Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 4 - INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION Administration Manual
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
Introduction to System
Administration
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4: Introduction to System Administration
Copyright © 2005 Red Hat, Inc.
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Table of Contents
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................... i
1. Architecture-specific Information .......................................................................................... i
2. Document Conventions .......................................................................................................... i
3. Activate Your Subscription .................................................................................................. iv
3.1. Provide a Red Hat Login....................................................................................... iv
3.2. Provide Your Subscription Number ....................................................................... v
3.3. Connect Your System............................................................................................. v
4. More to Come ....................................................................................................................... v
4.1. Send in Your Feedback .......................................................................................... v
1. The Philosophy of System Administration ................................................................................... 1
1.1. Automate Everything ......................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Document Everything ........................................................................................................ 2
1.3. Communicate as Much as Possible .................................................................................... 3
1.3.1. Tell Your Users What You Are Going to Do ...................................................... 3
1.3.2. Tell Your Users What You Are Doing ................................................................ 4
1.3.3. Tell Your Users What You Have Done ............................................................... 4
1.4. Know Your Resources........................................................................................................ 5
1.5. Know Your Users ............................................................................................................... 6
1.6. Know Your Business.......................................................................................................... 6
1.7. Security Cannot be an Afterthought .................................................................................. 6
1.7.1. The Risks of Social Engineering......................................................................... 7
1.8. Plan Ahead ......................................................................................................................... 7
1.9. Expect the Unexpected ...................................................................................................... 8
1.10. Red Hat Enterprise Linux-Specific Information .............................................................. 8
1.10.1. Automation ....................................................................................................... 8
1.10.2. Documentation and Communication ................................................................ 9
1.10.3. Security ........................................................................................................... 10
1.11. Additional Resources ..................................................................................................... 10
1.11.1. Installed Documentation ................................................................................. 10
1.11.2. Useful Websites .............................................................................................. 11
1.11.3. Related Books ................................................................................................. 11
2. Resource Monitoring .................................................................................................................... 13
2.1. Basic Concepts................................................................................................................. 13
2.2. System Performance Monitoring ..................................................................................... 13
2.3. Monitoring System Capacity ........................................................................................... 14
2.4. What to Monitor? ............................................................................................................. 14
2.4.1. Monitoring CPU Power .................................................................................... 15
2.4.2. Monitoring Bandwidth ...................................................................................... 16
2.4.3. Monitoring Memory.......................................................................................... 16
2.4.4. Monitoring Storage ........................................................................................... 17
2.5. Red Hat Enterprise Linux-Specific Information .............................................................. 18
2.5.1. free.................................................................................................................. 18
2.5.2. top .................................................................................................................... 19
2.5.3. vmstat.............................................................................................................. 20
2.5.4. The Sysstat Suite of Resource Monitoring Tools ............................................. 22
2.5.5. OProfile ............................................................................................................. 24
2.6. Additional Resources ....................................................................................................... 28
2.6.1. Installed Documentation ................................................................................... 28
2.6.2. Useful Websites ................................................................................................ 28
2.6.3. Related Books ................................................................................................... 29
3. Bandwidth and Processing Power ............................................................................................... 31
3.1. Bandwidth ........................................................................................................................ 31
3.1.1. Buses ................................................................................................................. 31
3.1.2. Datapaths........................................................................................................... 32
3.1.3. Potential Bandwidth-Related Problems ............................................................ 32
3.1.4. Potential Bandwidth-Related Solutions ............................................................ 33
3.1.5. In Summary. . . .................................................................................................. 33
3.2. Processing Power ............................................................................................................. 34
3.2.1. Facts About Processing Power.......................................................................... 34
3.2.2. Consumers of Processing Power....................................................................... 34
3.2.3. Improving a CPU Shortage ............................................................................... 35
3.3. Red Hat Enterprise Linux-Specific Information .............................................................. 38
3.3.1. Monitoring Bandwidth on Red Hat Enterprise Linux....................................... 38
3.3.2. Monitoring CPU Utilization on Red Hat Enterprise Linux .............................. 39
3.4. Additional Resources ....................................................................................................... 43
3.4.1. Installed Documentation ................................................................................... 43
3.4.2. Useful Websites ................................................................................................ 43
3.4.3. Related Books ................................................................................................... 44
4. Physical and Virtual Memory ...................................................................................................... 45
4.1. Storage Access Patterns ................................................................................................... 45
4.2. The Storage Spectrum ...................................................................................................... 45
4.2.1. CPU Registers ................................................................................................... 46
4.2.2. Cache Memory .................................................................................................. 46
4.2.3. Main Memory — RAM .................................................................................... 47
4.2.4. Hard Drives ....................................................................................................... 48
4.2.5. Off-Line Backup Storage .................................................................................. 49
4.3. Basic Virtual Memory Concepts ...................................................................................... 49
4.3.1. Virtual Memory in Simple Terms ..................................................................... 49
4.3.2. Backing Store — the Central Tenet of Virtual Memory ................................... 50
4.4. Virtual Memory: The Details ........................................................................................... 50
4.4.1. Page Faults ........................................................................................................ 51
4.4.2. The Working Set ............................................................................................... 52
4.4.3. Swapping........................................................................................................... 52
4.5. Virtual Memory Performance Implications ..................................................................... 52
4.5.1. Worst Case Performance Scenario .................................................................... 53
4.5.2. Best Case Performance Scenario ...................................................................... 53
4.6. Red Hat Enterprise Linux-Specific Information .............................................................. 53
4.7. Additional Resources ....................................................................................................... 56
4.7.1. Installed Documentation ................................................................................... 56
4.7.2. Useful Websites ................................................................................................ 56
4.7.3. Related Books ................................................................................................... 57
5. Managing Storage ......................................................................................................................... 59
5.1. An Overview of Storage Hardware.................................................................................. 59
5.1.1. Disk Platters ...................................................................................................... 59
5.1.2. Data reading/writing device .............................................................................. 59
5.1.3. Access Arms ..................................................................................................... 60
5.2. Storage Addressing Concepts .......................................................................................... 61
5.2.1. Geometry-Based Addressing ............................................................................ 61
5.2.2. Block-Based Addressing ................................................................................... 62
5.3. Mass Storage Device Interfaces ....................................................................................... 63
5.3.1. Historical Background ...................................................................................... 63
5.3.2. Present-Day Industry-Standard Interfaces ........................................................ 64
5.4. Hard Drive Performance Characteristics ......................................................................... 66
5.4.1. Mechanical/Electrical Limitations .................................................................... 67
5.4.2. I/O Loads and Performance .............................................................................. 68
5.5. Making the Storage Usable.............................................................................................. 69
5.5.1. Partitions/Slices................................................................................................. 70
5.5.2. File Systems ...................................................................................................... 71
5.5.3. Directory Structure............................................................................................ 73
5.5.4. Enabling Storage Access................................................................................... 74
5.6. Advanced Storage Technologies ...................................................................................... 74
5.6.1. Network-Accessible Storage ............................................................................. 74
