Chapter Four

Resource monitoring and management

Resource Monitoring
• As stated earlier, a great deal of system administration revolves around
resources and their efficient use.
• By balancing various resources against the people and programs that use
those resources, you will waste less money and make your users as
happy as possible.
• However, this leaves two questions:
• What are resources?
• And How do I know what resources are being used (and to what extent)?
Stand-alone systems (Memory, Disk Use, CPU Use)
• Before you can monitor resources, you first have to know what
resources there are to monitor.
• All systems have the following resources available:
• CPU power (and the bandwidth it enables)
• Memory
• Storage
• these resources have a direct impact on system performance, and
therefore, on your users’ productivity and happiness.
• At its simplest, resource monitoring is nothing more than obtaining
information concerning the utilization of one or more system
resources.
 Cont’d…
The systems you will be monitoring will fall into one of two categories:
• The system is currently experiencing performance problems at least part of
time and you would like to improve its performance
• The system is currently running well and you would like it to stay that way.
• The first category means that you should monitor resources from a system
performance perspective
• while the second category means that you should monitor system resources
from a capacity planning perspective.
• Because each perspective has its own unique requirements, we will now look at
each category in more depth.
System Performance Monitoring
• performance monitoring is normally done as the first and last two steps
of a three-step process:
• Monitoring to identify the nature and scope of the resource shortages
that are causing the performance problems
• The data produced from monitoring is analyzed and a course of action
(normally performance tuning and/or the procurement of additional
hardware) is taken to resolve the problem
• Monitoring to ensure that the performance problem has been resolved
• Because of this, performance monitoring tends to be relatively short-
lived in duration, and more detailed in scope.
 Bandwidth

• At its simplest, bandwidth is simply the capacity for data transfer in other
words how much data can be moved from one point to another in a given
amount of time.
Having point-to-point data communication implies two things:
1. A set of electrical conductors used to make low-level communication
possible
2. A protocol to facilitate the efficient and reliable communication of
data
There are two types of system components that meet these requirements:
• Buses
• Data paths
 Potential Bandwidth-Related Problems

There are two ways in which bandwidth-related problems may occur (for either
buses or data paths):
The bus or data path may represent a shared resource.
• In this situation, high levels of contention for the bus will reduce the effective
bandwidth available for all devices on the bus.
• A SCSI bus with several highly-active disk drives would be a good example of this.
The highly active disk drives will saturate the SCSI bus, leaving little bandwidth
available for any other device on the same bus.
• The end result is that all I/O to any of the devices on this bus will be slow, even if
the device itself is not overly active.
Cont’d…
The bus or data path may be a dedicated resource with a fixed number
of devices attached to it.
• In this case, the electrical characteristics of the bus (and to some extent
the nature of the protocol being used) limit the available bandwidth.
• This is usually more the case with data paths than with buses.
 Potential Bandwidth-related Solutions

• In fact, there are several approaches you can take to address bandwidth-
related problems.

• Increase the capacity

• Spread the load

• Reduce the load

 SCSI (Small Computer System Interface)

Formally known as the Small Computer System Interface

 The SCSI standard defines a bus along which multiple devices may be
connected.
A SCSI bus is a parallel bus, meaning that there is a single set of parallel
wires that go from device to device.
Because these wires are shared by all devices, it is necessary to have a
way of uniquely identifying and communicating with an individual
device.
This is done by assigning each device on a SCSI bus a unique numeric
address or SCSI ID
RAID-Based Storage

