Objectives

This course teaches the installation, customisation and day-to-day running of the AIX operating system.

On successful completion of this course, attendees will be able to:

• install AIX 6.1 and install subsequent software and fixes
• perform system shutdown and startup
• use SMIT for system administration
• configure and administer hardware
• describe how the LVM works
• create, administer and query Volume Groups, Logical Volumes and Physical Volumes
• create and administer jfs2 filesystems
• configure paging space
• configure AIX users and Groups
• backup and restore a system
• run jobs at scheduled times.

Main topics

• Administration introduction

The root account; using su; why AIX is different from vanilla UNIX.

• AIX installation

Installation methods - CD, NIM, mksysb; the install process; important post-install tasks.

• System administration tools

Using smit; text vs GUI smit; using webmin; don't forget the command line.

• The AIX boot process

Basic overview; the role of the BLV; the AIX bootlists; AIX runlevels and states; how init reads /etc/inittab; the /etc/rc file; controlling services with the SRC; system shutdown.

• Software administration

AIX software concepts - from LPP to filesets; nstalling software; software states; configuring software; installing and configuring fixes; SUMA.

• Hardware administration

The role of the ODM; the structure of the /dev directory; how cfgmgr works; rdware states; listing, adding and configuring hardware; physical vs AIX location codes.

• Disk management

Creating and configuring Volume Groups; creating and configuring Logical Volumes; striping and mirroring Logical Volumes; where LVM information is held.

• Using jfs2

The structure of the jfs2 filesystem; concepts of journaling; creating, mounting, unmounting and resizing jfs2 filesystems; /etc/filesystems; running fsck; setting up filesystems quotas; monitoring filesystems.

• System backup and recovery

Archiving devices; backing up and restoring Volume Groups with mksysb and savevg; f ull and incremental backups of filesystems; how to restore a filesystem; using jfs2 splitcopy.

• Memory and swap space

Listing memory and memory usage; configuring and monitoring page space.

• Scheduling Jobs

Using crontab, and at; security issues; using /etc/qconfig as a batch processor.

• Users and Groups

The AIX view of users; the login process; the user and group databases in /etc and /etc/security; add, change and delete users and groups; user configuration files; password management; using ulimit.

• Basic Security

The setuid, setgid and sticky permissions; recap on umask; using ACLS; reading log files.

• Printing on AIX

How qdaemon works; the /etc/qconfig file; print queues and virtual printers; make up your own backend; controlling print jobs.