5.6.2. RAID-Based Storage ........................................................................................ 75
5.6.3. Logical Volume Management ........................................................................... 80
5.7. Storage Management Day-to-Day ................................................................................... 81
5.7.1. Monitoring Free Space ...................................................................................... 82
5.7.2. Disk Quota Issues ............................................................................................. 84
5.7.3. File-Related Issues ............................................................................................ 85
5.7.4. Adding/Removing Storage................................................................................ 86
5.8. A Word About Backups. .. .............................................................................................. 91
5.9. Red Hat Enterprise Linux-Specific Information .............................................................. 92
5.9.1. Device Naming Conventions ............................................................................ 92
5.9.2. File System Basics ............................................................................................ 94
5.9.3. Mounting File Systems ..................................................................................... 96
5.9.4. Network-Accessible Storage Under Red Hat Enterprise Linux ....................... 99
5.9.5. Mounting File Systems Automatically with /etc/fstab............................. 100
5.9.6. Adding/Removing Storage.............................................................................. 100
5.9.7. Implementing Disk Quotas ............................................................................. 104
5.9.8. Creating RAID Arrays .................................................................................... 108
5.9.9. Day to Day Management of RAID Arrays ..................................................... 109
5.9.10. Logical Volume Management ....................................................................... 111
5.10. Additional Resources ................................................................................................... 111
5.10.1. Installed Documentation ............................................................................... 111
5.10.2. Useful Websites ............................................................................................ 111
5.10.3. Related Books ............................................................................................... 112
6. Managing User Accounts and Resource Access ....................................................................... 113
6.1. Managing User Accounts............................................................................................... 113
6.1.1. The Username ................................................................................................. 113
6.1.2. Passwords........................................................................................................ 116
6.1.3. Access Control Information ............................................................................ 120
6.1.4. Managing Accounts and Resource Access Day-to-Day ................................. 121
6.2. Managing User Resources ............................................................................................. 123
6.2.1. Who Can Access Shared Data ........................................................................ 123
6.2.2. Where Users Access Shared Data ................................................................... 124
6.2.3. What Barriers Are in Place To Prevent Abuse of Resources .......................... 125
6.3. Red Hat Enterprise Linux-Specific Information ............................................................ 125
6.3.1. User Accounts, Groups, and Permissions ....................................................... 125
6.3.2. Files Controlling User Accounts and Groups ................................................. 127
6.3.3. User Account and Group Applications ........................................................... 130
6.4. Additional Resources ..................................................................................................... 131
6.4.1. Installed Documentation ................................................................................. 132
6.4.2. Useful Websites .............................................................................................. 132
6.4.3. Related Books ................................................................................................. 132
7. Printers and Printing .................................................................................................................. 135
7.1. Types of Printers ............................................................................................................ 135
7.1.1. Printing Considerations ................................................................................... 135
7.2. Impact Printers ............................................................................................................... 136
7.2.1. Dot-Matrix Printers ......................................................................................... 136
7.2.2. Daisy-Wheel Printers ...................................................................................... 137
7.2.3. Line Printers.................................................................................................... 137
7.2.4. Impact Printer Consumables ........................................................................... 137
7.3. Inkjet Printers................................................................................................................. 137
7.3.1. Inkjet Consumables......................................................................................... 138
7.4. Laser Printers ................................................................................................................. 138
7.4.1. Color Laser Printers ........................................................................................ 138
7.4.2. Laser Printer Consumables ............................................................................. 139
7.5. Other Printer Types ........................................................................................................ 139
7.6. Printer Languages and Technologies ............................................................................. 140
7.7. Networked Versus Local Printers................................................................................... 140
7.8. Red Hat Enterprise Linux-Specific Information ............................................................ 141
7.9. Additional Resources ..................................................................................................... 142
7.9.1. Installed Documentation ................................................................................. 142
7.9.2. Useful Websites .............................................................................................. 142
7.9.3. Related Books ................................................................................................. 143
8. Planning for Disaster .................................................................................................................. 145
8.1. Types of Disasters .......................................................................................................... 145
8.1.1. Hardware Failures ........................................................................................... 145
8.1.2. Software Failures ............................................................................................ 150
8.1.3. Environmental Failures ................................................................................... 153
8.1.4. Human Errors.................................................................................................. 158
8.2. Backups.......................................................................................................................... 162
8.2.1. Different Data: Different Backup Needs......................................................... 163
8.2.2. Backup Software: Buy Versus Build............................................................... 164
8.2.3. Types of Backups ............................................................................................ 165
8.2.4. Backup Media ................................................................................................. 166
8.2.5. Storage of Backups ......................................................................................... 168
8.2.6. Restoration Issues ........................................................................................... 168
8.3. Disaster Recovery .......................................................................................................... 169
8.3.1. Creating, Testing, and Implementing a Disaster Recovery Plan ..................... 170
8.3.2. Backup Sites: Cold, Warm, and Hot ............................................................... 171
8.3.3. Hardware and Software Availability ............................................................... 171
8.3.4. Availability of Backups................................................................................... 172
8.3.5. Network Connectivity to the Backup Site....................................................... 172
8.3.6. Backup Site Staffing ....................................................................................... 172
8.3.7. Moving Back Toward Normalcy ..................................................................... 172
8.4. Red Hat Enterprise Linux-Specific Information ............................................................ 173
8.4.1. Software Support ............................................................................................ 173
8.4.2. Backup Technologies ...................................................................................... 173
8.5. Additional Resources ..................................................................................................... 176
8.5.1. Installed Documentation ................................................................................. 176
8.5.2. Useful Websites .............................................................................................. 177
8.5.3. Related Books ................................................................................................. 177
Index................................................................................................................................................. 179
Colophon.......................................................................................................................................... 187
Introduction
Welcome to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Introduction to System Administration.
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Introduction to System Administration contains introductory information for new Red Hat Enterprise Linux system administrators. It does not teach you how to perform a
particular task under Red Hat Enterprise Linux; rather, it provides you with the background knowledge
that more experienced system administrators have learned over time.
This guide assumes you have a limited amount of experience as a Linux user, but no Linux system
administration experience. If you are completely new to Linux in general (and Red Hat Enterprise
Linux in particular), you should start by purchasing an introductory book on Linux.
Each chapter in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Introduction to System Administration has the following
structure:
• Generic overview material — This section discusses the topic of the chapter without going into
details about a specific operating system, technology, or methodology.
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux-specific material — This section addresses aspects of the topic related to
Linux in general and Red Hat Enterprise Linux in particular.
• Additional resources for further study — This section includes pointers to other Red Hat Enterprise
Linux manuals, helpful websites, and books containing information applicable to the topic.
By adopting a consistent structure, readers can more easily read the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Intro-
duction to System Administration in whatever way they choose. For example, an experienced system
administrator with little Red Hat Enterprise Linux experience could skim only the sections that specifically focus on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, while a new system adminstrator could start by reading only
the generic overview sections, and using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux-specific sections as an introduction to more in-depth resources.
While on the subject of more in-depth resources, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Adminis-
tration Guide is an excellent resource for performing specific tasks in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux
environment. Administrators requiring more in-depth, factual information should refer to the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux Reference Guide.
HTML, PDF, and RPM versions of the manuals are available on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Documentation CD and online at http://www.redhat.com/docs/.
Note
Although this manual reflects the most current information possible, read the Red Hat Enterprise
Linux Release Notes for information that may not have been available prior to our documenta-
tion being finalized. They can be found on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD #1 and online at
http://www.redhat.com/docs/.