RAID is an acronym standing for Redundant Array of Independent

Disks1.
As the name implies, RAID is a way for multiple disk drives to act as a
single disk drive.
With this in mind, let us use what we know about disk-based storage and
see if we can determine the ways that disk drives can cause problems.
First, consider an outright hardware failure:
Cont’d…
A disk drive with four partitions on it dies completely
what happens to the data on those partitions?
 It is immediately unavailable (at least until it can be restored from a
recent backup, that is).
A disk drive with a single partition on it is operating at the limits of its
design due to massive I/O loads:
what happens to applications that require access to the data on that
partition?
The applications slow down because the disk drive cannot process reads
and writes any faster.
 Networked Versus Local Printers
Printer manufacturers have addressed this need by developing
departmental (or workgroup) printers.
These machines are usually durable, fast, and have long-life consumables.
Workgroup printers usually are attached to a print server, a standalone
device (such as a reconfigured workstation)
which handles print jobs and routes output to the proper printer when
available
Although, some printers include built in or add-on network interfaces that
eliminate the need for a dedicated print server.
Cont’d…
Print servers can use either the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP)
available in Red Hat Linux via the Common UNIX Printing System
(CUPS) or through Samba.
Samba is particularly useful for heterogeneous environments where
departments may use different operating systems.
Mail server and file server
What is a Mail Server?
A mail server is the computerized equivalent of your friendly
neighborhood mailman.
 Every email that is sent passes through a series of mail servers along its
way to its intended recipient.
Although it may seem like a message is sent instantly - zipping from
one PC to another in the blink of an eye - the reality is that a complex
series of transfers takes place.
Without this series of mail servers, you would only be able to send
emails to people whose email address domains matched your own
 i.e., you could only send messages from one [Link] account to
another [Link] account.
Cont’d…
Types of Mail Servers
Mail servers can be broken down into two main categories:
outgoing mail servers and incoming mail servers.
Outgoing mail servers are known as SMTP, or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol,
servers.
 Incoming mail servers come in two main varieties.
 POP3, or Post Office Protocol, version 3, servers are best known for storing
sent and received messages on PCs' local hard drives.
IMAP, or Internet Message Access Protocol, servers always store copies of
messages on servers.
Most POP3 servers can store messages on servers, too, which is a lot more
convenient.
The Process of Sending an Email
Now that you know the basics about incoming and outgoing mail
servers, it will be easier to understand the role that they play in the
emailing process.
The basic steps of this process are outlined below for your
convenience.
Step #1: After composing a message and hitting send, your email
client - whether it's Outlook Express or Gmail - connects to your
domain's SMTP server.
This server can be named many things; a standard example would be
[Link].
Step #2: Your email client communicates with the SMTP server,
giving it your email address, the recipient's email address, the message
body and any attachments.
Cont’d…
• Step #3: The SMTP server processes the recipient's email address - especially its
domain.
• If the domain name is the same as the sender's, the message is routed directly over
to the domain's POP3 or IMAP server - no routing between servers is needed.
• If the domain is different, though, the SMTP server will have to communicate with
the other domain's server.
• Step #4: In order to find the recipient's server, the sender's SMTP server has to
communicate with the DNS, or Domain Name Server.
• The DNS takes the recipient's email domain name and translates it into an IP
address.
• The sender's SMTP server cannot route an email properly with a domain name
alone; an IP address is a unique number that is assigned to every computer that is
connected to the Internet.
• By knowing this information, an outgoing mail server can perform its work more
efficiently.
 Cont’d…
• Step #5: Now that the SMTP server has the recipient's IP address, it can
connect to its SMTP server.
• This isn't usually done directly, though; instead, the message is routed
along a series of unrelated SMTP servers until it arrives at its destination.
• Step #6: The recipient's SMTP server scans the incoming message.
• If it recognizes the domain and the user name, it forwards the message
along to the domain's POP3 or IMAP server.
• From there, it is placed in a send mail queue until the recipient's email
client allows it to be downloaded.
• At that point, the message can be read by the recipient.
How Email Clients are Handled

