Procedure to Create a Boot Disk if You Can t Boot Off CD-ROM

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Procedure to Create a Boot Disk if You Can't Boot Off CD-ROM

The procedure in this section has nothing to do with the Integrity server or even new IA-32 systems. This is a procedure to create a boot floppy if you have an old system that won't boot off of a CD-ROM. I included this to demonstrate how to use a couple of commands to create a boot floppy. This can be important because many people get started with Linux on old systems. This is one of the strengths of Linux: It runs on most hardware, including old systems.

If you can't boot from your CD-ROM, you can create the boot floppy using MS-DOS and the rawrite utility included on the Red Hat CD-ROM in the dosutils directory using the following procedure. Note that this procedures assumes that your CD-ROM is D: and that you can boot to a DOS prompt that can read the Linux CD-ROM:

C:\>

d:

D:\>

cd \dosutils

D:\dosutils>

rawrite

Enter disk image source file name:

..\images\boot.img

Enter target diskette drive:

a:

Please insert a formatted diskette into drive A: and press --ENTER-- :

[Enter]

D:\dosutils>

rawrite asks you for the file name of a diskette image. In this case, the images is located at ..\images\boot.img. rawrite produces a Linux bootable floppy off of which you could boot to load Linux.

You can also make a diskette under Linux using the dd command. To do so, you must have permission to write to the device representing a 3.5-inch diskette drive /dev/fd0 . If you have that permission, insert a floppy into the diskette drive but don't mount it. After mounting the Red Hat Linux CD-ROM, change to the directory containing the desired image file, and use the following command:

#

dd if=boot.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k

This copies whatever is in boot.img to your floppy disk (/dev/fd0).

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Chapter 10. Additional System Administration Topics

Many of the topics covered up to this point, such as installing Linux, net-working, startup, kernel configuration, and many others, warrant their own individual chapters. This chapter discusses many of the remaining system administration- related topics, such as the following:

Managing processes using ps, kill , and signals
Users and groups
Disk usage
Scheduling jobs with cron

In some cases, there are differences between IA-32 and Integrity server. Generally, I give examples on IA-32 systems. However, I will give examples on Integrity servers where appropriate in order to point out the nuances when working with Integrity servers.

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Check Processes with ps

To find the answer to "What is my system doing?," use ps -ef . This command provides information about every running process on your system. If, for instance, you want to know about telnet connections, simply type ps -ef and look for telnet. Although ps tells you every process that is running on your system, it doesn't provide a good summary of the level of system resources being consumed. I would guess that ps is the most often issued system administration command. You can use a number of options with ps . I normally use e and f , which provide information about every ( e ) running process and lists this information in full ( f ). ps outputs are almost identical going from system to system. The following shows the output of a ps command:

#

ps -ef

UID        PID  PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD

root         1     0  0  2002 ?        00:00:05 init [5]

root         2     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 [keventd]

root         3     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 [kapmd]

root         4     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 [ksoftirqd_CPU0]

root         5     1  0  2002 ?        00:01:03 [kswapd]

root         6     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 [bdflush]

root         7     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 [kupdated]

root         8     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 [mdrecoveryd]

root        12     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:08 [kjournald]

root        64     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 [khubd]

root       158     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 [kjournald]

root       159     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 [kjournald]

root       160     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:01 [kjournald]

root       161     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:05 [kjournald]

root       162     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:10 [kjournald]

root       459     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:04 syslogd -m 0

root       463     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 klogd -x

rpc        474     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 portmap

rpcuser    493     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 rpc.statd

root      556      1  0  2002 ?       00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apmd -p 10 -w 5 -W -P /etc/sysco



root       594     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/sshd

root      608     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 xinetd -stayalive -reuse -pidfile /var/run



root       631     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:03 sendmail: accepting connections

smmsp      641    1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 sendmail: Queue runner@01:00:00 for /var/s



root       651     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:01 gpm -t ps/2 -m /dev/mouse

bin        661     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 cannaserver -syslog -u bin

root       670     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 crond

root       679     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 smbd -D

root       683     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:08 nmbd -D

xfs        730     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:34 xfs -droppriv -daemon

daemon     748     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/atd

root      770     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:09 /usr/bin/perl /usr/libexec/webmin/miniserv



root       774     1  0  2002 tty1     00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty tty1

root       775     1  0  2002 tty2     00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty tty2

root       776     1  0  2002 tty3     00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty tty3

root       777     1  0  2002 tty4     00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty tty4