1. Architecture-specific Information
Unless otherwise noted, all information contained in this manual apply only to the x86 processor
and processors featuring the Intel® Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel® EM64T) and AMD64
technologies. For architecture-specific information, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation
Guide for your respective architecture.
ii Introduction
2. Document Conventions
When you read this manual, certain words are represented in different fonts, typefaces, sizes, and
weights. This highlighting is systematic; different words are represented in the same style to indicate
their inclusion in a specific category. The types of words that are represented this way include the
following:
command
Linux commands (and other operating system commands, when used) are represented this way.
This style should indicate to you that you can type the word or phrase on the command line
and press [Enter] to invoke a command. Sometimes a command contains words that would be
displayed in a different style on their own (such as file names). In these cases, they are considered
to be part of the command, so the entire phrase is displayed as a command. For example:
Use the cat testfile command to view the contents of a file, named testfile, in the current
working directory.
file name
File names, directory names, paths, and RPM package names are represented this way. This style
should indicate that a particular file or directory exists by that name on your system. Examples:
The .bashrc file in your home directory contains bash shell definitions and aliases for your own
use.
The /etc/fstab file contains information about different system devices and file systems.
Install the webalizer RPM if you want to use a Web server log file analysis program.
application
This style indicates that the program is an end-user application (as opposed to system software).
For example:
Use Mozilla to browse the Web.
[key]
A key on the keyboard is shown in this style. For example:
To use [Tab] completion, type in a character and then press the [Tab] key. Your terminal displays
the list of files in the directory that start with that letter.
[key]-[combination]
A combination of keystrokes is represented in this way. For example:
The [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Backspace] key combination exits your graphical session and return you to the
graphical login screen or the console.
text found on a GUI interface
A title, word, or phrase found on a GUI interface screen or window is shown in this style. Text
shown in this style is being used to identify a particular GUI screen or an element on a GUI
screen (such as text associated with a checkbox or field). Example:
Select the Require Password checkbox if you would like your screensaver to require a password
before stopping.
top level of a menu on a GUI screen or window
A word in this style indicates that the word is the top level of a pulldown menu. If you click on
the word on the GUI screen, the rest of the menu should appear. For example:
Introduction iii
Under File on a GNOME terminal, the New Tab option allows you to open multiple shell
prompts in the same window.
If you need to type in a sequence of commands from a GUI menu, they are shown like the
following example:
Go to Main Menu Button (on the Panel) => Programming => Emacs to start the Emacs text
editor.
button on a GUI screen or window
This style indicates that the text can be found on a clickable button on a GUI screen. For example:
Click on the Back button to return to the webpage you last viewed.
computer output
Text in this style indicates text displayed to a shell prompt such as error messages and responses
to commands. For example:
The ls command displays the contents of a directory. For example:
Desktop about.html logs paulwesterberg.png
Mail backupfiles mail reports
The output returned in response to the command (in this case, the contents of the directory) is
shown in this style.
prompt
A prompt, which is a computer’s way of signifying that it is ready for you to input something, is
shown in this style. Examples:
$
#
[stephen@maturin stephen]$
leopard login:
user input
Text that the user has to type, either on the command line, or into a text box on a GUI screen, is
displayed in this style. In the following example, text is displayed in this style:
To boot your system into the text based installation program, you must type in the text command at the boot: prompt.
replaceable
Text used for examples, which is meant to be replaced with data provided by the user, is displayed
in this style. In the following example, <version-number> is displayed in this style:
The directory for the kernel source is /usr/src/<version-number>/, where
<version-number> is the version of the kernel installed on this system.
Additionally, we use several different strategies to draw your attention to certain pieces of information.
In order of how critical the information is to your system, these items are marked as a note, tip,
important, caution, or warning. For example:
Note
Remember that Linux is case sensitive. In other words, a rose is not a ROSE is not a rOsE.
iv Introduction
Tip
The directory /usr/share/doc/ contains additional documentation for packages installed on your
system.
Important
If you modify the DHCP configuration file, the changes do not take effect until you restart the DHCP
daemon.
Caution
Do not perform routine tasks as root — use a regular user account unless you need to use the root
account for system administration tasks.
Warning
Be careful to remove only the necessary Red Hat Enterprise Linux partitions. Removing other partitions could result in data loss or a corrupted system environment.
3. Activate Your Subscription
Before you can access service and software maintenance information, and the support documentation included in your subscription, you must activate your subscription by registering with Red Hat.
Registration includes these simple steps:
• Provide a Red Hat login
• Provide a subscription number
• Connect your system
The first time you boot your installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you are prompted to register
with Red Hat using the Setup Agent. If you follow the prompts during the Setup Agent, you can
complete the registration steps and activate your subscription.
If you can not complete registration during the Setup Agent (which requires network access), you
can alternatively complete the Red Hat registration process online at http://www.redhat.com/register/.
3.1. Provide a Red Hat Login
If you do not have an existing Red Hat login, you can create one when prompted during the Setup
Agent or online at:
https://www.redhat.com/apps/activate/newlogin.html
Introduction v
A Red Hat login enables your access to:
• Software updates, errata and maintenance via Red Hat Network
• Red Hat technical support resources, documentation, and Knowledgebase
If you have forgotten your Red Hat login, you can search for your Red Hat login online at:
https://rhn.redhat.com/help/forgot_password.pxt
3.2. Provide Your Subscription Number
Your subscription number is located in the package that came with your order. If your package did not
include a subscription number, your subscription was activated for you and you can skip this step.
You can provide your subscription number when prompted during the Setup Agent or by visiting
http://www.redhat.com/register/.
3.3. Connect Your System
The Red Hat Network Registration Client helps you connect your system so that you can begin to get
updates and perform systems management. There are three ways to connect:
1. During the Setup Agent — Check the Send hardware information and Send system package
list options when prompted.
2. After the Setup Agent has been completed — From the Main Menu, go to System Tools, then
select Red Hat Network.
3. After the Setup Agent has been completed — Enter the following command from the command
line as the root user:
• /usr/bin/up2date --register
4. More to Come
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Introduction to System Administration is part of Red Hat’s growing
commitment to provide useful and timely support to Red Hat Enterprise Linux users. As new releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux are made available, we make every effort to include both new and
improved documentation for you.
4.1. Send in Your Feedback
If you spot a typo in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Introduction to System Administration, or if you
have thought of a way to make this manual better, we would love to hear from you. Please submit a
report in Bugzilla (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla) against the component rhel-isa.
Be sure to mention the manual’s identifier:
rhel-isa(EN)-4-Print-RHI (2004-08-25T17:11)
If you mention this manual’s identifier, we will know exactly which version of the guide you have.
vi Introduction
If you have a suggestion for improving the documentation, try to be as specific as possible. If you
have found an error, please include the section number and some of the surrounding text so we can
find it easily.
Chapter 1.
The Philosophy of System Administration
Although the specifics of being a system administrator may change from platform to platform, there
are underlying themes that do not. These themes make up the philosophy of system administration.
The themes are:
• Automate everything
• Document everything
• Communicate as much as possible
• Know your resources
• Know your users
• Know your business
• Security cannot be an afterthought
• Plan ahead
• Expect the unexpected
The following sections explore each theme in more detail.
1.1. Automate Everything
Most system administrators are outnumbered — either by their users, their systems, or both. In many
cases, automation is the only way to keep up. In general, anything done more than once should be
examined as a possible candidate for automation.
