore, maintaining a
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system also means being available for complaints. Usually, people expect
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that the system administrator can at least be reached via email as
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root, but there are also other addresses that are commonly used to
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reach the person responsible for a specific aspect of maintenance. For
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instance, complaints about a malfunctioning mail configuration will usually
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be addressed postmaster; and problems with the news system may be
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reported to newsmaster or Usenet. Mail to
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hostmaster should be redirected to the person in charge of the
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host's basic network services, and the DNS name service if you run a name
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server.
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<P>
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<BR> <HR>
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<UL>
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<LI> <A HREF="node21.html#SECTION003510000">System Security</A>
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</UL>
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<HR><A HREF="node1.html"><IMG WIDTH=65 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="contents" SRC="contents_motif.gif"></A> <BR>
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<B> Next:</B> <A HREF="node21.html">System Security</A>
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<B>Up:</B> <A HREF="node3.html">Introduction to Networking</A>
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<B> Previous:</B> <A HREF="node19.html">Where to Get the </A>
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<P><ADDRESS>
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<I>Andrew Anderson <BR>
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Thu Mar 7 23:22:06 EST 1996</I>
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</ADDRESS>
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</BODY>
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</HTML>
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