Glossary

A

Access control list   Used in Solaris to provide greater control over file access permissions when traditional Unix file protection is not enough. An ACL provides better file security by enabling you to define file permissions for the file owner, file group, other specific users and groups, and default permissions for each of those categories.

ARP (Address Resolution Protocol)   The Internet protocol that dynamically maps Internet addresses to physical (hardware) addresses on local area networks. ARP is limited to networks that support hardware broadcast.

Array Controller   A storage array

AutoClient   A client system type that caches (locally stores copies of data as it is referenced) all its needed system software from a server. The AutoClient system has a local disk, but the root (/) and /usr file systems are accessed across the network from a server and are loaded in a local disk cache. Files in the / and /usr file systems are copied to the cache disk as they are referenced. If a Solstice AutoClient client accesses an application that is not already in its disk cache, that application is downloaded. If the application already resides in the client’s disk cache, the application is accessed locally. AutoClient replaced the dataless client in Solaris 2.6.

AutoFS Maps (know each of them)   AutoFS files are referred to as maps. These maps are

Automated Security Enhancement Tool   Examines the startup files to ensure that the path variable is set up correctly and does not contain a dot (.) entry for the current directory.

B

Bandwidth   A measure of the capacity of a communication channel, which is usually specified in megabytes per second (MB/s).

Block   A unit of data that can be transferred by a device, usually 512 bytes long.

Block device   A device file that calls for I/O operations based on a defined block size. The block size varies by device, but for a UFS, the default block size is 8KB.

Block size   Specifies the size of a section of data that is written to disk or tape at one time. Typical block sizes are 512 bytes or 1024 bytes.

Boot server   A server that provides the information that a JumpStart client needs to boot using the network.

Boot   The process of loading and executing the operating system—sometimes referred to as bootstrapping.

Bootblock   The boot program is stored in a predictable area (sectors 1–15) on the system hard drive, CD-ROM, or other bootable device and is referred to as the bootblock (bootblk). The bootblock is responsible for loading the secondary boot program (ufsboot) into memory, which is located in the UFS on the boot device. Only the root (/) file system has an active bootblock, but each file system has space allocated for one.

Bootstrapping   The process a computer follows to load and execute the bootable operating system. The name is coined from the phrase “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.” The instructions for the bootstrap procedure are stored in the boot PROM.

Boot server   A server system that provides client systems on the same network subnet with the programs and information that they need to start. A boot server is required to install over the network if the install server is on a different subnet than the systems on which Solaris software is to be installed.

Bundled software package   A Solaris software package is the standard way to deliver bundled and unbundled software. Packages are administered by using the package administration commands, and they are generally identified by a SUNWxxx naming convention when supplied by Sun Microsystems. SUNW is Sun Microsystems’ ticker symbol on the stock exchange, hence the SUNW prefix.

Bus   A path for transferring data.

Byte   A group of adjacent binary digits (bits) operated on by the computer as a unit. The most common-sized byte contains eight binary digits.

C

CDE Process Manager   A GUI tool for viewing and managing system processes.

Character device file   A device file that calls for I/O operations based on the disk’s smallest addressable unit, or sector. Each sector is 512 bytes in size. A character device is also referred to as a raw device.

Check script   Used to validate the rules file that is required by the custom JumpStart installation software to match a system to a profile.

Chunk   A quantity of information that is handled as a unit by the host and array.

Child process   New processes created by a parent process.

Class file   A text file that defines how to install the Solaris software on a system.

Client   Systems that rely on servers are called clients. In other words, a client is a system that uses remote services from a server.

Client/server   Used to describe the relationship between a server and its clients. See server and client.

Cluster   A cluster of patches (patch cluster), or a cluster of software packages (software cluster).

Concatenation   Used to combine two or more files to create one larger file. If partitions are concatenated, the addressing of the component blocks is done on the components sequentially, which means that data is written to the first available stripe until it is full, and then moves to the next available stripe.

Concatenated Stripe   A metadevice comprised of both concatenated and striped components.

Configuration group   On SPARC systems, software groups are grouped into five configuration groups to make the software installation process easier. During the installation process, you will be asked to install one of the five configuration groups. These five configuration groups are core system support, end-user support, developer system support, entire distribution, and entire distribution plus OEM system support.

Configuration server   A server that contains the JumpStart configuration files, used to install networked systems.

Controller   A device within the array that manages commands and data transfers from the host, delegates jobs to its processors, and maps the data locations in the array.

Core file   A point-in-time copy (snapshot) of the RAM allocated to a process. The copy is written to a more permanent medium, such as a hard disk. A core file is useful in analyzing why a particular program crashed.
A core file is also a disk copy of the address space of a process, at a certain point in time. This information identifies items, such as the task name, task owner, priority, and instruction queue in execution at the time the core file was created.