root       778     1  0  2002 tty5     00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty tty5

root       779     1  0  2002 tty6     00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty tty6

root       780      1  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/gdm-binary -nodaemon

root       813    780  0  2002 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/gdm-binary -nodaemon

root       814  813  3  2002 ?        07:40:10 /usr/X11R6/bin/X :0 -auth /var/gdm/:0.Xaut



root       823     813  0  2002 ?        00:00:02 /usr/bin/gnome-session

root      882     823  0  2002 ?     00:00:00 /usr/bin/ssh-agent /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients



root        893     1  0  2002 ?        00:00:02 /usr/libexec/gconfd-2 9

root       895     1  0  2002 ?     00:00:00 /usr/libexec/bonobo-activation-server --ac



root       897     1  0  2002 ?     00:00:39 metacity --sm-save-file 1034946228-887-262



root       899     1  0  2002 ?     00:00:03 gnome-settings-daemon --oaf-activate-iid=O



root         901    608  0  2002 ?      00:00:01 fam

root        917     1  0  2002 ?    00:17:06 magicdev --sm-config-prefix /magicdev-Nu4T



root        919     1  0  2002 ?    00:00:14 nautilus --sm-config-prefix /nautilus-vsLM



root        921     1  0  2002 ?    00:01:41 gnome-panel --sm-config-prefix /gnome-pane



root        924     1  0  2002 ?    00:45:40 gnome-terminal --sm-config-prefix /gnome-t



root        926     1  0  2002 ?    00:00:11 /usr/bin/pam-panel-icon --sm-client-id 11c



root        928     1  1  2002 ?    02:09:49 /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/rhn-applet-gui --



root         929    926  0  2002 ?      00:00:02 /sbin/pam_timestamp_check -d root

root         930    924  0  2002 pts/0  00:00:01 bash

root        1112   924   0  2002 pts/2  00:00:00 bash

root        1977     1   0  2002 ?      00:08:52 gaim

root       2279    1  0   2002 ?    00:00:01 /usr/libexec/nautilus-throbber --oaf-activ



root        3555   924  0  2002 pts/1   00:00:01 bash

root       28895  608  0 18:37 ?      00:00:00 in.telnetd: F4457MXP



root       28896  28895  0  18:37 ?     00:00:00 login -- linuxconnect

501        28897  28896  0  18:37 pts/3 00:00:00 -bash

root       28927  28897  0  18:37 pts/3 00:00:00 su -

root       28928  28927  1  18:37 pts/3 00:00:00 -bash

root       28964  28928  0  18:37 pts/3 00:00:00 ps -ef

#

Here is a brief description of the headings:

UID	The user ID of the process owner
PID	The process ID (use this number to kill the process)
PPID	The process ID of the parent process
C	Process utilization for scheduling
STIME	Start time of the process
TTY	The controlling terminal for the process, if any
TIME	The cumulative execution time for the process
COMMAND	The command name and arguments

ps quickly profiles the processes running on your system. To get more detailed information, you can use the l option, which includes a lot of useful additional information, as shown in the following example showing only Bash processes:

# ps -efl

  F S UID        PID  PPID  C PRI   NI  ADDR   SZ WCHAN  STIME TTY          TIME CMD

000 S root       930   924  0  75    0     - 1056 schedu  2002 pts/0    00:00:01 bash

000 S root      1112   924  0  75    0     - 1066 schedu  2002 pts/2    00:00:00 bash

100 S root      3555   924  0  75    0     - 1081 schedu  2002 pts/1    00:00:01 bash

100 S 501      28897 28896  0  75    0     - 1033 wait4  18:37 pts/3    00:00:00 -bash

100 S root     28928 28927  0  75    0     - 1047 wait4  18:37 pts/3    00:00:00 -bash

000 S root     28977 28928  0  76    0     -  813 pipe_w 18:49 pts/3    00:00:00 grep bash

.

.

                     .

In this example, the first column is F for flags. F provides octal information about whether the process is swapped, in core , a system process, and so on. The octal value sometimes varies from system to system, so check the manual pages for your system to see the octal value of the flags.

S is for state. The state can be sleeping, as indicated by S for the processes shown in the example, waiting, running, intermediate, terminated , and so on. Again, some of these values can vary from system to system, so check your manual pages.

Some additional useful information in this output is: NI for the nice value; ADDR for the memory address of the process; SZ for the size in physical pages of the process; and WCHAN, which is the event for which the process is waiting.

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