HP-UX Virtual Partitions

By Marty Poniatowski

To run SAM, log in as root and type:

# sam (or sam &)

This will invoke SAM. If you have a graphics display, SAM will run with the Motif interface. If you have a character-based display, SAM will run in character mode. You have nearly all the same functionality in both modes, but the Motif environment is much more pleasant to use.

If you have a graphics display and SAM does not come up in a Motif window, you probably don't have your DISPLAY variable set for root.

Type the following to set the DISPLAY variable for default POSIX, Korn, and Bourne shells:

# DISPLAY=system_name:0.0 # export DISPLAY

Just substitute the name of your computer for system_name. This can be set in your local .profile file. If you're running HP CDE, you may want to put these lines in your .dtprofile file.

Type the following to set the DISPLAY variable for C shell:

# setenv DISPLAY system_name:0.0

Again, you would substitute the name of your computer for system_name. This would typically be done in your .login file, but if you're running HP CDE, you may want to put this in your .dtprofile file. Most CDE users, however, have .dtprofile as the source for .profile or .login.

Figure 11-10 shows the System Administration Manager running in graphics mode. This is the top-level window of the hierarchical SAM environment called the Functional Area Launcher (FAL). The many categories, or areas, of management shown are the default functional areas managed by SAM. You can select one of these functional areas to be placed in a subarea. Because SAM is hierarchical, you may find yourself working your way down through several levels of the hierarchy before you reach the desired level. I'll cover each of these categories, or areas, in this chapter.

In addition to selecting a functional area, you can select from the pulldown menu bar across the top of the SAM window. I will indicate selections made in SAM and keyboard keys in this chapter with italics. The five selec-tions are File, View, Options, Actions, and Help. The title line shown in Figure 11-10 reads SAM Areas. If you're running Restricted SAM Builder, you will also see a status line with the message "Privileges for user:<username>." As you progress down the hierarchy, the title line will change to reflect your level in the SAM hierarchy. You can move into one of the areas shown, such as Backup and Recovery, by double-clicking the left mouse button on this functional area. You move back up the hierarchy by double-clicking the ..(go up) icon, if available, or by selecting the Actions-Close Level menu commands.

You don't need a graphics display to run SAM. You have access to nearly all the same functionality on a text terminal as you do on a graphics terminal. Figure 11-11 is SAM running in character mode with the same functional areas you have in graphics mode, although the bottom selections are not shown in the figure:

The View menu can be used in character mode to tailor the information desired, filter out some entries, or search for particular entries.

Because you don't have a mouse on a text terminal, you use the keyboard to make selections. The point-and-click method of using SAM when in graphics mode is highly preferable to using the keyboard; however, the same structure to the functional areas exists in both environments. When you see an item in reverse video on the text terminal (such as Accounts for Users and Groups in Figure 11-11), you know that you have that item selected. After having selected Accounts for Users and Groups as shown in Figure 11-11, you would then use the tab key (or F4) to get to the menu bar, use the <--> (arrow) keys to select the desired menu, and use the space bar to display the menu. This situation is where having a mouse to make your selections is highly desirable. Figure 11-12 shows a menu bar selection for both text and graphic displays. In both cases, the Actions menu has been selected.

Of particular interest on the pull-down menu are Add Custom Application and Add Custom Application Group. When you use Add Custom Application Group, you are prompted for a Label and optional Help File for the group. After you enter this information, a new icon appears, if you have a graphics display, with the name of your application group. You can then go into this application group and Add Custom Applications. This means that you can customize SAM to meet your specific administration needs by adding functionality to SAM. After you familiarize yourself with the aspects of system administration SAM can help you with, you'll want to test adding your own application to SAM. Adding a simple application like opening a log file or issuing the /usr/bin/find command will take you only seconds to create.

You can also create users who have restricted access to SAM. You can specify areas within SAM to which specific users can have access. You may have users to whom you would like to give access to backup and restore, or managing users, or handling the print spooler. Invoking SAM with the -r option will allow you to select a user to whom you want to give access to a SAM area and then select the specific area(s) to which you want to enable that user to have access. You can also give a user partial access to some areas, such as providing access to backup and recovery, but not providing access to handling automated backups. As you progress through the detailed descriptions of SAM areas in this chapter, you'll want to think about which of these areas may be appropriate for some of your users to access.