Crash dump   A disk copy of the physical memory of the computer at the time of a fatal system error.

crontab file   Consists of commands, one per line, that will be executed at regular intervals by the cron daemon.

Custom JumpStart   Provides a way to install groups of similar systems automatically and identically.

Cylinder   A stack of concentric tracks.

Cylinder groups   Each file system is divided into cylinder groups with a minimum default size of 16 cylinders per group.

Cylinder group blocks   A table in each cylinder group that describes the cylinder group.

D

Data blocks   Units of disk space that are used to store data. Regular files, directories, and symbolic links make use of data blocks.

De-encapsulation   When a header is removed from each segment received on the way up the layers.

Default printer   The printer designated to accept print jobs when a destination printer is not specified.

Default shell   The shell that is specified for each user account in the /etc/passwd file. When the user logs in, they are automatically placed in their default shell. If no shell is specified for the user, the /sbin/sh shell will be their default shell.

Device alias   Device pathnames can be long and complex to enter. The concept of device aliases, like Unix aliases, allows a short name to be substituted for a long name. An alias represents an entire device pathname, not a component of it.

Device autoconfiguration   This offers many advantages over the manual configuration method used in earlier versions of Unix, in which device drivers were manually added to the kernel, the kernel was recompiled, and the system had to be restarted. See also reconfiguration boot.

Device driver   A low-level program that allows the kernel to communicate with a specific piece of hardware.

Device hierarchy   During a reconfiguration restart, this is created in the /devices directory to represent the devices connected to the system.

Device tree   Each device has a unique name representing both the type of device and the location of that device in the system addressing structure called the device tree. The OpenBoot firmware builds a device tree for all devices from information gathered at the power-on self-test (POST).

DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)   An application-layer protocol that enables individual computers, or clients, on a TCP/IP network to extract an IP address and other network configuration information from a designated and centrally maintained DHCP server or servers. This facility reduces the overhead of maintaining and administering a large IP network.

Disk array   A subsystem that contains multiple disk drives, designed to provide performance, high availability, serviceability, or other benefits.

Direct map   A type of automount map that lists the mount points as absolute path names. This type of map explicitly indicates the mount point on the client.

Disk block   The smallest addressable unit on a disk platter. One sector holds 512 bytes of data. Sectors are also known as disk blocks.

Disk label   A special area of every disk that is set aside for storing information about the disk’s controller, geometry, and slices.

Disk partition   See Disk slice.

Disk quota   Enables system administrators to control the size of UFSs by limiting the amount of disk space and the number of I-nodes (which roughly corresponds to the number of files) that individual users can acquire.

Disk set   A grouping of two hosts and disk drives in which all the drives are accessible by each host in the set.

Disk slice   Groupings of cylinders that are commonly used to organize data by function.

Disk-based file system   Any file system created on a local disk. Disk-based file systems include UFS, HSFS, PCFS, and UDFs.

Diskless client   A client that has no local disk or file systems. The diskless client boots from the server; remotely mounts its root (/), /usr, and /export/home file systems from a server; allocates swap space on the server; and obtains all its data from the server. Any files created are stored on the server.

DNS resolver   DNS clients use the dynamic library routines, collectively called the resolver, to locate a remote host. The resolver queries the DNS database on a name server, which eventually returns the host name or IP address of the machine requested by the resolver.

DNS   The name service provided by the Internet for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) networks. It was developed so that workstations on the network can be identified by common names instead of Internet addresses.

Domain   A part of the Internet naming hierarchy. A domain represents a group of systems on a local network that share administrative files.

Dynamic failover (as it relates to NFS)   When high availability for read-only NFS resources is needed, dynamic failover provides an alternate NFS mount point if the primary mount point fails.

E

Encapsulation   When a header is added to each segment received on the way down the layers.

Ethernet   A standard that defines the physical components a machine uses to access the network and the speed at which the network runs.

F

FDDI   A standard for data transmission on fiber-optic lines in a LAN that can extend up to 200km (124 miles).

File access permissions   Used in Solaris to provide control over file access.

Filenames   The objects most often used to access and manipulate files. A file must have a name that is associated with an I-node. See I-node.

File system dump   A backup of a file system using the ufsdump command.

File system minfree space   The portion of a file system that is reserved and held back from users. It is only accessible by root.

File system type   Describes the type of file system such as UFS, PROCFS, TMPFS. Many file system administration commands require you to specify the file system type (fstype).

File system   A structure used to organize and store files on disk.

Finish script   Used in a JumpStart installation, this is a user-defined Bourne shell script, specified within the rules file, that performs tasks after the Solaris software is installed on the system, but before the system reboots. You can use finish scripts only with custom JumpStart installations.

Flash archive   Provides a method to store a snapshot of the Solaris operating environment complete with all installed patches and applications.

Flash installation   A complete snapshot of a Solaris operating environment, including with patches and applications.

