Chapter 6 - Advanced System Administration and Troubleshooting

Abstract

The IPSO boot manager is a valuable tool, knowledge of which is a large part of troubleshooting problems from boot failures to lost administrative passwords. The main function of boot manager is to load the IPSO kernel into main memory, and it does this if left to function unattended. If the boot sequence is interrupted, however, the boot manager gives access to a rudimentary command shell, from which one can set and clear environment variables that control its function. The boot manager can be upgraded or reinstalled if the need arises. Troubleshooting problems can be made easier with the right command-line tools. Anything that can be seen or done from a graphical user interface, such as Voyager or the Check Point log viewer, is also possible from the shell. Managing and searching log files, in particular, benefits from the flexibility of tools like grep. If the disk runs out of space or needs to more closely examine a log file, SSH (SCP) can be used to initiate secure unattended log file transfers to remote hosts.