Dear managers:
Whole_heartedly thanks for many people who response my question so promptly.
There are several people expresses the interests of knowing what questions
other managers suggested. I am include all the responses I received so far.
In the near future, I will try to compile the list of questions.
and submit to the list for the future reference.
Scottie" McCracken(scottm_at_Synergex.com):
How do you add a user?
What is a cron job?
How do you create a cron job?
How would you find a file on the system if you know the file name, but don't
know where it is?
If you are dealing with NFS networks:
How do you mount a drive from another system on to the local machine?
What do you have to do to prepare a partition to be mounted onto another
machine?
Santosh Krishnan:
How often would you do a backup and what would you do if you wanted to
increase swap space on the system?
hela Kunasz(Chela.Kunasz_at_jila.colorado.edu):
You might ask some basic questions first:
These could be many and varied, but some might be:
1) what security measures would you put in place our
our alpha, if any and how would you decide what
to install (person should show an interest
in the security needs at your site, perhaps
ask some questions, and then, possibly discuss
an array of possibilities such as tcp_wrappers,
sudo, one-time-only passwords, C2 (kerberos
security), and investigate policy issues
such as who has root, whether ownership and
permissions, groups, etc. could be configured
to reduce the need for root access)... Of
course many other security issues could be
discussed such as sniffers (ISS, Satan), etc.,
tripwire, etc. You could ask what would be
any down-sides of anything proposed. Mainly
this discussion would bring out what they
know about these things and how deeply they
think about what is appropriate for your site.
2. What do they think about backups of user disks, etc.
How would they do them? What are the possibilities.
Would their scheme allow easy backup of other
distributed workstations from various vendors as
well? (possibilities include generic dump,
amanda, DEC products, etc.) WE like amanda...
Have they heard of it?
3. What sorts of software might they download from the
net for your users? Have they done this before?
What problems have they encountered when they
have done this.
4. Of course, have they any experience with Alphas and
Digital UNIX?
5. You could try a few questions which would be interesting:
(very specific)
1. what command in Digital unix shows what partitions
are being used for swapping? (and what is
swapping?)
2. if you have a primary swap partition, and you
want to remove the disk that it is on
and use a partition on a disk with a different
SCSI id, what steps might you need to take.
(Ideally, they should know that they must
make sure to switch the link in /sbin so
that it points to the new device! They need
to have /sbin/swapdefault -> /dev/rznb where
n is a scsi id. What does it mean if there
is no link? (answer: it means that the system
is using the "lazy swap" as opposed to the
immediate method of allocating swap space.
Perhaps they might not remember the exact
lingo, but if they know about this and can
describe something about it, they know more
than others!
6. Add specific questions about things you'd like to do and
ask them how they would go about doing them. Do you
have good documentation on Digital UNIX at your site?
(That would be good to have. If not, ask them what
types of documentation they would like to have.)
7. Ask them which models of Alphas they have worked with.
Ask them about good vendors from which to acquire
additional memory for Alphas. Ask them what they
would do if more memory were desired. (They should
make sure a particular model can take more memory;
they should consider the density of the simms and
inquire whether further expansion might be desired.
Of course, if they are just going to manage one alpha thatis a different story from managing many;
there may be integration issues with other types of workstations.
Ask questions about that which relate to your site...
One could go on and on, but these are few issues. Of course
one has to put the whole thing in your own context which
I have not inquired about, since I don't have much time.
Del Merritt(del_at_IntraNet.com):
- What's the current rev level of DU?
- Explain how licenses work under DU.
- What filesystems are available, and why would you use each of them?
- Where do you add daemon startup scripts in DU?
- How do you change the ethernet type (e.g., AUI to 10bT)?
Jon Buchanan(Jonathan.Buchanan_at_ska.com):
Here are some suggested questions for your candidates:
- Have you ever rebuilt a kernel?
Expected answer - yes, often
- Have you ever upgraded the operating system?
Expected answer - yes
- What problems did you encounter with the upgrade?
Ideal answer - none, means they did their preparation properly
Acceptable answer - firmware upgrades, catches a lot of people out
Suspect answer - lots, probably means they didn't read the release
notes
- Which version of Digital UNIX or OSF/1 are you running?
Preferable answer - 3.2C or higher
Acceptable answer - 2.1 if there were good reasons for not upgrading
Suspect answer - 1.* or 2.0 or 3.0 or 3.2 or 3.2A - why haven't they
upgraded?
- How do you do backups?
Expected answer - with a tool, or scripts using dump
Very suspect answer - don't do backups
- Do you use Advanced File Systems?
Acceptable answer - Yes or No, providing they can explain the
advantages and disadvantages.
- What are the main advantages of Advanced File Systems?
Primarily - extending the size of a volume on-line, taking a
snapshot (clone) of a running volumne which can be used for
backing up.
- What are the main disadvantages of Advanced File Systems?
Primarily - need Utilities, which cost money, also an ever-surfacing
number of bugs. Backups require adapted tools or scripts.
- Have you tried running with Enhanced Security?
Preferable answer - yes, no problems
Suspect answer - yes, too many problems
Acceptable answer - no (but perhaps not a security conscious system
manager)
- What are the main advantages of enhanced security?
Correct answer - password and login controls, GUI for user
maintenance, auditing
- What are the disadvantages of enhanced security?
Correct answer - performance problems on large systems, NIS
incompatible with other UNIX flavours, no failover for NIS master
- What tools do you use for examining performance?
Good answer - some special performance tool, or utilities such as
vmstat, iostat, netstat, nfsstat
- What is meant by 'lazy swap mode'
Correct answer - it means that the system over-allocates its memory
resources, which allows much more efficient use of memory but with
the risk that processes will be terminated if the swap space is
exhausted. Lazy swap mode is activated by removing the link
/sbin/swapdefault and booting.
Suspect answer - don't know (but try prompting a bit, they SHOULD
know)
- Do you subscribe to alpha-osf-managers?
Preferred answer - yes! (unless no Internet access)
Bertrand Hutin:
knowledge of lmf (license management tool) and setld (install tool),
kernel building, CDE (DU 4.0)
Sincere thanks again for the above people for providing excellent questions.
Regards,
Deming Zhuang(dzhuang_at_alpha1.msvu.ca)
Department of Mathematics and Computer Studies
Mount Saint Vincent University
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada
B3M 2J6
Received on Sat Oct 12 1996 - 20:47:26 NZDT