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4.1 Setting up new accounts

If you used the post-install script from above, then you installed Kerberos. So to add a new user:

  useradd -m -c "Real Name of Person" NetID

If the user wants to use SSH keys to log into systems, and has their SSH private key on a CD, please read the following document. I describes how to create SSH keys and have them automatically added to an SSH agent during login. http://zelda.wss.yale.edu/doco/SSH-misc/ssh-keypair.Linuxhowto.php

4.2 Making NIS maps

The Network Information Services (NIS) directory is /var/yp. To remake and distribute the NIS database files or maps, simply type make from the /var/yp directory. The important maps that get distributed are: passwd, group, netgroup and hosts. The source files are located in /etc. If you ever make a change to one of these files in /etc you should remake and distribute the NIS database files.

  cd /var/yp
  make

4.3 Installing RPM updates

To install an RPM update on a SuSE Linux machine, you must keep in mind that aide is running, so you'll have to update the aide database as well. We are also using Smartpm to do the updates, so the process is quite easy. Here is how you would do the RPM updates on a SuSE machine:

   /usr/bin/smart update
   /usr/bin/smart upgrade
   /usr/bin/at -f /usr//local/bin/update-aide now

4.4 Make a system-wide environment variable

The following scripts are executed at login time:

  /etc/csh.login.local  (for csh and tcsh)
  /etc/profile.local    (for bash and sh)

So you need to place the environment variable in these two files.

4.5 chkconfig flags

There is a method of easily controlling which processes get started at boot time. This method is controlled through the /sbin/chkconfig command. The source files for chkconfig are in /etc/init.d. You can list out all the processes by typing:

  /sbin/chkconfig --list

You can turn processes on and off by using the "add" and "del" switches. Here is an example of turning the "xinetd" process on then off again.

   /sbin/chkconfig --add xinetd
   /sbin/chkconfig --del xinetd

Keep in mind that this does NOT start or stop the daemon from running. It simply changes what gets started or not at boot time. You have control of specifying at which boot level which processes start. You can specify these in the source files in /etc/init.d. Please look at the source files in /etc/init.d for examples or read man chkconfig for more information.

4.6 Changing network card settings

Use the ethtool command to view and change network card settings. The man page gives a full explanation. Here is an example of setting the eth0 interface to 100 mbit full duplex and turning off autonegotiation.

   /usr/sbin/ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full autoneg off