Here are some commonly automated tasks:
• Free disk space checking and reporting
• Backups
• System performance data collection
• User account maintenance (creation, deletion, etc.)
• Business-specific functions (pushing new data to a Web server, running monthly/quarterly/yearly
reports, etc.)
This list is by no means complete; the functions automated by system administrators are only limited
by an administrator’s willingness to write the necessary scripts. In this case, being lazy (and making
the computer do more of the mundane work) is actually a good thing.
Automation also gives users the extra benefit of greater predictability and consistency of service.
Tip
Keep in mind that if you have a task that should be automated, it is likely that you are not the first
system administrator to have that need. Here is where the benefits of open source software really
shine — you may be able to leverage someone else’s work to automate the manual procedure that is
currently eating up your time. So always make sure you search the Web before writing anything more
complex than a small Perl script.
2 Chapter 1. The Philosophy of System Administration
1.2. Document Everything
If given the choice between installing a brand-new server and writing a procedural document on
performing system backups, the average system administrator would install the new server every time.
While this is not at all unusual, you must document what you do. Many system administrators put off
doing the necessary documentation for a variety of reasons:
"I will get around to it later."
Unfortunately, this is usually not true. Even if a system administrator is not kidding themselves,
the nature of the job is such that everyday tasks are usually too chaotic to "do it later." Even
worse, the longer it is put off, the more that is forgotten, leading to a much less detailed (and
therefore, less useful) document.
"Why write it up? I will remember it."
Unless you are one of those rare individuals with a photographic memory, no, you will not
remember it. Or worse, you will remember only half of it, not realizing that you are missing
the whole story. This leads to wasted time either trying to relearn what you had forgotten or
fixing what you had broken due to your incomplete understanding of the situation.
"If I keep it in my head, they will not fire me — I will have job security!"
While this may work for a while, invariably it leads to less — not more — job security. Think
for a moment about what may happen during an emergency. You may not be available; your
documentation may save the day by letting someone else resolve the problem in your absence.
And never forget that emergencies tend to be times when upper management pays close attention.
In such cases, it is better to have your documentation be part of the solution than it is for your
absence to be part of the problem.
In addition, if you are part of a small but growing organization, eventually there will be a need for
another system administrator. How can this person learn to back you up if everything is in your
head? Worst yet, not documenting may make you so indispensable that you might not be able to
advance your career. You could end up working for the very person that was hired to assist you.
Hopefully you are now sold on the benefits of system documentation. That brings us to the next
question: What should you document? Here is a partial list:
Policies
Policies are written to formalize and clarify the relationship you have with your user community.
They make it clear to your users how their requests for resources and/or assistance are handled.
The nature, style, and method of disseminating policies to your a community varies from organization to organization.
Procedures
Procedures are any step-by-step sequence of actions that must be taken to accomplish a certain
task. Procedures to be documented can include backup procedures, user account management
procedures, problem reporting procedures, and so on. Like automation, if a procedure is followed
more than once, it is a good idea to document it.
Changes
A large part of a system administrator’s career revolves around making changes — configuring
systems for maximum performance, tweaking scripts, modifying configuration files, and so on.
Chapter 1. The Philosophy of System Administration 3
All of these changes should be documented in some fashion. Otherwise, you could find yourself
being completely confused about a change you made several months earlier.
Some organizations use more complex methods for keeping track of changes, but in many cases a
simple revision history at the start of the file being changed is all that is necessary. At a minimum,
each entry in the revision history should contain:
• The name or initials of the person making the change
• The date the change was made
• The reason the change was made
This results in concise, yet useful entries:
ECB, 12-June-2002 — Updated entry for new Accounting printer (to support the replacement
printer’s ability to print duplex)
1.3. Communicate as Much as Possible
When it comes to your users, you can never communicate too much. Be aware that small system
changes you might think are practically unnoticeable could very well completely confuse the administrative assistant in Human Resources.
The method by which you communicate with your users can vary according to your organization.
Some organizations use email; others, an internal website. Still others may rely on Usenet news or
IRC. A sheet of paper tacked to a bulletin board in the breakroom may even suffice at some places. In
any case, use whatever method(s) that work well at your organization.
In general, it is best to follow this paraphrased approach used in writing newspaper stories:
1. Tell your users what you are going to do
2. Tell your users what you are doing
3. Tell your users what you have done
The following sections look at these steps in more depth.
1.3.1. Tell Your Users What You Are Going to Do
Make sure you give your users sufficient warning before you do anything. The actual amount of
warning necessary varies according to the type of change (upgrading an operating system demands
more lead time than changing the default color of the system login screen), as well as the nature of
your user community (more technically adept users may be able to handle changes more readily than
users with minimal technical skills.)
At a minimum, you should describe:
• The nature of the change
• When it will take place
• Why it is happening
• Approximately how long it should take
• The impact (if any) that the users can expect due to the change
• Contact information should they have any questions or concerns
Here is a hypothetical situation. The Finance department has been experiencing problems with their
database server being very slow at times. You are going to bring the server down, upgrade the CPU
4 Chapter 1. The Philosophy of System Administration
module to a faster model, and reboot. Once this is done, you will move the database itself to faster,
RAID-based storage. Here is one possible announcement for this situation:
System Downtime Scheduled for Friday Night
Starting this Friday at 6pm (midnight for our associates in Berlin), all financial applications will be unavailable for a period of approximately four hours.
During this time, changes to both the hardware and software on the Finance database server will be performed. These changes should greatly reduce the time required to run the Accounts Payable and Accounts
Receivable applications, and the weekly Balance Sheet report.
Other than the change in runtime, most people should notice no other change. However, those of you that
have written your own SQL queries should be aware that the layout of some indices will change. This is
documented on the company intranet website, on the Finance page.
Should you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please contact System Administration at extension
4321.
A few points are worth noting:
• Effectively communicate the start and duration of any downtime that might be involved in the
change.
• Make sure you give the time of the change in such a way that it is useful to all users, no matter
where they may be located.
• Use terms that your users understand. The people impacted by this work do not care that the new
CPU module is a 2GHz unit with twice as much L2 cache, or that the database is being placed on a
RAID 5 logical volume.
1.3.2. Tell Your Users What You Are Doing
This step is primarily a last-minute warning of the impending change; as such, it should be a brief
repeat of the first message, though with the impending nature of the change made more apparent
("The system upgrade will take place TONIGHT."). This is also a good place to publicly answer any
questions you may have received as a result of the first message.
Continuing our hypothetical example, here is one possible last-minute warning:
System Downtime Scheduled for Tonight
Reminder: The system downtime announced this past Monday will take place as scheduled tonight at 6pm
(midnight for the Berlin office). You can find the original announcement on the company intranet website,
on the System Administration page.
Several people have asked whether they should stop working early tonight to make sure their work is backed
up prior to the downtime. This will not be necessary, as the work being done tonight will not impact any
work done on your personal workstations.
Remember, those of you that have written your own SQL queries should be aware that the layout of some
indices will change. This is documented on the company intranet website, on the Finance page.
Your users have been alerted; now you are ready to actually do the work.
Chapter 1. The Philosophy of System Administration 5
1.3.3. Tell Your Users What You Have Done
After you have finished making the changes, you must tell your users what you have done. Again, this
should be a summary of the previous messages (invariably someone will not have read them.)