Fragment   Also referred to as fragmentation. This is the method used by the UFS to allocate disk space efficiently.

Free block   Blocks not currently being used as I-nodes, indirect address blocks, or storage blocks are marked as free in the cylinder group map.

Free hog slice   A temporary slice that is automatically designated that expands and shrinks to accommodate the slice resizing operations.

Full backup   A backup that contains everything on the file system.

Full device name   A full device pathname is a series of node names separated by slashes (/). The root of the tree is the machine node, which is not named explicitly but is indicated by a leading slash (/). Each device pathname has this form: driver-name@unit-address:device-arguments.

G

Gbyte (Gigabyte)   1,024 Mbytes (or 1,073,741,824 bytes).

Group ID (GID)   The primary group number for the group to which the user will belong. This is the group the operating system will assign to files created by the user. GIDs can typically range from 0 to 60,002, but they can go as high as 2,147,483,647.

Group   Used to control user access to files and directories. Users who need to share files are placed into the same group. A group can be 1) A collection of users who are referred to by a common name. 2) In NIS+, a collection of users who are collectively given specified access rights to NIS+ objects. NIS+ group information is stored in the NIS+ group table. 3) In Unix, groups determine a user’s access to files. There are two types of groups: default user group and standard user group.

H

Hard link   A file that has many names that all share the same I-node number.

Hard mount   A file system mounted using the mount –o hard option. The hard option indicates that the retry request is continued until the server responds. The default for the mount command is hard.

Hardware Port   An electrically wired outlet on a piece of equipment into which a plug or cable connects.

Hierarchical namespace   Namespace information that is similar in structure to the Unix directory tree. See namespace.

Home directory   The portion of a file system allocated to a user for storing private files.

Host   A node on the network.

Hostname   Every system on the network usually has a unique hostname. Hostnames let users refer to any computer on the network by using a short, easily remembered name rather than the host’s network IP address. Hostnames should be short, easy to spell, and lowercase, and they should have no more than 64 characters. The hostname command determines a system’s host.

Hot spare pool   A collection of slices (hot spares) reserved for automatic substitution in case of slice failure in either a submirror or RAID5 metadevice. Hot spares are used to increase data availability.

Hot spare   A slice reserved to substitute automatically for a failed slice in a submirror or RAID5 metadevice. A hot spare must be a physical slice, not a metadevice.

Hot-pluggable   These are devices that can be connected or disconnected while the system is running.

Hot-swappable   These devices allow for the connection and disconnection of peripherals or other components without rebooting the operating system.

HSFS   High Sierra File System.

Hub   The central device through which all hosts in a twisted-pair Ethernet installation are connected. A hub shares bandwidth between all systems that are connected to it. See Switch.

I

Incremental backup   Backs up only those files that were changed since a previous backup, saving tape space and time.

Indirect map   A type of automount map that lists mount points as relative path names. This map uses a relative path to establish the mount point on the client.

Init state   When a system begins initialization, it enters one of eight run states—also called init states. Because run state 4 is currently not used, only seven usable run states exist.

Initial installation   A Solaris 9 installation method. You perform an initial installation either on a system that does not have an existing Solaris operating system already installed on it or when you want to completely wipe out the existing operating system and reinstall it.

I-node   The objects that the Solaris operating environment uses to record information about a file. I-nodes contain information about a file, its owner, permissions, and its size. I-nodes are numbered, and each file system contains its own list of I-nodes.

Install server   A server that provides an image of the Solaris operating environment, which the JumpStart client uses as its source of data to install.

Installation media   The Solaris 9 operating system software is distributed on CD-ROM and DVD and is referred to as The Installation Media Kit.

Instance name   This represents the kernel’s abbreviation name for every possible device on the system.

Interactive boot (boot -a)   Stops and asks for input during the boot process. The system provides a dialog box in which it displays the default boot values and gives you the option of changing them. You might want to boot interactively to make a temporary change to the system file or kernel. Booting interactively enables you to test your changes and recover easily if you have problems.

Interactive installation   The Solaris interactive installation program, suninstall, guides you step by step through installing the Solaris software.

Interlace   The number of blocks on a component of a striped or RAID metadevice that can be simultaneously accessed with the same number of blocks from another component. The interlace value dictates how much data that Solaris Volume Manager places on a component of a striped or RAID metadevice before moving on to the next component.

IP address   Each machine on a TCP/IP network has a unique 32-bit Internet address (or IP address) that identifies the machine to its peers on the network. An IP address in IPv4 consists of four numbers that are separated by periods (192.168.0.1, for example). Most often, each part of the IP address is a number between 0 and 225. However, the first number must be less than 224 and the last number cannot be 0.

IPv6   Version 6 of Internet Protocol (IP) that is designed to be an evolutionary step from the current version, IPv4 (version 4).

