> congratulations, Frank.. you've just taken you first step on the road to
> unix gurudom. we've all started there, and the laugh i'm having is *not*
> at you.. it's at the flood of nearly identical memories from my own past.
Yes. One of mine was a binary error -- generated 33 newsletters (one
to each regional administrator) that consisted of a link editor file --
hex garbage characters. Caught it before the newsletters went out.
Or the one where some obscure error in a program that I wrote caused
the PL/1 F compiler to head off into never-never land, leaving in the
middle of my source file to try to compile a confidential hospital mailing
list, and trying to abnormally terminate (abort,) itself twice before
becoming insane enough to abnormally end. (abend.) That one actually got
referred up to IBM for analysis, and caused one of the computer center
staff to have a little chat with me. (More out of curiosity, rather than
accusations, it was rather clear that I had not wanted to read, nor
compile, the confidential mailing list which, it turns out, was just
random blocks of disk left over from the previous user.)
> "UNIX Power Tools"
> by Jerry D. Peek, Tim O'Reilly, Mike Loukides
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565922603/002-8885520-0581219
>
> which is really a cookbook of how-to tips. it doesn't really teach you
> unix itself, but shows you the unix mindset. that consists mostly of
Uh... it was over a year before that one made much sense to me, by
which time I often asked "why did they do it in that absurd way?" Mostly
because what they were doing was similar, but not as generically reusable
and stackable, as the stuff I try to write. But then, I started out
writing programs, not administrative scripts, so I emphasize structure,
re-usability, and clarity in getting something done efficiently; rather
than getting it done quickly, or illustrating a rather narrow point, as
they do. It is worth reading eventually, but not as the sole source.
> "Running Linux"
> by Matt Welsh, Lar Kaufman
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565921518/002-8885520-0581219
>
> which is specific to the RedHat distribution O'R&A sells as a beginner's
> unix kit. it goes through and explains the whats, hows, and whys of
> running a Linux system with the tools bundled in the RedHat distribution.
Have not read that.
> as others have said, the usual command is
>
> # shutdown -h now
>
> where the 'h' stands for 'halt' and the 'now' says when to do it. on
> multi-user systems, it's usually standard to use a 10 minute delay, thus
This is very true. Usually one posts some sort of operations
schedule, and puts it in the /etc/motd (Message Of The Day) file. When
running after hours, one puts a message to the effect that "System is up
for testing purposes only, use at your own risk" or such.
(Actually, you are probably supposed to use /etc/issue for that, but
Linux keeps clobbering that. Issue comes up before you log in, motd
comes up afterwards.)
> as you enter the command, every user on the system is warned, and there are
> usually a set of countdown warnings for the truly thick of skull.
Yess... like me! I am known for watching the clock to the zero
minute.
> you never want to shut a real OS down without warning, because one of the
> services it provides for processes is called 'memory-mapped file handling'.
> basically, that means it keeps a buffer of RAM which it uses to speed up
> the process of reading data to & from the drive platter. at any given
> moment, the file you think you've written to disk may in fact be sitting in
> the buffer, while the system waits for a lull in system activity to do the
> actual write.
Allegedly one is supposed to try to use the command "sync" before
pulling the plug even if the machine is on fire...
> stored where get updated correctly. cutting power without calling for a
> proper shutdown is roughly like sneaking up behind someone and hitting them
> in the back of the head with a stick. when they wake up, they tend to be
> a mite testy at having their train of thought interrupted in such a manner.
Such brain dead acts by Joe, an old operator, are what gave me my
grand entry into computing. I and a friend had to write a utility to
re-string file segments scrambled by his usual improper power-off's.
We got even with him one day... at a surplus yard, (about three or
four hours drive from college,) I'd found an official blue IBM handle from
one of the washing machine sized disk drive units like those we had. The
occasional night shift operator and others put a note on the handle to the
effect that this was found in the disk drive room, and left it for Joe to
discover on the morning it was his turn to come in first. I heard it was
quite a show he put on regarding the quality of the lower rung assistant
operators!
(Posting from another machine. No, it wasn't my Linux system that
crashed crashed, it was a bit or few bytes that failed in the ROM of a
disk drive controller that screwed up partition information! So my
progressively more encompassing attempts to re-install Linux over the
last few days all met with strange and inexplicable failures. Sometimes,
hardware really does fail...)
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