1
However, there is one important addition you must make. It is vital that you give your users the current
status. Did the upgrade not go as smoothly as planned? Was the new storage server only able to serve
the systems in Engineering, and not in Finance? These types of issues must be addressed here.
Of course, if the current status differs from what you communicated previously, you should make this
point clear and describe what will be done (if anything) to arrive at the final solution.
In our hypothetical situation, the downtime had some problems. The new CPU module did not work;
a call to the system’s manufacturer revealed that a special version of the module is required for in-thefield upgrades. On the plus side, the migration of the database to the RAID volume went well (even
though it took a bit longer than planned due to the problems with the CPU module.
Here is one possible announcement:
System Downtime Complete
The system downtime scheduled for Friday night (refer to the System Administration page on the company
intranet website) has been completed.Unfortunately, hardware issues prevented one of the tasks from being
completed. Due to this, the remaining tasks took longer than the originally-scheduled four hours. Instead,
all systems were back in production by midnight (6am Saturday for the Berlin office).
Because of the remaining hardware issues, performance of the AP, AR, and the Balance Sheet report will
be slightly improved, but not to the extent originally planned. A second downtime will be announced and
scheduled as soon as the issues that prevented completion of the task have been resolved.
Please note that the downtime did change some database indices; people that have written their own SQL
queries should consult the Finance page on the company intranet website.
Please contact System Administration at extension 4321 with any questions.
With this kind of information, your users will have sufficient background knowledge to continue their
work, and to understand how the changes impact them.
1.4. Know Your Resources
System administration is mostly a matter of balancing available resources against the people and
programs that use those resources. Therefore, your career as a system administrator will be a short
and stress-filled one unless you fully understand the resources you have at your disposal.
Some of the resources are ones that seem pretty obvious:
• System resources, such as available processing power, memory, and disk space
• Network bandwidth
• Available money in the IT budget
But some may not be so obvious:
• The services of operations personnel, other system administrators, or even an administrative assis-
tant
1. Be sure to send this message out as soon as the work is done, before you leave for home. Once you have left
the office, it is much too easy to forget, leaving your users in the dark as to whether they can use the system or
not.
6 Chapter 1. The Philosophy of System Administration
• Time (often of critical importance when the time involves things such as the amount of time during
which system backups may take place)
• Knowledge (whether it is stored in books, system documentation, or the brain of a person that has
worked at the company for the past twenty years)
It is important to note is that it is highly valuable to take a complete inventory of those resources
available to you and to keep it current — a lack of "situational awareness" when it comes to available
resources can often be worse than no awareness at all.
1.5. Know Your Users
Although some people bristle at the term "users" (perhaps due to some system administrators’ use of
the term in a derogatory manner), it is used here with no such connotation implied. Users are those
people that use the systems and resources for which you are responsible — no more, and no less. As
such, they are central to your ability to successfully administer your systems; without understanding
your users, how can you understand the system resources they require?
For example, consider a bank teller. A bank teller uses a strictly-defined set of applications and requires little in the way of system resources. A software engineer, on the other hand, may use many
different applications and always welcomes more system resources (for faster build times). Two entirely different users with two entirely different needs.
Make sure you learn as much about your users as you can.
1.6. Know Your Business
Whether you work for a large, multinational corporation or a small community college, you must still
understand the nature of the business environment in which you work. This can be boiled down to one
question:
What is the purpose of the systems you administer?
The key point here is to understand your systems’ purpose in a more global sense:
• Applications that must be run within certain time frames, such as at the end of a month, quarter, or
year
• The times during which system maintenance may be done
• New technologies that could be used to resolve long-standing business problems
By taking into account your organization’s business, you will find that your day-to-day decisions will
be better for your users, and for you.
1.7. Security Cannot be an Afterthought
No matter what you might think about the environment in which your systems are running, you cannot
take security for granted. Even standalone systems not connected to the Internet may be at risk (although obviously the risks will be different from a system that has connections to the outside world).
Therefore, it is extremely important to consider the security implications of everything you do. The
following list illustrates the different kinds of issues you should consider:
• The nature of possible threats to each of the systems under your care
• The location, type, and value of the data on those systems
Chapter 1. The Philosophy of System Administration 7
• The type and frequency of authorized access to the systems
While you are thinking about security, do not make the mistake of assuming that possible intruders
will only attack your systems from outside of your company. Many times the perpetrator is someone
within the company. So the next time you walk around the office, look at the people around you and
ask yourself this question:
What would happen if that person were to attempt to subvert our security?
Note
This does not mean that you should treat your coworkers as if they are criminals. It just means that
you should look at the type of work that each person performs and determine what types of security
breaches a person in that position could perpetrate, if they were so inclined.
1.7.1. The Risks of Social Engineering
While most system administrators’ first reactions when they think about security is to concentrate on
the technological aspects, it is important to maintain perspective. Quite often, security breaches do not
have their origins in technology, but in human nature.
People interested in breaching security often use human nature to entirely bypass technological access
controls. This is known as social engineering. Here is an example:
The second shift operator receives an outside phone call. The caller claims to be your organization’s
CFO (the CFO’s name and background information was obtained from your organization’s website,
on the "Management Team" page).
The caller claims to be calling from some place halfway around the world (maybe this part of the
story is a complete fabrication, or perhaps your organization’s website has a recent press release that
makes mention of the CFO attending a tradeshow).
The caller tells a tale of woe; his laptop was stolen at the airport, and he is with an important customer and needs access to the corporate intranet to check on the customer’s account status. Would the
operator be so kind as to give him the necessary access information?
Do you know what would your operator do? Unless your operator has guidance (in the form of policies
and procedures), you very likely do not know for sure.
Like traffic lights, the goal of policies and procedures is to provide unambiguous guidance as to what
is and is not appropriate behavior. However, just as with traffic lights, policies and procedures only
work if everyone follows them. And there is the crux of the problem — it is unlikely that everyone
will adhere to your policies and procedures. In fact, depending on the nature of your organization, it
is possible that you do not even have sufficient authority to define policies, much less enforce them.
What then?
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. User education can help; do everything you can to help
make your user community aware of security and social engineering. Give lunchtime presentations
about security. Post pointers to security-related news articles on your organization’s mailing lists.
Make yourself available as a sounding board for users’ questions about things that do not seem quite
right.
In short, get the message out to your users any way you can.
8 Chapter 1. The Philosophy of System Administration
1.8. Plan Ahead
System administrators that took all this advice to heart and did their best to follow it would be fantastic system administrators — for a day. Eventually, the environment will change, and one day our
fantastic administrator would be caught flat-footed. The reason? Our fantastic administrator failed to
plan ahead.
Certainly no one can predict the future with 100% accuracy. However, with a bit of awareness it is
easy to read the signs of many changes:
• An offhand mention of a new project gearing up during that boring weekly staff meeting is a sure
sign that you will likely need to support new users in the near future
• Talk of an impending acquisition means that you may end up being responsible for new (and pos-
sibly incompatible) systems in one or more remote locations
Being able to read these signs (and to respond effectively to them) makes life easier for you and your
users.
1.9. Expect the Unexpected
While the phrase "expect the unexpected" is trite, it reflects an underlying truth that all system administrators must understand:
There will be times when you are caught off-guard.
