Using System Administration Manager (SAM)




	NOTE: In HP-UX 11i Version 2, the implementation of a number System Administration Manager (SAM) functions have been changed, although SAM continues to provide an interface. For details, see “SAM X-Window-Based Interface”.

The System Administration Manager (SAM) is an HP-UX tool that provides an easy-to-use user interface for performing setup and other essential tasks. SAM helps you with the administration of:

Auditing and security
Backup and recovery
Cluster configuration
Disks and file systems
Kernel configuration
Networking and communications
Peripheral devices
Printers and plotters
Process management
Routine tasks
SAM on remote systems
SD-UX software management (selected tasks via the “Software Management” menu)
Time
User and group accounts
On-Line Addition and Replacement of PCI Cards (OLA/R)
Partition Manager

Use SAM for more information or clarification about a given task.

Using SAM versus HP-UX Commands

Using SAM reduces the complexity of most administration tasks. SAM minimizes or eliminates the need for detailed knowledge of many administration commands, thus saving valuable time. Use SAM whenever possible, especially when first mastering a task. Some tasks described in this manual cannot be done by SAM, in which case you will need to use the HP-UX commands. However, SAM is the tool of choice for most administration work.

This is particularly important when performing any online add and replace (OLA/R) procedures. When these procedures are performed from the command line interface using the /usr/bin/rad command, minimal protection is provided against disabling device drivers and powering-down card slots. On the other hand SAM provides a thorough Critical Resource Analysis which provides continuous feedback and warning throughout the process.




	NOTE: In HP-UX 11i v2, OLA/R control and functionality was implemented as the /usr/bin/olrad command, which performs the same tests as SAM does in earlier releases.

Starting SAM

Be sure that SAM is installed on your system. You must have superuser capability to start SAM. See also “Granting Users Limited Access to SAM”. If you did not originally install SAM and want to use it, refer to Software Distributor Administration Guide to add SAM to your configuration. Before starting SAM, make sure the environment variable LANG is set to C. See sam(1M) for details.

To start SAM, enter

/usr/sbin/sam

For help in using SAM, select the Help button.

Using SAM with an X Window System

To use SAM with an X Window System, the X11-RUN fileset must be installed and the DISPLAY environment variable must be set to reflect the display on which you want SAM to appear. (The DISPLAY variable will usually be set unless you used rlogin to log into a remote system.) To view the current settings of the environment variables, enter

env | more

The DISPLAY environment variable is usually set in the.profile file for Korn and POSIX shells and in the .login file for the C shell as follows:

export DISPLAY=hostname:0.0 (Korn and POSIX shell)

setenv DISPLAY hostname:0 (C Shell)

where hostname is the name returned by the /usr/bin/hostname command.

Using SAM with a Text Terminal

A text terminal is a combination video display/keyboard for which SAM has a special interface. Instead of using a mouse to navigate through the SAM screens, use the keyboard to control SAM’s actions.

To use SAM with a text terminal, the DISPLAY environment variable must not be set.

Using SAM for Remote System Administration

Use SAM to administer multiple remote systems from one location. To add or remove remote systems, select the “Run SAM on Remote Systems” menu item.

Granting Users Limited Access to SAM

As system administrator, you can give limited superuser access to non-superusers by entering:

sam -r

This activates the Restricted SAM Builder, which allows you to enable or disable selected SAM areas for users.

For each user given restricted access, SAM creates a file /etc/sam/custom/login_name.cf that defines the user’s SAM privileges. SAM uses this file to give users access to the indicated areas.

When users execute SAM, they will have superuser status in the areas you defined and will only see those SAM areas in the menu. Areas that do not require superuser status (such as SD) will also appear and will execute using the user’s ID. All other areas of SAM will be hidden from the user. When users without special access to SAM try to run SAM, they will receive a message that they must be superuser to execute SAM.

When running restricted versions of SAM, there are no shell escapes on terminals and the list menu is disabled. This prevents users from getting superuser access to restricted areas of SAM. You can also add your own applications to SAM and set them up for restricted access.

Displaying Device Information in SAM

To display device information, SAM invokes ioscan in the background. However, if an ioscan command is already running when SAM invokes ioscan, SAM can appear to hang because it is waiting for the first ioscan command to finish writing it’s information. SAM is not hung; with systems with many devices, ioscan can take a long time to complete.

Also, if another ioscan command is started after SAM invokes ioscan, SAM may not show all the device information. To fix this, simply refresh the data in SAM (under the Options menu) after all ioscan processes are complete. To check for ioscan processes, use the following ps command:

ps -ef | grep ioscan