Many people use web-based email clients, like Yahoo Mail and
Gmail. Those who require a lot more space - especially businesses -
often have to invest in their own servers.
That means that they also have a way of receiving and transmitting
emails, which means that they need to set up their own mail servers.
To that end, programs like Postfix and Microsoft Exchange are two of
the most popular options.
Such programs facilitate the preceding process behind the scenes.
Those who send and receive messages across those mail servers, of
course, generally only see the "send" and "receive" parts of the
process.
Cont’d…
At the end of the day, a mail server is a computer that helps move files
along to their intended destinations.
 In this case, of course, those files are email messages.
As easy as they are to take for granted, it's smart to have a basic grasp
of how mail servers work.
File server
In the client/server model, a file server is a computer responsible for the
central storage and management of data files
 So, that other computers on the same network can access the files.
A file server allows users to share information over a network without having
to physically transfer files by floppy diskette or some other external storage
device.
Any computer can be configured to be a host and act as a file server.
 In its simplest form, a file server may be an ordinary PC that handles
requests for files and sends them over the network.
In a more sophisticated network, a file server might be a dedicated network-
attached storage (NAS) device that also serves as a remote hard disk drive for
other computers,
Also allowing anyone on the network to store files on it as if to their own
hard drive.
Proxy
A proxy server, also known as a "proxy" or "application-level gateway",
is a computer that acts as a gateway between a local network
e.g., all the computers at one company or in one building and a larger-
scale network such as the Internet.
Proxy servers provide increased performance and security.
A proxy server is a dedicated computer or a software system running on a
computer that acts as an intermediary between an endpoint device
 such as a computer, and another server from which a user or client is
requesting a service.
The proxy server may exist in the same machine as a firewall server or it
may be on a separate server, which forwards requests through the firewall.
Advantage of Proxy server
An advantage of a proxy server is that
its cache can serve all users. If one or more Internet sites are
frequently requested.
these are likely to be in the proxy's cache, which will improve user
response time.
A proxy can also log its interactions, which can be helpful or
troubleshooting.
 Cont’d…

Here’s a simple example of how proxy servers work:

When a proxy server receives a request for an Internet resource (such as a
Web page), it looks in its local cache of previously pages.
 If it finds the page, it returns it to the user without needing to forward the
request to the Internet.
 If the page is not in the cache, the proxy server, acting as a client on behalf
of the user, uses one of its own IP addresses to request the page from the
server out on the Internet.
When the page is returned, the proxy server relates it to the original request
and forwards it on to the user.
Cont’d…
Proxy servers are used for both legal and illegal purposes.
 In the enterprise, a proxy server is used to facilitate security,
administrative control or caching services, among other purposes.
 In a personal computing context, proxy servers are used to enable
user privacy and anomalous surfing.
Proxy servers can also be used for the opposite purpose: To monitor traffic
and undermine user privacy.
To the user, the proxy server is invisible; all Internet requests and returned
responses appear to be directly with the addressed Internet server.
(The proxy is not actually invisible; its IP address has to be specified as
a configuration option to the browser or other protocol program.)
Basic Linux Networking Concepts
• Linux itself is just a kernel.
• Linux can be configured as a networked workstation, a DNS server, a
DHCP server, a web server, a mail server, a file and print server,
database server, a firewall, a gateway router and many more.
• Is Linux can be all that? Yes it can.
• In this section, user will learn the true meaning of Linux, which is a
network operating system or server system, to be all that mention
above.
Cont’d…
The first thing you should learn about networking is ip addresses.
A server and a client computer must have an ip address so that it can be
reach in network environment.
Linux server can serves networking 365 days a year without any problem.
 It's a proof that Linux is a very stable and secure network operating system
when properly configured and maintained.
All that starts with setting up a network card and configure an ip address for
the server.
During this period of learning, understanding of Linux command structure
and syntax is necessary.
Setting up and configuring Linux network requires testing and
troubleshooting. You might encounter errors, which is most likely, and try to
troubleshoot by analyzing error log files.
Assignment
1. What is the difference between HTTP and FTP?
2. What are the tasks of system administrator?
3. Explain briefly Cloud computing Vs. system Administration
THANK YOU!!!