After becoming comfortable with this uncomfortable fact of life, what can a concerned system administrator do? The answer lies in flexibility; by performing your job in such a way as to give you (and
your users) the most options possible. Take, for example, the issue of disk space. Given that never
having sufficient disk space seems to be as much a physical law as the law of gravity, it is reasonable
to assume that at some point you will be confronted with a desperate need for additional disk space
right now.
What would a system administrator who expects the unexpected do in this case? Perhaps it is possible
to keep a few disk drives sitting on the shelf as spares in case of hardware problems2. A spare of this
type could be quickly deployed3on a temporary basis to address the short-term need for disk space,
giving time to more permanently resolve the issue (by following the standard procedure for procuring
additional disk drives, for example).
By trying to anticipate problems before they occur, you will be in a position to respond more quickly
and effectively than if you let yourself be surprised.
1.10. Red Hat Enterprise Linux-Specific Information
This section describes information related to the philosophy of system administration that is specific
to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
2. And of course a system administrator that expects the unexpected would naturally use RAID (or related
technologies) to lessen the impact of a critical disk drive failing during production.
3. Again,system administrators thatthink ahead configuretheir systems to make it as easy as possible to quickly
add a new disk drive to the system.
Chapter 1. The Philosophy of System Administration 9
1.10.1. Automation
Automation of frequently-performed tasks under Red Hat Enterprise Linux requires knowledge of
several different types of technologies. First are the commands that control the timing of command or
script execution. The cron and at commands are most commonly used in these roles.
Incorporating an easy-to-understand yet powerfully flexible time specification system, cron can
schedule the execution of commands or scripts for recurring intervals ranging in length from minutes
to months. The crontab command is used to manipulate the files controlling the cron daemon that
actually schedules each cron job for execution.
The at command (and the closely-related command batch) are more appropriate for scheduling
the execution of one-time scripts or commands. These commands implement a rudimentary batch
subsystem consisting of multiple queues with varying scheduling priorities. The priorities are known
as niceness levels (due to the name of the command — nice). Both at and batch are perfect for
tasks that must start at a given time but are not time-critical in terms of finishing.
Next are the various scripting languages. These are the "programming languages" that the average
system administrator uses to automate manual operations. There are many scripting languages (and
each system administrator tends to have a personal favorite), but the following are currently the most
common:
• The bash command shell
• The perl scripting language
• The python scripting language
Over and above the obvious differences between these languages, the biggest difference is in the way
in which these languages interact with other utility programs on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system.
Scripts written with the bash shell tend to make more extensive use of the many small utility programs
(for example, to perform character string manipulation), while perl scripts perform more of these
types of operations using features built into the language itself. A script written using python can fully
exploit the language’s object-oriented capabilities, making complex scripts more easily extensible.
This means that, in order to truly master shell scripting, you must be familiar with the many utility
programs (such as grep and sed) that are part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Learning perl (and
python), on the other hand, tends to be a more "self-contained" process. However, many perl lan-
guage constructs are based on the syntax of various traditional UNIX utility programs, and as such
are familiar to those Red Hat Enterprise Linux system administrators with shell scripting experience.
1.10.2. Documentation and Communication
In the areas of documentation and communication, there is little that is specific to Red Hat Enterprise
Linux. Since documentation and communication can consist of anything from adding comments to a
text-based configuration file to updating a webpage or sending an email, a system administrator using
Red Hat Enterprise Linux must have access to text editors, HTML editors, and mail clients.
Here is a small sample of the many text editors available under Red Hat Enterprise Linux:
• The gedit text editor
• The Emacs text editor
• The Vim text editor
The gedit text editor is a strictly graphical application (in other words, it requires an active X Window
System environment), while vim and Emacs are primarily text-based in nature.
10 Chapter 1. The Philosophy of System Administration
The subject of the best text editor has sparked debate for nearly as long as computers have existed and
will continue to do so. Therefore, the best approach is to try each editor for yourself, and use what
works best for you.
For HTML editors, system administrators can use the Composer function of the Mozilla Web browser.
Of course, some system administrators prefer to hand-code their HTML, making a regular text editor
a perfectly acceptable tool as well.
As far as email is concerned, Red Hat Enterprise Linux includes the Evolution graphical email client,
the Mozilla email client (which is also graphical), and mutt, which is text-based. As with text editors,
the choice of an email client tends to be a personal one; therefore, the best approach is to try each
client for yourself, and use what works best for you.
1.10.3. Security
As stated earlier in this chapter, security cannot be an afterthought, and security under Red Hat Enterprise Linux is more than skin-deep. Authentication and access controls are deeply-integrated into the
operating system and are based on designs gleaned from long experience in the UNIX community.
For authentication, Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses PAM — Pluggable Authentication Modules. PAM
makes it possible to fine-tune user authentication via the configuration of shared libraries that all
PAM-aware applications use, all without requiring any changes to the applications themselves.
Access control under Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses traditional UNIX-style permissions (read, write,
execute) against user, group, and "everyone else" classifications. Like UNIX, Red Hat Enterprise
Linux also makes use of setuid and setgid bits to temporarily confer expanded access rights to processes running a particular program, based on the ownership of the program file. Of course, this makes
it critical that any program to be run with setuid or setgid privileges must be carefully audited to ensure
that no exploitable vulnerabilities exist.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux also includes support for access control lists. An access control list (ACL)
is a construct that allows extremely fine-grained control over what users or groups may access a file
or directory. For example, a file’s permissions may restrict all access by anyone other than the file’s
owner, yet the file’s ACL can be configured to allow only user bob to write and group finance to
read the file.
Another aspect of security is being able to keep track of system activity. Red Hat Enterprise Linux
makes extensive use of logging, both at a kernel and an application level. Logging is controlled by
the system logging daemon syslogd, which can log system information locally (normally to files in
the /var/log/ directory) or to a remote system (which acts as a dedicated log server for multiple
computers.)
Intrusion detection sytems (IDS) are powerful tools for any Red Hat Enterprise Linux system administrator. An IDS makes it possible for system administrators to determine whether unauthorized
changes were made to one or more systems. The overall design of the operating system itself includes
IDS-like functionality.
Because Red Hat Enterprise Linux is installed using the RPM Package Manager (RPM), it is possible
to use RPM to verify whether any changes have been made to the packages comprising the operating
system. However, because RPM is primarily a package management tool, its abilities as an IDS are
somewhat limited. Even so, it can be a good first step toward monitoring a Red Hat Enterprise Linux
system for unauthorized modifications.
1.11. Additional Resources
This section includes various resources that can be used to learn more about the philosophy of system
administration and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux-specific subject matter discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 1. The Philosophy of System Administration 11
1.11.1. Installed Documentation
The following resources are installed in the course of a typical Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation
and can help you learn more about the subject matter discussed in this chapter.
• crontab(1) and crontab(5) man pages — Learn how to schedule commands and scripts for
automatic execution at regular intervals.
• at(1) man page — Learn how to schedule commands and scripts for execution at a later time.
• bash(1) man page — Learn more about the default shell and shell script writing.
• perl(1) man page — Review pointers to the many man pages that make up perl’s online docu-
mentation.
• python(1) man page — Learn more about options, files, and environment variables controlling
the Python interpreter.
• gedit(1) man page and Help menu entry — Learn how to edit text files with this graphical text
editor.
