Course Description

AIX System Administration will teach a basic Unix user the skills needed to administer their own Unix infrastructure. The student will learn how to build & install AIX, perform system backups, allocate storage, and diagnose system problems. AIX Networking skills will also be covered in detail so the student will feel comfortable configuring NFS, Mail, and other critical services. This is a perfect course for anyone who can say they know "some" AIX, but need to be functional as an administrator. At PARSEC our trainers consult and our consultants train. Thus, you’ll be taught by an experienced administrator, not a person who only knows what’s in the book.

Who Should Attend

• Experienced Unix users wishing to learn administration skills
• System Admins who have never used AIX, but know other Unix variants
• Developers who need in-depth knowledge of AIX system mechanics

Prerequisites

Students should have a fundamental understanding of Unix. They should be able to operate as a user in their environment, use the vi editor, understand file operations, and have at least a cursory familiarity using terminal emulation programs.

Benefits of Attending this Class

Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to:

• Install AIX and configure installation options
• Setup network services such as Mail, NFS, FTP, and more
• Administer users and groups under AIX
• Create NFS shares and use them on client machines
• Use permissions and ACLs to control file & directory access
• Learn advanced usage for tools like Sed and Awk using regular expressions
• Automate operations using shell scripts

Course Contents

Introduction

• The Function of an Admin
• AIX Features for Admins
• The AIX Object Data Manager
• Using SMIT
• AIX Firmware Basics

File Systems

• JFS and JFS2 Filesystems
• CD and DVD Filesystems
• Creating Filesystems
• Filesystem Troubleshooting

Administering Logical Volume Manager

• LVM Concepts and Limits
• Working with Physical Volumes
• Working with Volume Groups
• Working with Logical Volumes
• Advanced LVM Operations and Features

Startup and Shutdown

• The AIX Boot Process
• Entering Diagnostic Mode
• Shutting down AIX
• Troubleshooting Boot Problems

User Administration

• Adding and Dropping AIX Users
• Modifying User Characteristics
• Advanced User Management Tools

Process Control for Admins

• Viewing Process Attributes
• Altering Process Priorities
• Stopping Processes

Network Services

• Configuring Network Interfaces
• Network Diagnostics
• Secure Shell Configuration
• Setting up Services using inetd
• Configuring Sendmail
• Setting Up an NFS Server
• Configuring Automount
• Network Access Control Options

Managing Printing in AIX

• Creating Print Queues
• Administering Network Printers
• Removing Print Jobs & Queues

System Security

• Unix Permissions Review
• Implementing Filesystem ACLs
• Password Security Settings
• Applying Patches & Technology Level Updates
• Detecting a Security Breach
• AIX System Hardening

Performance Monitoring & Capacity Planning

• Gathering Data with Unix Monitoring Tools
• Employing nmon
• Using TOPAS tools
• Planning for Upgrades

Backup & Restore

• Creating Basic Backups with tar and cpio
• Using mksysb
• System and File Restore Operations

System Tuning

• Using AIX tuning tools
• Tuning Methods

Fixing Hardware Issues

• Syslog Configuration
• Using and Interpreting errpt
• Firmware Updates
• Using Diagnostics
• Enhancing Error Reporting