System Management

This section highlights updates and changes to SCO OpenServer Release 6.0.0 system management tools and commands:

• System startup

• Console and multiscreen switching

• SCOadmin managers

• Process management

• Performance

System startup

SCO OpenServer Release 6.0.0 provides a number of enhancements to the boot process, including:

• bootable CD-ROM support has changed from floppy-emulation to non-emulation mode.

• you can now install a bootable system above the 1024 cylinder/8GB boundary.

• support for the Media-less PXE network installation feature, which allows you to boot a diskless system from the network, as well as install a system from a boot image offered by an SCO OpenServer install server. See ``Installing SCO OpenServer products over the network''.

By default, SCO OpenServer Release 6.0.0 autoboots into multi-user mode (init run-level, or ``state'', 2).

To circumvent autoboot during system startup and get to a [boot] prompt, press the <Space> bar at the Splash screen.

To put the system into single-user mode (init run-level S or s) from the [boot] prompt, press <Enter>. At the following message, enter the root password:

   Type CONTROL-d to proceed with normal startup,
   (or give root password for system maintenance):

System startup behavior is defined in /stand/boot and /etc/default/boot. By default, the AUTOBOOT variable in /stand/boot is set to ``1'' and MULTIUSER in /etc/default/boot is set to ``YES''. Therefore, the default system initialization behavior is to autoboot directly into multi-user mode within one second of the boot program being loaded.

To turn off autobooting, edit /stand/boot and set AUTOBOOT to ``NO''. With this setting, the [boot] prompt is always displayed after the kernel is loaded.

For more information, see the boot(HW) and init(M) manual pages. Also refer to the ``Understanding the boot process'' online help topic.

Console and multiscreen switching

If, during the installation, you selected to autoconfigure your video adapter and enable scologin, you are automatically placed on tty02 when the system boots into multi-user mode. If the X server is not turned on during the installation, you are instead placed automatically on the console when the system boots.

System error and notification messages no longer appear on the active multiscreen (as they did on SCO OpenServer Release 5 systems), but now display on the console screen. As usual, these messages are also saved in /usr/adm/syslog.

Use <Alt><Ctrl><Fn> to switch among multiscreens:

• The console is available from tty01. Access the console by pressing <Alt><Ctrl><F1>.

• tty02 is accessed by <Alt><Ctrl><F2>, and so forth.

See ``Using the system console and non-graphical displays'' for more information.

SCOadmin managers

The suite of SCOadmin managers has undergone a number of changes and enhancements.

• New managers

  FTP Server Manager -- for common FTP configuration and administration tasks.

• Updated managers

  Account Manager
  Filesystem Manager
  Floppy Filesystem Manager
  Hardware/Kernel Manager
  License Manager
  Network Configuration Manager
  Printer Manager
  Serial Manager
  System Startup Manager
  Software Manager
  Video Configuration Manager

  Specific changes and enhancements are discussed in the corresponding manager topics.

• Obsolete managers

  Audit Manager
  Backup Manager
  Internet Configuration Manager
  all IPX/SPX-related managers
  ISA PnP Configuration Manager
  all NetWare-related managers
  PPP Connection Wizard
  PPP Manager
  Sysadmsh

Floppy Filesystem Manager

The Floppy Filesystem Manager option for creating emergency recovery floppy diskettes is no longer supported.

You can now create bootable emergency recovery CD-ROM disks, using the emergency_disk(ADM) command. See ``Emergency Recovery boot media'' for more information.

Hardware/Kernel Manager and mkdev scripts

The Hardware/Kernel Manager has been modified to provide access to the Device Configuration Utility (DCU), a new utility that lists the hardware controllers and device drivers configured on your system and allows you to assign parameter values (IRQ, memory address range, DMA channel, and so forth) for the device driver. See the dcu(ADM) manual page for more information.

Because most devices are now autodetected and immediately available, many of the mkdev(ADM) scripts previously used on SCO OpenServer Release 5 systems are no longer necessary. However, some new mkdev scripts have been added:

• mkdev dcu -- runs the Device Configuration Utility (DCU)

• mkdev mpio -- enables and disables the Multi-Path I/O (MPIO) support in the kernel for disk devices

• mkdev mysql -- configures MySQL

• mkdev pgsql -- configures PostgreSQL

• mkdev samba -- configures Samba

See the mkdev(ADM) manual page for more details.

