How do I go about doing this??? Is there something to it other than cleaning up useless files?? if you have knowledge concerning this, please give your suggestions

also, is it possible or safe to compress an entire filesystem. how do you go about doing this??? any information is appreciated

First of all these files are not useless. They tell you about the health of your system. System maintenance in short is System Administration, this is what I do everyday. It is the definition of a UNIX system admin.

I am not sure why you would want to compress an entire filesystem, that would be rather dangerous if it is a system directory necessary for the operation of the box. Very few if any filesystems are so full that you would need to compress everything in it.

You can do a "man compressdir" or "man compress". The compressdir command will recursively descend through subdirectories and compress whatever it can. BUT this could be very detrimental to your system depending on what filesystem it is.


System maintenance is many things.

Performance montoring of CPUs, memory, paging.

Hardware maintenance, user adds and deletes, watching logfiles for errors and warnings, cleaning up core files and monitoring users' use of space, preventing filesystems from reaching 100% especially /var and /root and /tmp, filesytem maintenance, creating new filesystem space, adding new disks for growth of existing filesystems.

Archival of old data, maintaining a backup schedule, offsite storage of backup tapes, disaster recovery, security for boxes, building security, firewall security, etc...

These are just what I can think of right now.

One very powerful command to help you with logfiles and core files is the "find" command. You can "man find" and read about it. It is a very versatile command with many options.

Hope this helps. UNIX is very broad. It may seem very confining at first, but I know of Admins who, after 15 years are still learing something new about UNIX. I have been doing this for almost 5 years and I learn new things almost daily!

The more you learn, the more you realize how much more you don't know.

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thanks a lot. I really appreciate your help

i need to ask one more thing.

see, one of my job is to perform filesystem maintenance. how exactly do I go about doing that. not to say that I am completely new to unix cause am not. I'am the same guy that goes by the name TRUEST.

now, how can file system maintenance be done efficiently.

when talking about log files and core files, what is the specific format to use to get this files and how do I know for sure that these files are not needed.

i really dont mean to stress you but judging from what you said about your job, I feel, you know and is experience in the job am into.

if you could give me some examples of how you go by your daily work. obviously am not asking you to teach me how to do your job. but any example derived from your daily job will be higly appreciated

thanks

you really ought to go by your other name. This site rates you by postings. You already have 40+ posts on the other name.

If you search this site, you should find the answers to alot of questions. Do a keyword search for any of the topics you raised or ones that I raised.

I can't explain it to you in any certain terms. You will have to experience it... Here is a link that may help you.

Beginner Advice?

Read the FAQs on this site.

What version of UNIX do you use? Search their website for info.

Learning is half the fun of being an Admin.

Try these searches.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=unix+tutorials

http://www.isu.edu/departments/comco...unixindex.html

http://unix.about.com/library/misc/blunix101.htm

http://www.geek-girl.com/unix.html

http://www.xs4all.nl/~aiel/unix-links.html

Have Fun!!

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hmm, nice links.. i have been looking for some standard lists of tasks which the SA has to do daily, monthly. and etc.. i went to google.. and search but didnt find any suitable ones.. neither does www.unix.com with

any help?

you mentioned core files, there are utilities to analyze them when a program dumps core, but from what ive read most people wont find too much use with the actual core file, unless you are a programmer. now, finding out why a programed dumped core is more useful, check the logs of that program and so on. the directory /var/log/ is probably where most of your log files will be kept. you will find your self in that directory everyday, look for anything out of the ordinary...and also use the last command daily just to make sure there are no 'strange' logins.
to yls177, daily things an SA does would be to go through the log files, and just generally making sure everything is working as it should. IMO the great thing about every unix is that once youve configured your box, thats it, if its doing its job now, theres not too much reason for it to stop doing its job later----given that you monitor log files well to watch for any problems, intruders, etc...another thing is to make sure you monitor available space on your system, getting rid of un needed programs and making sure any services that are not in use are turned off.

I don't know about you guys, but I look at syslog and maillog everyday.

My company has an extensive monitoring package BMC Patrol among other things that we use to monitor our systems' disk usage, daemons and such.

You should perform daily checks to ensure that your disk integrity and filesystem integrity is good.

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My brain is your brain