ISO/OSI model   The International Standards Organization (ISO)/Open System Interconnection (OSI) model is an ISO standard for worldwide communications that defines a framework for implementing protocols in seven layers. Control is passed from one layer to the next, starting at the application layer in one station, proceeding to the bottom layer, over the channel to the next station, and back up the hierarchy.

J–K

JavaStation   Also known as a zero-administration client, this client has no local file system, and its /home is accessed from a server across the network. The JavaStation runs only applications that are 100% pure Java.

Journaling   The recording of Unix file system (UFS) updates in a log before the updates are applied to the Unix file system. This allows for increased data recovery in the event of a catastrophic system failure. (Also called logging.)

JumpStart client   Also referred to as an Install client, the JumpStart client uses the JumpStart automatic installation to install the Solaris operating environment across the network. JumpStart clients require support from a JumpStart server to find an image of the Solaris operating environment to install.

JumpStart server   Provides all of the directives for the JumpStart installation, including an image of the Solaris operating environment to install.

Kbyte   A Kilobyte, or 1,024 bytes.

Kernel   The kernel (covered in detail later in this chapter) is the part of the operating system that remains running at all times until the system is shut down. It is the core and the most important part of the operating system.

Kerberos   A security system developed at MIT that authenticates users. It does not provide authorization to services or databases; it establishes identity at logon, which is used throughout the session. Kerberos (also spelled Cerberus) was a fierce, three-headed mastiff who guarded the gates of Hades in Greek mythology.

L

LAN (local area network)   Multiple systems at a single geographical site connected together for the purpose of sharing and exchanging data and software.

LAN/WAN   Local area network/wide area network. See LAN and WAN.

Large file   A regular file whose size is greater than or equal to 2GB.

Large file–aware   A utility is called large file–aware if it can process large files in the same manner that it does small files. A large file–aware utility can handle large files as input and can generate large files as output. The newfs, mkfs, mount, umount, tunefs, labelit, and quota utilities are all large file–aware for UFSs.

Large file–safe   A utility is called large file–safe if it causes no data loss or corruption when it encounters a large file. A utility that is large file–safe cannot properly process a large file, so it returns an appropriate error. Some examples of utilities that are not large file–aware but are large file–safe include the vi editor and the mailx and lp commands.

LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)   This is the latest name-lookup service (directory service) to be added to Solaris.

Live upgrade   Provides a method of upgrading while your Solaris system is still running. The original system configuration remains fully functional and unaffected by the upgrade. The upgrade creates a duplicate boot environment that is activated when the system is rebooted. If a failure occurs, you can revert to the original boot environment, thereby eliminating the downtime associated with the normal test and evaluation process.

Local printer   A printer that is physically connected to a system and is accessed from that system.

Locale   A geographic or political region or community that shares the same language, customs, or cultural conventions (English for the United States is en_US, and English for the United Kingdom is en_UK).

Logical device name   Symbolic links pointing to the physical device name stored in the /devices directory. A logical device’s name is used to refer to a device when you are entering commands on the command line. All logical device names are stored in the /dev directory.

Logical volume   Allows file systems to span multiple disks and provide for improved I/O and reliability compared to the standard Solaris file system.

Logging   See journaling.

LPD (Line Printer Daemon)   A TCP/IP printer protocol that provides print spooling and network printing. Originally developed for Berkeley Unix (BSD Unix), LPD has become the de facto cross-platform printing protocol.

lpsched   See Print Scheduler.

M

MAC address   The unique serial number burned into an Ethernet adapter that identifies that network card from all others.

Major device number   This indicates the general device class, such as disk, tape, or serial line.

Makefile   Used to create the appropriate NIS maps.

Master map   A type of automount map that lists the other maps used for establishing the AutoFS. The autmount command reads this map at boot time.

Master NIS server   The center of the NIS network that is designated as the master server containing the set of maps that get updated.

Mbyte   A Megabyte, or 1,024 Kbytes.

Metastate database   A database, stored on disk, that records configuration and the state of all metadevices and error conditions. This information is important to the correct operation of Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) and it is replicated. See also state database replica.

Metadevice   A Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) term used to describe a group of physical slices accessed as a single logical device. Metadevices are used like slices. The metadevice maps logical block addresses to the correct location on one of the physical devices. The type of mapping depends on the configuration of the particular metadevice. Also known as the pseudo, or virtual device in standard Unix terms.

Metadisk   A special driver that coordinates I/O to and from physical devices and volumes, enabling applications to treat a volume like a physical device.

Metadriver   A pseudo device driver that maps metadevice operations to commands to the metadevice components.

Minor device number   This indicates the specific member within a general device class (such as disk, tape, or serial line). All devices managed by a given device driver contain a unique minor number.

Mirror   Replicates all writes to a single logical device (the mirror) and then to multiple devices (the submirrors) while distributing read operations. This provides redundancy of data in the event of a disk or hardware failure.

