Preface

The Sun N1 System Manager Administration Guide helps system administrators to understand and administer the Sun N1^TM System Manager. This book provides detailed examples and procedures to explain how you can use the N1 System Manager to manage users and roles, discover servers to be managed, manage groups of servers, set up monitoring, and set up notification rules.

Note –

Most of the information in this book focuses on the command-line interface of the N1 System Manager. Instructions are provided when the browser interface can also be used for the same task. Click the Help button in the upper right corner of the browser interface to access the searchable online help system.

Who Should Use This Book

This guide is intended for system administrators who are responsible for managing servers running the Sun N1 System Manager software. These system administrators are expected to have the following background:

Knowledge of the Solaris^TM Operating System and Red Hat Linux, and the network administration tools provided by each operating system
Knowledge of network equipment and network devices from a variety of vendors such as Sun Microsystems, Cisco, Foundry, and Extreme
Knowledge of network device interconnections and cabling
Knowledge of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Some elements of the N1 System Manager use software that is based on SNMP

Before You Read This Book

Read the following documents:

How This Book Is Organized

Chapter 1, Accessing the N1 System Manager describes the following:

How to access the N1 System Manager by using the command-line interface and the browser interface
Showing and switching session roles

Chapter 2, Managing Users and Roles describes the following:

Adding and deleting users
Creating and managing roles
Privileges required for commands
Security administrator rules

Chapter 3, Backing Up and Restoring describes how to backup and recover database and configuration files

Chapter 4, Discovering Manageable Servers describes the following:

How to choose a method of discovering servers
How to discover servers through their service processors
How to discover server through the IP of the operating system installed on the server
How to discover servers manually
How to troubleshoot server discovery

Chapter 5, Managing Servers and Server Groups describes the following:

How to create groups of servers and how to manage servers and groups
How to replace servers
How to rename servers and groups
How to start, stop and reset servers and groups
How to remove servers and groups
How to connect to a serial console for a server
How to issue remote commands on a server

Chapter 6, Monitoring Servers and Server Groups describes the following:

How monitoring works
How to support monitoring by ensuring key features are installed
How to enable or disable monitoring for servers and groups
How to set and manage thresholds
How to view and manage jobs
How to view, manage and create event notifications

Related Books

The following books are useful for installing and using the N1 System Manager.

Documentation, Support, and Training

The Sun web site provides information about the following additional resources:

Typographic Conventions

The following table describes the typographic conventions that are used in this book.

Table P–1 Typographic Conventions


Typeface	Meaning	Example
`AaBbCc123`	The names of commands, files, and directories, and onscreen computer output	Edit your `.login` file. Use `ls -a` to list all files. `machine_name% you have mail.`
`AaBbCc123`	What you type, contrasted with onscreen computer output	`machine_name%` `su` `Password:`
`aabbcc123`	Placeholder: replace with a real name or value	The command to remove a file is `rm` `filename`.
AaBbCc123	Book titles, new terms, and terms to be emphasized	Read Chapter 6 in the User's Guide. A cache is a copy that is stored locally. Do not save the file. Note: Some emphasized items appear bold online.

Shell Prompts in Command Examples

The following table shows the default UNIX® system prompt and superuser prompt for the C shell, Bourne shell, and Korn shell.

Table P–2 Shell Prompts


Shell	Prompt
C shell	`machine_name%`
C shell for superuser	`machine_name#`
Bourne shell and Korn shell	`$`
Bourne shell and Korn shell for superuser	`#`

In this book, unless otherwise specified, the term command line is used to describe the n1sh shell, which uses the N1–ok> prompt. The n1sh shell is defined as any of the following:

The shell available from the Command Line pane of the browser interface
The shell available after typing n1sh in a terminal console window on the management server

You can also use N1 System Manager commands from a standard UNIX shell by preceding them with the n1sh command.