About This Guide

This guide supports the IRIX 6.5.22 release.

This guide is written for system and network administrators responsible for IRIX backups, security, or accounting. If you are responsible for your personal workstation only, refer to the Personal System Administration Guide first for this information.

IRIX Admin: Backup, Security, and Accounting documents data backup and recovery, host and network security, and host resource auditing and accounting for IRIX computer sites.

What This Guide Contains

Part I

Part I, “Backup” of this guide contains three chapters on the following backup and recovery topics:

Part II

Part II, “Security” of this guide covers system and network security and contains two chapters:

Part III

Part III, “Accounting” of this guide covers system accounting and auditing and contains the following two chapters:

How to Use This Guide

If you are responsible for backups, refer to Part I, “Backup”. Read Chapter 1, “Planning a Backup Strategy” if you have yet to implement a backup policy, Chapter 2, “Backup and Recovery Procedures” to learn details on the use of a particular backup tool, and Chapter 3, “Troubleshooting Backup and Recovery” if you are having trouble with backups.

If you are responsible for security, read Part II, “Security”, Chapter 4, “IRIX System Security” for details on configuring IRIX host security, and Chapter 5, “Network Security” if you are responsible for network security as well.

If you are responsible for system auditing, read Part III, “Accounting”, Chapter 6, “Administering the System Audit Trail”. If you are responsible for monitoring system usage (accounting), read Part III, “Accounting”, Chapter 7, “System Accounting”.

Related Publications

The IRIX Admin guides are available through the InfoSearch online viewing system. They are also available on the World Wide Web at http://docs.sgi.com . The set comprises these volumes:

  • IRIX Admin: Software Installation and Licensing—Explains how to install and license software that runs under IRIX, the Silicon Graphics implementation of the UNIX operating system. Contains instructions for performing miniroot and live installations using Inst, the command line interface to the IRIX installation utility. Identifies the licensing products that control access to restricted applications running under IRIX and refers readers to licensing product documentation.

  • IRIX Admin: System Configuration and Operation—Lists good general system administration practices and describes system administration tasks, including configuring the operating system; managing user accounts, user processes, and disk resources; interacting with the system while in the PROM monitor; and tuning system performance.

  • IRIX Admin: Disks and Filesystems—Explains disk, filesystem, and logical volume concepts. Provides system administration procedures for SCSI disks, XFS and EFS filesystems, XLV logical volumes, and guaranteed-rate I/O.

  • IRIX Admin: Networking and Mail—Describes how to plan, set up, use, and maintain the networking and mail systems, including discussions of sendmail, UUCP, SLIP, and PPP.

  • IRIX Admin: Backup, Security, and Accounting—Describes how to back up and restore files, how to protect your system's and network's security, and how to track system usage on a per-user basis.

  • IRIX Admin: Resource Administration—Provides an introduction to system resource administration and describes how to use and administer various IRIX resource management features, such as IRIX process limits, IRIX job limits, Array Services, Comprehensive System Accounting (CSA), Cpuset System, and Miser.

  • IRIX Admin: Peripheral Devices—Describes how to set up and maintain the software for peripheral devices such as terminals, modems, printers, and CD-ROM and tape drives.

  • Personal System Administration Guide—Describes the responsibilities of the system administrator for your SGI workstation and provides details on the various tools and utilities available for system administration.

Obtaining Publications

You can obtain SGI documentation in the following ways:

  • See the SGI Technical Publications Library at http://docs.sgi.com . Various formats are available. This library contains the most recent and most comprehensive set of online books, release notes, man pages, and other information.

  • If it is installed on your SGI system, you can use InfoSearch, an online tool that provides a more limited set of online books, release notes, and man pages. With an IRIX system, select Help from the Toolchest, and then select InfoSearch. Or you can type infosearch on a command line.

  • You can also view release notes by typing either grelnotes or relnotes on a command line.

  • You can also view man pages by typing man <title> on a command line.

Conventions

The following conventions are used throughout this publication:

Convention

Meaning

command

This fixed-space font denotes literal items such as commands, files, routines, path names, signals, messages, and programming language structures.

variable

Italic typeface denotes variable entries and words or concepts being defined.

user input

This bold, fixed-space font denotes literal items that the user enters in interactive sessions. (Output is shown in nonbold, fixed-space font.)

[]

Brackets enclose optional portions of a command or directive line.

...

Ellipses indicate that a preceding element can be repeated.

manpage(x)

Man page section identifiers appear in parentheses after man page names.

GUI element

This font denotes the names of graphical user interface (GUI) elements such as windows, screens, dialog boxes, menus, toolbars, icons, buttons, boxes, fields, and lists.


Reader Comments

If you have comments about the technical accuracy, content, or organization of this document, contact SGI. Be sure to include the title and document number of the manual with your comments. (Online, the document number is located in the front matter of the manual. In printed manuals, the document number is located at the bottom of each page.)

You can contact SGI in any of the following ways:

  • Send e-mail to the following address:

    techpubs@sgi.com 

  • Use the Feedback option on the Technical Publications Library Web page:

  • Contact your customer service representative and ask that an incident be filed in the SGI incident tracking system.

  • Send mail to the following address:

    Technical Publications
    SGI
    1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, M/S 535
    Mountain View, CA 94043-1351

  • Send a fax to the attention of “Technical Publications” at +1 650 932 0801.

SGI values your comments and will respond to them promptly.