Mounted file system table (mnttab)   A file system that provides read-only access to the table of mounted file systems for the current host.

Multiuser mode   Used to describe a Solaris run state where the system is supporting multiuser operations.

N

Name service switch   Used to direct requests to the correct name service in use on the system or network.

Name service   A network service that provides a means of identifying and locating resources such as hostnames and IP addresses available to a network. The default name service product available in the Solaris operating environment is Network Information Service Plus (NIS+).

Namespace   Stores name service information that users, workstations, and applications must have to communicate across the network. Namespace can also refer to the set of all names in a naming system, such as

Network address   The address, consisting of up to 20 octets, used to locate an Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) transport entity. The address is formatted into an initial domain part that is standardized for each of several addressing domains, and a domain-specific part that is the responsibility of the addressing authority for that domain.

Network class   Network addresses are divided into three classes: Class A, Class B, and Class C. This addressing scheme is called classful IPv4 addressing.

Network interface   Also referred to as a network adapter or NIC (network interface card). A printed circuit board that plugs into both the clients and servers in a network. It controls the exchange of data between them at the data link level, also known as the access method (OSI layers 1 and 2).

Network mask   A number used by software to separate the local subnet address from the rest of a given Internet protocol address.

Network port   A software network port is an identified doorway (address) for communicating between a program and another communications system or program, often passing through a hardware port. The network port is usually numbered and a standard network implementation such as TCP, UDP, or IP will attach a port number to data it sends. The receiving implementation will guard and listen at the attached port number (doorway) to figure out which program to send data to on its system. A port may send/receive data one direction at a time (simplex) or simultaneously in both directions (duplex). These software network ports may also connect internal programs on a single computer system. In TCP and UDP, the combination of a port and a network address (IP number) is called a socket.

Network printer   A printer that is physically attached to the network and has its own hostname and IP address. A network printer provides printing services to print clients without being directly cabled to a print server.

Network protocol   The part of the network that you configure but cannot see. It’s the software portion of the network that controls data transmission between systems across the network.

Network service   A term used to describe services offered by servers to network clients such as FTP, Telnet, and HTTP.

Network-based file system   File systems accessed over the network. Typically, they reside on one system (the server) and are accessed by other systems (clients) across the network.

NFS client   A system that mounts a remote file system from an NFS server.

NFS daemons   Processes that support NFS activities. These daemons can support both NFS client and NFS server activity, NFS server activity alone, or logging of the NFS server activity.

NFS logging   Provides a record of all NFS activity on network file systems that have been shared with the logging option enabled.

NFS server   Shares resources to be used by NFS clients.

NFS (Network File System)   This service lets computers of different architectures, running different operating systems (OSs), share file systems across a network.

NIS client   The hosts in the NIS domain, including the master and slave servers.

NIS map   Multicolumn tables used to store NIS information.

NIS (Network Information Service)   A distributed network information service containing key information about the systems and the users on the network. The NIS database is stored on the master server and all the replica or slave servers.

NIS+ authorization   The process of granting NIS+ principals access rights to an NIS+ object.

NIS+ objects   Directories, tables, and groups within a namespace.

NIS+ security levels   Let NIS+ administrators specify different read, modify, create, and destroy rights to NIS+ objects for each class.

NIS+   This is similar to NIS, but with more features. NIS+ is not an extension of NIS, but a new software program designed to replace NIS.

Node   A host or router.

NSCD   Speeds up queries of the most common data and the getent command to retrieve naming service information from specified databases.

NVRAM (nonvolatile random-access memory)   The NVRAM chip has user-definable system parameters and writeable areas for user-controlled diagnostics, macros, and device aliases. The NVRAM is where the system identification information is stored, such as the hostid, Ethernet address, and time-of-day (TOD) clock.

O

OBP (OpenBoot PROM)   The hardware-level user interface that you see before the operating system starts. The OpenBoot PROM consists of two 8KB chips on the system board: the startup PROM itself, which contains extensive firmware allowing access to user-written startup drivers and extended diagnostics, and an NVRAM (nonvolatile random-access memory) chip.

OpenBoot   The primary task of the OpenBoot firmware is to boot the operating system either from a mass storage device or from the network. See also OBP.

P–Q

Packet   The basic unit of information to be transferred over the network.

Parallel   Simultaneous. Usually applied to a RAID-3 environment where a block of data is transferred by dividing it into smaller blocks, accessing all drives at once and simultaneously transferring the data.

Parent process   The main, or primary, program or first process loaded into memory. A parent process forks a child process, which, in turn, can fork other processes.

Parity   A method used by RAID5 configurations to provide data redundancy. Typically, a RAID5 configuration stores data blocks and parity blocks. In the case of a missing data block, the missing data can be regenerated using the other data blocks and the parity block.