• emacs(1) man page — Learn more about this highly-flexible text editor, including how to run its
online tutorial.
• vim(1) man page — Learn how to use this powerful text editor.
• Mozilla Help Contents menu entry — Learn how to edit HTML files, read mail, and browse the
Web.
• evolution(1) man page and Help menu entry — Learn how to manage your email with this
graphical email client.
• mutt(1) man page and files in /usr/share/doc/mutt-<version> — Learn how to manage
your email with this text-based email client.
• pam(8) man page and files in /usr/share/doc/pam-<version> — Learn how authentication
takes place under Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
1.11.2. Useful Websites
• http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/ — The Linux-PAM project homepage.
• http://www.usenix.org/ — The USENIX homepage. A professional organization dedicated to bring-
ing together computer professionals of all types and fostering improved communication and innovation.
• http://www.sage.org/ — The System Administrators Guild homepage. A USENIX special technical
group that is a good resource for all system administrators responsible for Linux (or Linux-like)
operating systems.
• http://www.python.org/ — The Python Language Website. An excellent site for learning more about
Python.
• http://www.perl.org/ — The Perl Mongers Website. A good place to start learning about Perl and
connecting with the Perl community.
• http://www.rpm.org/ — The RPM Package Manager homepage. The most comprehensive website
for learning about RPM.
12 Chapter 1. The Philosophy of System Administration
1.11.3. Related Books
Most books on system administration do little to cover the philosophy behind the job. However, the
following books do have sections that give a bit more depth to the issues that were discussed here:
• The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Reference Guide; Red Hat, Inc. — Provides an overview of locations
of key system files, user and group settings, and PAM configuration.
• The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Security Guide; Red Hat, Inc. — Contains a comprehensive discus-
sion of many security-related issues for Red Hat Enterprise Linux system administrators.
• The Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Administration Guide; Red Hat, Inc. — Includes chapters on
managing users and groups, automating tasks, and managing log files.
• Linux Administration Handbook by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, and Trent R. Hein; Prentice Hall —
Provides a good section on the policies and politics side of system administration, including several
"what-if" discussions concerning ethics.
• Linux System Administration: A User’s Guide by Marcel Gagne; Addison Wesley Professional —
Contains a good chapter on automating various tasks.
• Solaris System Management by John Philcox; New Riders Publishing — Although not specifically
written for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (or even Linux in general), and using the term "system manager" instead of "system administrator," this book provides a 70-page overview of the many roles
that system administrators play in a typical organization.
Chapter 2.
Resource Monitoring
As stated earlier, a great deal of system administration revolves around resources and their efficient
use. By balancing various resources against the people and programs that use those resources, you
waste less money and make your users as happy as possible. However, this leaves two questions:
What are resources?
And:
How is it possible to know what resources are being used (and to what extent)?
The purpose of this chapter is to enable you to answer these questions by helping you to learn more
about resources and how they can be monitored.
2.1. Basic Concepts
Before you can monitor resources, you first have to know what resources there are to monitor. All
systems have the following resources available:
• CPU power
• Bandwidth
• Memory
• Storage
These resources are covered in more depth in the following chapters. However, for the time being all
you need to keep in mind is that these resources have a direct impact on system performance, and
therefore, on your users’ productivity and happiness.
At its simplest, resource monitoring is nothing more than obtaining information concerning the utilization of one or more system resources.
However, it is rarely this simple. First, one must take into account the resources to be monitored. Then
it is necessary to examine each system to be monitored, paying particular attention to each system’s
situation.
The systems you monitor fall into one of two categories:
• The system is currently experiencing performance problems at least part of the time and you would
like to improve its performance.
• The system is currently running well and you would like it to stay that way.
The first category means you should monitor resources from a system performance perspective, while
the second category means you should monitor system resources from a capacity planning perspective.
Because each perspective has its own unique requirements, the following sections explore each category in more depth.
14 Chapter 2. Resource Monitoring
2.2. System Performance Monitoring
As stated above, system performance monitoring is normally done in response to a performance problem. Either the system is running too slowly, or programs (and sometimes even the entire system) fail
to run at all. In either case, performance monitoring is normally done as the first and last steps of a
three-step process:
1. Monitoring to identify the nature and scope of the resource shortages that are causing the performance problems
2. The data produced from monitoring is analyzed and a course of action (normally performance
tuning and/or the procurement of additional hardware) is taken to resolve the problem
3. Monitoring to ensure that the performance problem has been resolved
Because of this, performance monitoring tends to be relatively short-lived in duration and more detailed in scope.
Note
System performance monitoring is often an iterative process, with these steps being repeated several
times to arrive at the best possible system performance. The primary reason for this is that system
resources and their utilization tend to be highly interrelated, meaning that often the elimination of one
resource bottleneck uncovers another one.
2.3. Monitoring System Capacity
Monitoring system capacity is done as part of an ongoing capacity planning program. Capacity planning uses long-term resource monitoring to determine rates of change in the utilization of system
resources. Once these rates of change are known, it becomes possible to conduct more accurate longterm planning regarding the procurement of additional resources.
Monitoring done for capacity planning purposes is different from performance monitoring in two
ways:
• The monitoring is done on a more-or-less continuous basis
• The monitoring is usually not as detailed
The reason for these differences stems from the goals of a capacity planning program. Capacity planning requires a "big picture" viewpoint; short-term or anomalous resource usage is of little concern.
Instead, data is collected over a period of time, making it possible to categorize resource utilization in
terms of changes in workload. In more narrowly-defined environments, (where only one application
is run, for example) it is possible to model the application’s impact on system resources. This can be
done with sufficient accuracy to make it possible to determine, for example, the impact of five more
customer service representatives running the customer service application during the busiest time of
the day.
2.4. What to Monitor?
As stated earlier, the resources present in every system are CPU power, bandwidth, memory, and
storage. At first glance, it would seem that monitoring would need only consist of examining these
four different things.
Chapter 2. Resource Monitoring 15
Unfortunately, it is not that simple. For example, consider a disk drive. What things might you want
to know about its performance?
• How much free space is available?
• How many I/O operations on average does it perform each second?
• How long on average does it take each I/O operation to be completed?
• How many of those I/O operations are reads? How many are writes?
• What is the average amount of data read/written with each I/O?
There are more ways of studying disk drive performance; these points have only scratched the surface.
The main concept to keep in mind is that there are many different types of data for each resource.
The following sections explore the types of utilization information that would be helpful for each of
the major resource types.
2.4.1. Monitoring CPU Power
In its most basic form, monitoring CPU power can be no more difficult than determining if CPU
utilization ever reaches 100%. If CPU utilization stays below 100%, no matter what the system is
doing, there is additional processing power available for more work.
However, it is a rare system that does not reach 100% CPU utilization at least some of the time. At that
point it is important to examine more detailed CPU utilization data. By doing so, it becomes possible
to start determining where the majority of your processing power is being consumed. Here are some
of the more popular CPU utilization statistics:
User Versus System
The percentage of time spent performing user-level processing versus system-level processing
can point out whether a system’s load is primarily due to running applications or due to operating system overhead. High user-level percentages tend to be good (assuming users are not
experiencing unsatisfactory performance), while high system-level percentages tend to point toward problems that will require further investigation.
Context Switches
A context switch happens when the CPU stops running one process and starts running another.