The following mkdev scripts are no longer needed:

APC UPS Port Monitoring Daemon	Power Management
Asynchronous I/O	Pseudo-ttys
CD-ROM and WORM	SCSI Floptical drive
Corollary Daemon	SCSI Juke Box
DOS Filesystem	SNMP Host Resources MIB
DTFS Filesystem	STREAMS
HTFS Filesystem	Shell Layers
Hard Disk	Tape Drive
High Performance Pipe System	Terminal emulation control
High Sierra/ISO9660/RockRidge Filesystem	Tricord
Layers Configuration	XENIX Filesystem
NIS Configuration	ipfilter
Parallel Port	ls120
Plug and Play Configuration Manager

Serial Manager

You no longer need to run the Serial Manager to add, modify, or delete serial boards. These devices are automatically configured at boot-time.

You do need to run the Serial Manager, however, to configure the ports attached to the boards, to set up the inittab entries so that you can use enable and disable on the ports. Simply starting the manager is sufficient to configure the ports -- once the manager is running, the ports are automatically configured and you can exit the manager.

Process management

• fuser(ADM) command

  No longer reports on remote resources -- NFS and NUCFS filesystems.

• ps(C) command

  A new version of the ps(C) command is provided. Functionality and command output differ in the following ways:

  • the -H option is no longer supported.

  • when specifying the -t termlist option, you can only use the device's filename digit identifier shortcut if the digit identifier is numeric (i.e., the 04 in tty04). This limitation in the -t option will be corrected in a future update.

  • minor differences in field widths and alignment. (Note that scripts that parse the output of ps(C) should rely on whitespace-separate fields, not the widths of columns in output.)

  • flags in the F column and states in the S column differ from previous versions of ps(C) due to kernel differences. For the same reason, the C column will always be zero.

  • the mem authorization restriction is not currently supported.

• Process scheduler control

  The priocntl(ADM) and dispadmin(ADM) commands are provided for process scheduler control from the command line.

There have also been some changes in the area of multiprocessor commands:

• Managing processors on MP systems

  SCO OpenServer Release 6.0.0 provides two new commands to help manage multi-processor (MP) systems: psradm(ADM), an interface for processor configuration management and psrinfo(ADM), a tool for displaying processor information. The SCO OpenServer Release 5 command, cpuonoff(ADM), also remains available for performing these functions.

  Please note that there is a difference between these commands in the starting values assigned to processors. psradm(ADM) and psrinfo(AD M) begin numbering processors with ``0'', while cpuonoff(ADM) uses a starting integer of ``1''.

• Monitoring MP system performance

  To help monitor performance on multi-processing systems, use the new rtpm(ADM) command. See the rtpm(ADM) manual page for more details.

  The performance monitor from earlier releases, mpstat(ADM), is also available. The following updates have been made to the mpstat command:

  • a DISABLE state has been added.

  • the STATIC state, the CPU locking scheme, and the -c and -h options have been removed.

  • interrupt and trap counts are always shown as zero.

  Note that rtpm numbers processors starting with "0", while the mpstat command numbers processors starting with "1".

• Binding processes to a specific processor

  SCO OpenServer Release 6.0.0 provides the pbind(ADM) command, in addition to the standard lockpid(ADM) command. These commands also use different starting values for processors: pbind begins numbering processors with ``0'', while lockpid uses a starting integer of ``1''.

Performance

Because of the kernel enhancements in SCO OpenServer Release 6.0.0, there are some differences in the metrics now supported by the sar(ADM) command. Differences include:

• a new option, -Kudk, enables SVR5 functionality. When this mode is set, the starting value for processors changes from the default of ``1'' to ``0''.

• the -B, -F, -h, -I, -j, -L, -n, -O, -Q, and -S options are no longer supported.

• the -g and -R options supported by the SCO OpenServer Release 5 version of sar are no longer supported.

  However, when you use the -Kudk option, SVR5 variations of the -g and -R options are enabled. In this mode, -g reports on paging activities and -R reports raw data values.

• The functionality of cpusar(ADM) and mpsar(ADM) is now provided directly by sar(ADM). For compatibility, cpusar and mpsar run sar.