Partition table   This identifies a disk’s slices, the slice boundaries (in cylinders), and the total size of the slices.

Password aging   A system parameter set by the system administrator in the /etc/default/password file that requires users to change their passwords after a certain number of days.

Password encryption   The reversible transformation of a user’s password from the original (the plaintext) to a difficult-to-interpret format (the ciphertext). It is done as a mechanism for protecting its confidentiality. Encryption uses an encryption algorithm. The encrypted password consists of 13 characters chosen from a 64-character alphabet.

Patchlist file   Specifies a file containing a list of patches to install.

PCFS (Personal Computer File System)   Allows read and write access to data and programs on DOS-formatted disks that are written for DOS-based personal computers.

Physical device name   This represents the full device pathname in the device information hierarchy. Physical device names uniquely identify the physical location of the hardware devices on the system and are maintained in the /devices directory. The physical device name contains the hardware information, represented as a series of node names separated by slashes that indicate the path to the device.

Platform group   This is a general term used to group Sun systems together based on their hardware architecture. To determine the platform group that your Sun system belongs to, use the uname -m command. The system will respond with the platform group and the platform name for your system.

Port   See network port and hardware port.

POST (power-on self-test)   When a system is turned on, the monitor runs a POST that checks such things as the hardware and memory on the system. If no errors are found, the automatic boot process begins.

Power management software   Provided in the Solaris environment to automatically save the state of a system and turn it off after it is idle for 30 minutes. On newer systems that comply with the EPA’s Energy Star guidelines, the power management software is installed by default. You are then prompted after rebooting to enable or disable the power management software.

Primary group   Each user is assigned to a primary group when they log in. This is the group the operating system will assign to files created by the user.

Print client   A remote system that sends print requests to a print server.

Print daemon   A system process that supports printing activities.

Print Manager   A graphical user interface used to manage printers in a name service environment.

Print scheduler   The LP print service has a scheduler daemon called lpsched. This print scheduler daemon updates the LP system files with information about printer setup and configuration. This dameon schedules all of the local print requests on a print server. It tracks the status of printers and filters on the print server.

Print server   A system that has a local printer connected to it, makes the printer available to other systems on the network, and provides spooling for the client’s print requests.

Printer class   Several locally attached printers that are put into a group. A printer class is helpful if you have several printers sitting next to each other, and it doesn’t matter which printer your job goes to.

Process   A program in operation.

PROCFS (Process File System)   A file system that resides in memory and contains a list of active processes.

Profile   A JumpStart configuration file that defines how the Solaris software is installed on the JumpStart client if a system matches the rule. Every rule in the rules file specifies a profile that defines how a system is to be installed when the rule is matched. You usually create a different profile for every rule. However, the same profile can be used in more than one rule. See also rules file and rights profile.

PROM (Programmable Read-Only Memory)   A permanent memory chip that is programmed, or filled, by the customer rather than by the chip manufacturer. It differs from a ROM, which is programmed at the time of manufacture. PROMs have been mostly superseded by EPROMs, which can be reprogrammed.

R

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks)   A disk subsystem that is used to increase performance and/or provide fault tolerance. RAID is a classification of different ways to back up and store data on multiple disk drives. There are seven levels of RAID:

SVM implements RAID levels 0, 1, and 5.

RARP (Reverse ARP)   A method by which a client is assigned an IP address based on a lookup of its Ethernet address.

Reconfiguration boot   A method of booting a system so that the system recognizes newly added peripheral devices and creates an entry in the /etc/path_to_inst file, and the /dev and /devices directories.

Reconfiguration startup   See Reconfiguration boot.

Redundancy   Duplication for the purpose of achieving fault tolerance. This refers to duplication or addition of components, data, and functions within the array.

Replica   One or more additional copies of the state database.

Restricted shell   Restricted versions of the Korn shell (rksh) and the Bourne shell (rsh) to limit the operations allowed for a particular user account. Restricted shells are especially useful for ensuring that time-sharing users, or users’ guests on a system, have restricted permissions during login sessions.

Rights profile   Also referred to as right or profile. A collection of overrides used in RBAC that can be assigned to a role or user. A rights profile can consist of authorizations, commands with set UIDs or GIDs, which are referred to as security attributes, and other rights profiles.

Router   A machine that forwards Ethernet packets from one network to another.

RPC (Remote Procedure Call)   A protocol that one program can use to request services from another system on the network.

Rules file   A text file that contains a rule for each group of systems (or single system) that you want to install automatically using JumpStart. Each rule distinguishes a group of systems, based on one or more system attributes. The rules file links each group to a profile, which is a text file that defines how the Solaris 9 software is to be installed on each system in the group. See also profile.

rules.ok file   A system generated version of the rules file. The rules.ok file is required by the custom JumpStart installation software to match a system to a profile. You must use the check script to create the rules.ok file.

