Return to Internal Documents As a user administrator, you will receive daily reports from the server you maintain. This information is like the indicator lights on your automobile: when everything is working, you don't need them. When the oil pressure drops, however, having that light labeled "OIL" becomes crucial to fixing problems. Similarly, these reports are most useful when there is some kind of problem with your server.
Each night, the server performs a variety of standard maintenance routines. After these have been completed the server will mail you the results of those routines. These routines remove some junk (temporary, backup and unneeded files) from the system. This helps keep wasted space on the hard drive to a minimum. Without this it is quite possible that the hard drive would fill up with these files. The daily run also alerts you if there are any core files. Core files are usually created when a program crashes unexpectedly. These files are usually used for debugging programs, but since this has already been done for you there is no need to keep these files on the system. Every program will occasionally crash and dump core so its really nothing to be very concerned about. However, you should make a habit of deleting core files when you find them because of how large these files can get.
The system also tells you how much free space is left on your hard drives, and tells you when backups were last performed. For example, if today was May 1st you might receive a daily report like the following.
Last dump(s) done (Dump '>' file systems): /dev/rsd0a ( /) Last dump: Level 5, Date Wed May 1 04:30 /dev/rsd0e ( /usr) Last dump: Level 5, Date Wed May 1 04:30 /dev/rsd0f ( /var) Last dump: Level 5, Date Wed May 1 04:30 /dev/rsd0g (/usr/local) Last dump: Level 5, Date Wed May 1 04:31 /dev/rsd0h ( /home) Last dump: Level 5, Date Wed May 1 04:31 /dev/rsd1a (/var/mail) Last dump: Level 5, Date Wed May 1 04:32 /dev/rsd1e (/home/system) Last dump: Level 5, Date Wed May 1 04:32
This report tells us that a back up was performed that morning. If it was actually May 6th, you would know that a successful backup hadn't been completed for nearly a week -- a sure sign that something is wrong.
Next, the system will show you the mail queues (the list of mail waiting to be sent). A few items in the queue is not unusual. However, if there are hundreds of pieces of mail waiting to be sent, more than likely there is a problem. Please call the trouble line so we can help you resolve it.
Lastly, the system gives detailed information on the state of the network and checks the filesystems. This information is more technical, and will be useful only in the event of serious problems. Feel free to ignore it unless you want to know a bit more.
This provides you with information regarding how secure the system is. This report, succintly put, tells you who has permission to do what on the system.
Some of the information it bring to your attention are:
Don't be overly concerned about missing files as they are usually not a security issue. However you should pay close attention to the messages about users that own files in another user's directory. If the account student suddenly owns many files in the directories for the accounts teacher1, teacher2 and, teacher3, and there is no rational explanation, alert the trouble line!
This is a report on what CK:P software has changed on your system since the previous day. As long as you see
localupdate (machine_name) successful you don't need to read any further. If you want more details
about what software has changed on your system the rest of the report will tell you. If you see localupdate
FAILED alert the trouble line.
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