Solaris ™ Administration Best Practices

Peter Baer Galvin

Over the past few months in Sys Admin, both online and in print, a discourse has been taking place about the best practices of Solaris administrators. This month in the Solaris Corner, I take the best of the old, add the best of the new, and create a consensus “best practices” document. In this document, you’ll see some repeats from past columns, but it seemed logical to put forth a complete version of the document this once. I hope this will be useful to both experienced and novice administrators, and that it will continue to evolve and grow as more administrators contribute their wisdom.

“Consensus” and “systems administration” are words that are rarely used near each other. Systems administration is a journeyman’s trade, with knowledge earned through experience and hard work. Every sys admin performs his or her work with slight and not-so-slight variation from colleagues. Some of that variation is caused by personal choice, some by superstition, and some by a differing knowledge set. The more this hard-won knowledge is spread, the more systems will be run alike, and the more stable, usable, and manageable they will be, thus the need for a Best Practices document. Note that most of the information here applies to other operating systems, and sometimes to the real world as well.

Solaris Administration Best Practices, Version 1.0

This document is the result of input from many of the top administrators in the Solaris community. Please help your fellow sys admins (as they have helped you here) by contributing your best practices to this document. Email them to me at: bestpractice@petergalvin.org.

Keep an Eye Peeled and a Wall at Your Back

The best way to prepare to debug problems is to know how your systems run when there are no problems.