Run control script   Each init state has a corresponding series of run control scripts, referred to as rc scripts and located in the /sbin directory, to control each init state.

Run state   When a system begins initialization, it enters one of eight run states—also called init states. Because run state 4 is currently not used, only seven usable run states exist. A run state is also referred to as a run level.

S

SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface)   An interface standard for peripheral devices and computers to communicate with each other.

Secondary group   Specifies additional groups, other than the primary group, that a user can belong to. Each user can belong to a maximum of 15 secondary groups.

Secondary swap   Additional swap added to a system’s primary swap.

Sector   See disk block.

Secure shell   Secure shell, or SSH, is both a computer program and an associated network protocol designed for logging in to and executing commands on a networked computer. Secure shell is designed to replace the earlier rlogin, TELNET, and rsh protocols, which are considered unsecure protocols. SSH provides secure encrypted communications between two untrusted hosts over an unsecure network. Users of SSH can also use it for tunneling, forwarding arbitrary TCP ports and X11 connections over the resultant secure channel, and transferring files using the associated scp or sftp programs. An ssh server, by default, listens on the standard TCP port 22.

Server   A system that provides resources, services, or file systems, such as home directories or mailboxes, to other systems on the network.

Shared resource   A shared file system on an NFS server.

Shell variable   A structure that holds data and is uniquely named by the user within the shell. It holds the data assigned to it until a new value is assigned or the program is finished.

Single-user mode   Used to describe a Solaris run state where the system does not support multi-user operations. This run state is used to perform system administration tasks.

Slave NIS server   A secondary NIS server that contains all of the maps in case of a failure of the primary server.

SMC (Solaris Management Console)   SMC is a graphical user interface designed to ease several routine system administration tasks. When using SMC, the system administrator is presented with a menu-like interface that is much easier to use than the ASCII interface supplied at the command prompt.

Soft mount   A file system mounted using the mount –o soft option. The soft option indicates that the retry request does not continue once the server becomes unresponsive. The default for the mount command is hard.

Soft partition   A new feature of SVM that breaks the traditional eight slices per disk barrier by allowing disks, or logical volumes, to be subdivided into many more partitions.

Software group   A logical grouping of the Solaris software (clusters and packages). During a Solaris installation, you can install one of the following software groups: Core, End-user Solaris Software, Developer Solaris Software, Entire Solaris Software, and Entire Solaris Software Group Plus OEM Support.

Software package   A Solaris software package is the standard way to deliver bundled and unbundled software. Packages are administered by using the package administration commands, and they are generally identified by a SUNWxxx naming convention when supplied by Sun Microsystems. SUNW is Sun Microsystems’ ticker symbol on the stock exchange, hence the SUNW prefix.

Software patch   A patch is a fix to a reported software problem. Sun will ship several software patches to customers so that problems can be resolved before the next release of software.

Software spool directory   For convenience, you can copy frequently installed packages to a spool directory. This way you don’t need to use the CD media each time you install the package.

Solaris Volume Manager objects   A graphical representation for the state database, metadevice or part of a metadevice, or hot spare pool.

Spool   Stands for simultaneous peripheral operations online. For printing, spooling is when an application generates the printer output and sends it to the print spooler. The spooler feeds the print images to the printer, one at a time, at slower printing speeds. The printing is then done in the background while the user interacts with other applications in the foreground.
For software installation, spooling is the process of copying software packages from CD-ROM to a directory on the local disk.

Standalone system   Clients that use remote services, such as installation software, from a server don’t rely on a server to function. These are referred to as standalone systems.

State database replica   A copy of the metadevice state database. Keeping copies of the metadevice state database protects against the loss of state and configuration information critical to metadevice operations.

Sticky bit   A permission bit that protects the files within a directory. If the directory has the sticky bit set, a file can be deleted only by the owner of the file, the owner of the directory, or root.

Storage block   These occupy space allocated to the file system. See also data blocks.

Stripe   Accessing several disks at the same time in parallel to gain performance.

Stripe width   The amount of data written across a striped or RAID volume. In Solaris Volume Manager, this is the interlace size multiplied by the number of disks in the stripe.

Striping   Spreading, or interleaving, logical contiguous blocks of data across multiple independent disk spindles. Striping allows multiple disk controllers to simultaneously access data, improving performance.

Submirror   A metadevice that is part of a mirror. See also mirror.

SVM (Solaris Volume Manager)   Uses virtual disks to manage physical disks and their associated data.

Superblock   Stores much of the information about the file system. The superblock resides in the 16 disk sectors (sectors 16–31) that follow the bootblock. The superblock is a table of information that describes the file system.
When a file system is created, each cylinder group replicates the superblock beginning at sector 32. The replication protects the critical data in the superblock against catastrophic loss.

