CSE 265: System and Network Administration

Homework #1

0. Make sure that you have an account on the CSE/ECE machines (Suns) and that you receive and read mail sent to you @cse.lehigh.edu. If you only want to read email in one place (recommended), you may want to set up a .forward on the Suns to send your mail to your Lehigh account (or vice versa).

1. Become familiar with a standard text editor -- either vi or emacs. What is the URL of the best web site resource/reference for the editor that you like?

2. What command would you use to read about the sync system call (not the sync command)? How would you read a local man page for sync that was kept in /usr/local/share/man?

3. How many different versions of ls are installed on the Suns, and where are they (that is, what is the complete path for each)?

Hint: you may need to use one or more of the commands: man, whereis, which to help answer this.

4. Why would one want hot-swap parts on a system without n+1 redundancy?

5. Why would one want n+1 redundancy if the system does not have hot-swap parts?