Text-based management?

Rick Stevens rstevens at vitalstream.com
Tue May 30 17:31:42 UTC 2006


On Sun, 2006-05-28 at 12:18 -0700, gerrynix wrote:
> Are there any text-based counterparts to the graphical tools,
>  "system-config-xxxx" . . . Such as or similar to linuxconf, bundled
> in the FCs?

Stay away from linuxconf.  It is buggy and incompatible with many of
the newer file configs.

system-config-xxx works with or without a GUI.  If you are not in a
GUI situation (run level 2 or 3), it uses ASCII art (curses) to draw
quasi-graphic stuff on the screen.  The system-config-xxx tools are the
safest to use at this time.

Learning command line basics is important to a sysadmin, as there are
things you can do on the command line that a GUI tool simply can't (or
won't) provide.

Config files are a different kettle of fish.  There are so many and
their formats vary widely.  I know a lot of the ones you play with most
often (fstab, inittab, passwd, group, shadow, network configuration
[ifcfg-ethX], routes, etc.) by heart, but by no means do I know them
all--and I've been a sysadmin for 30 years.  The best thing is to learn
to a) make a backup copy of the file BEFORE you start banging on it; and
b) use the man pages for the program and/or config file.

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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-     I.R.S.: We've got what it takes to take what you've got!       -
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