Swap file   Physical memory is supplemented by this specially configured file on the physical disk. See also swap space.

Swap space   Swap space and necessary file system overhead is included in the disk space recommendations for each software group. A minimum of 512MB is required for swap space, but more space might be needed. By default, Solaris Web Start allocates 512MB for swap space. A swap partition or a swap file is used to provide swap space.

Swap   Space used as a virtual memory storage area when the system does not have enough physical memory to handle current processes. See also swap space.

Switch   The central device through which all hosts in a twisted-pair Ethernet installation are connected. Each port on the switch can give full bandwidth to a single server or client station. See also hub.

Symbolic link   A pointer to files anywhere on the network. The file or directory could exist in another file system, on another disk, or on another system on the network. Symbolic links only contain one type of data: the pathname of the file to which they point. The size of a symbolic link always matches the number of characters in the pathname it contains.

T

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)   The protocol suite originally developed for the Internet. It is also called the Internet protocol suite. Solaris networks run on TCP/IP by default.

Terminfo database   Describes the capabilities of devices such as printers and terminals.

Throughput   A measure of sequential I/O performance, quoted as Mbytes/second.

TMPFS (Temporary File System)   A file system that uses local memory for file system reads and writes and is typically much faster than a UFS.

Track   A series of sectors positioned end-to-end in a circular path. The number of sectors per track varies with the radius of a track on the platter. The outer tracks are larger and can hold more sectors than the inner tracks.

Trusted host   A host from which a user can log in without being required to type in a password.

U

UDF (Universal Disk Format)   A file system used for storing information on the optical media technology called DVD (Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc).

UFS (Unix File System)   The default disk-based file system for the Solaris operating environment.

UFS logging   The process of storing file system operations to a log before the transactions are applied to the file system.

ufsboot   The secondary boot program. It locates and loads the two-part kernel. The kernel consists of a two-piece static core called genunix and unix.

Unbundled software package   A Solaris software package is the standard way to deliver bundled and unbundled software. Packages are administered by using the package administration commands, and they are generally identified by a SUNWxxx naming convention when supplied by Sun Microsystems. SUNW is Sun Microsystems’ ticker symbol on the stock exchange, hence the SUNW prefix.

Upgrade   Performed on a system that is already running Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7, Solaris 8, or a previous release of Solaris 9. An upgrade will save as many modifications as possible from the previous version of Solaris that is currently running on your system. See also live upgrade.

User ID (UID)   A unique number assigned to each user account. All UIDs must be consistent across the network. The UID is typically a number between 100 and 60,002, but it can go as high as 2,147,483,647.

User initialization file   A shell initialization file is a shell script that runs automatically each time the user logs in. The initialization file will set up the work environment and customize the shell environment for the user. The primary job of the shell initialization file is to define the user’s shell environment, such as the search path, environment variables, and windowing environment.

User mask   Controls the default file permissions assigned to the file or directory.

V–Z

Virtual file system (VFS)   Architecture that provides a standard interface for different file system types. The VFS architecture enables the kernel to handle basic operations, such as reading, writing, and listing files, and makes it easier to add new file systems.

Virtual volume   Grouping disk partitions across several disks to appear as one single volume to the operating system.

Volume manager   Simplifies the use of disks and CDs by automatically mounting them using the vold daemon.

Volume name   An 8-character name assigned to a disk drive.

Volume   A group of physical slices that are accessed as a single logical device by concatenation, striping, mirroring, setting up RAID5 volumes, or logging physical devices. After they are created, volumes are used like slices. The volume maps logical block addresses to the correct location on one of the physical devices. The type of mapping depends on the configuration of the particular volume. Also known as a pseudo device or virtual device in standard Unix terms.

WAN (wide area network)   A network that connects multiple local-area networks (LANs) or systems at different geographical sites via phone, fiber-optic, or satellite links.

Warm plug   The ability to replace a failed disk drive without powering down the storage array and without rebooting the host computer system. This is an important aspect of high availability. See hot pluggable.

Web Start Flash   An installation feature that enables you to create a single reference installation (Web Start Flash archive) of the Solaris operating environment on a machine, which is called the master machine. After installing the operating system onto the master machine, you can add or delete software and modify system configuration information as necessary. You then create a Web Start archive from this master machine and can use this archive to replicate that installation on a number of systems, which are called clone machines.

Web Start   An installation program located on the Solaris Installation CD-ROM that can be run with a graphical user interface (GUI) or with a command-line interface (CLI). Using Solaris Web Start and Sun’s Web browser, you select either a default installation or a customize option to install only the software you want, including the Solaris software group, Solstice utilities, and additional software. You can also use Web Start to upgrade your operating system.

XOR   eXclusive OR. A binary mathematical operation performed on data to produce parity information. In RAID level 5, parity is generated from user data and is used to regenerate any user data that is lost due to a drive failure.