Because each context switch requires the operating system to take control of the CPU, excessive
context switches and high levels of system-level CPU consumption tend to go together.
Interrupts
As the name implies, interrupts are situations where the processing being performed by the CPU
is abruptly changed. Interrupts generally occur due to hardware activity (such as an I/O device
completing an I/O operation) or due to software (such as software interrupts that control application processing). Because interrupts must be serviced at a system level, high interrupt rates lead
to higher system-level CPU consumption.
Runnable Processes
A process may be in different states. For example, it may be:
• Waiting for an I/O operation to complete
• Waiting for the memory management subsystem to handle a page fault
In these cases, the process has no need for the CPU.
16 Chapter 2. Resource Monitoring
However, eventually the process state changes, and the process becomes runnable. As the name
implies, a runnable process is one that is capable of getting work done as soon as it is scheduled
to receive CPU time. However, if more than one process is runnable at any given time, all but
one1of the runnable processes must wait for their turn at the CPU. By monitoring the number of
runnable processes, it is possible to determine how CPU-bound your system is.
Other performance metrics that reflect an impact on CPU utilization tend to include different services
the operating system provides to processes. They may include statistics on memory management,
I/O processing, and so on. These statistics also reveal that, when system performance is monitored,
there are no boundaries between the different statistics. In other words, CPU utilization statistics may
end up pointing to a problem in the I/O subsystem, or memory utilization statistics may reveal an
application design flaw.
Therefore, when monitoring system performance, it is not possible to examine any one statistic in
complete isolation; only by examining the overall picture it it possible to extract meaningful information from any performance statistics you gather.
2.4.2. Monitoring Bandwidth
Monitoring bandwidth is more difficult than the other resources described here. The reason for this
is due to the fact that performance statistics tend to be device-based, while most of the places where
bandwidth is important tend to be the buses that connect devices. In those instances where more than
one device shares a common bus, you might see reasonable statistics for each device, but the aggregate
load those devices place on the bus would be much greater.
Another challenge to monitoring bandwidth is that there can be circumstances where statistics for
the devices themselves may not be available. This is particularly true for system expansion buses
and datapaths2. However, even though 100% accurate bandwidth-related statistics may not always be
available, there is often enough information to make some level of analysis possible, particularly when
related statistics are taken into account.
Some of the more common bandwidth-related statistics are:
Bytes received/sent
Network interface statistics provide an indication of the bandwidth utilization of one of the more
visible buses — the network.
Interface counts and rates
These network-related statistics can give indications of excessive collisions, transmit and receive
errors, and more. Through the use of these statistics (particularly if the statistics are available
for more than one system on your network), it is possible to perform a modicum of network
troubleshooting even before the more common network diagnostic tools are used.
Transfers per Second
Normally collected for block I/O devices, such as disk and high-performance tape drives, this
statistic is a good way of determining whether a particular device’s bandwidth limit is being
reached. Due to their electromechanical nature, disk and tape drives can only perform so many
I/O operations every second; their performance degrades rapidly as this limit is reached.
1. Assuming a single-processor computer system.
2. More information on buses, datapaths, and bandwidth is available in
Chapter 3 Bandwidth and Processing Power.
Chapter 2. Resource Monitoring 17
2.4.3. Monitoring Memory
If there is one area where a wealth of performance statistics can be found, it is in the area of monitoring memory utilization. Due to the inherent complexity of today’s demand-paged virtual memory
operating systems, memory utilization statistics are many and varied. It is here that the majority of a
system administrator’s work with resource management takes place.
The following statistics represent a cursory overview of commonly-found memory management statistics:
Page Ins/Page Outs
These statistics make it possible to gauge the flow of pages from system memory to attached
mass storage devices (usually disk drives). High rates for both of these statistics can mean that
the system is short of physical memory and is thrashing, or spending more system resources on
moving pages into and out of memory than on actually running applications.
Active/Inactive Pages
These statistics show how heavily memory-resident pages are used. A lack of inactive pages can
point toward a shortage of physical memory.
Free, Shared, Buffered, and Cached Pages
These statistics provide additional detail over the more simplistic active/inactive page statistics.
By using these statistics, it is possible to determine the overall mix of memory utilization.
Swap Ins/Swap Outs
These statistics show the system’s overall swapping behavior. Excessive rates here can point to
physical memory shortages.
Successfully monitoring memory utilization requires a good understanding of how demand-paged
virtual memory operating systems work. While such a subject alone could take up an entire book, the
basic concepts are discussed in Chapter 4 Physical and Virtual Memory. This chapter, along with time
spent actually monitoring a system, gives you the the necessary building blocks to learn more about
this subject.
2.4.4. Monitoring Storage
Monitoring storage normally takes place at two different levels:
• Monitoring for sufficient disk space
• Monitoring for storage-related performance problems
The reason for this is that it is possible to have dire problems in one area and no problems whatsoever
in the other. For example, it is possible to cause a disk drive to run out of disk space without once
causing any kind of performance-related problems. Likewise, it is possible to have a disk drive that
has 99% free space, yet is being pushed past its limits in terms of performance.
However, it is more likely that the average system experiences varying degrees of resource shortages
in both areas. Because of this, it is also likely that — to some extent — problems in one area impact
the other. Most often this type of interaction takes the form of poorer and poorer I/O performance as
a disk drive nears 0% free space although, in cases of extreme I/O loads, it might be possible to slow
I/O throughput to such a level that applications no longer run properly.
In any case, the following statistics are useful for monitoring storage:
18 Chapter 2. Resource Monitoring
Free Space
Free space is probably the one resource all system administrators watch closely; it would be a
rare administrator that never checks on free space (or has some automated way of doing so).
File System-Related Statistics
These statistics (such as number of files/directories, average file size, etc.) provide additional
detail over a single free space percentage. As such, these statistics make it possible for system
administrators to configure the system to give the best performance, as the I/O load imposed by
a file system full of many small files is not the same as that imposed by a file system filled with
a single massive file.
Transfers per Second
This statistic is a good way of determining whether a particular device’s bandwidth limitations
are being reached.
Reads/Writes per Second
A slightly more detailed breakdown of transfers per second, these statistics allow the system administrator to more fully understand the nature of the I/O loads a storage device is experiencing.
This can be critical, as some storage technologies have widely different performance characteristics for read versus write operations.
2.5. Red Hat Enterprise Linux-Specific Information
Red Hat Enterprise Linux comes with a variety of resource monitoring tools. While there are more
than those listed here, these tools are representative in terms of functionality. The tools are:
• free
• top (and GNOME System Monitor, a more graphically oriented version of top)
• vmstat
• The Sysstat suite of resource monitoring tools
• The OProfile system-wide profiler
Let us examine each one in more detail.
2.5.1. free
The free command displays system memory utilization. Here is an example of its output:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 255508 240268 15240 0 7592 86188
-/+ buffers/cache: 146488 109020
Swap: 530136 26268 503868
The Mem: row displays physical memory utilization, while the Swap: row displays the utilization of
the system swap space, and the -/+ buffers/cache: row displays the amount of physical memory
currently devoted to system buffers.
Since free by default only displays memory utilization information once, it is only useful for very
short-term monitoring, or quickly determining if a memory-related problem is currently in progress.
Although free has the ability to repetitively display memory utilization figures via its -s option, the
output scrolls, making it difficult to easily detect changes in memory utilization.
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