Apple Training Series: Mac OS X System Administration Reference, Volume 1

What's the importance of following a methodology when troubleshooting?

What are some tools or configuration files you can use to view the current network state and configuration for the Ethernet card?

One of your users is having performance issues logging in to her machine. What questions do you ask to help troubleshoot the situation?

What are the most important log files, and where are they located?

What's one way to automate log monitoring?

What are login hooks?

Following a methodology ensures that you ask the right questions at the right time and that you're able to troubleshoot in an effective and efficient manner.

A few are scutil, System Preferences, ipconfig, NetworkInterfaces.plist, and Network Utility.

Were you able to log on before, or is this the first time you've tried?

Do you know if anything changed recently on your system or in your settings? What is that?

Have you installed all current updates from Software Update (particularly any security updates)?

Is anyone else in the area having a similar issue?

Does the issue persist if you restart?

The system log found in /var/log/system.log; the console log found in /var/tmp/console.log; the panic log found in /Library/Logs/panic.log; and the install log found in /Library/Receipts/Mac OS X Log.txt.

Create a script that uses grep to detect patterns in logs and emails the results to you. Then, add an entry to the crontab file to run the script at a specific time interval.

Login hooks are used to customize login procedure. You can write scripts that can be run at login or logout.