When studying this chapter, you should practice on a Sun system each step-by-step process that is outlined. In addition to practicing the processes, you should practice the various options described for booting the system.
You should display the hardware configuration of your Sun system by using the various OpenBoot commands presented in this chapter. You need to familiarize yourself with all the devices associated with your system. You should be able to identify each hardware component by its device pathname.
You should practice creating both temporary and permanent device aliases. In addition, you should practice setting the various OpenBoot system parameters that are described in this chapter.
You should practice booting the system by using the various methods described. You need to understand how to boot into single-user and multiuser modes and how to specify an alternate kernel or system file during the boot process.
During the boot process, you should watch the system messages and familiarize yourself with every stage of the boot process. You should watch the system messages that are displayed at bootup. You need to understand each message displayed during the boot process from system power-on to bringing the system into multiuser mode.
You need to thoroughly understand the Service Management Facility (SMF), service states, and milestones. You'll need to understand how the scv.startd daemon uses information from the service configuration repository to determine required milestones and how it processes the manifests located in the /var/svc/manifest directory. In addition you must understand legacy run control scripts, run levels, and how they affect the system services.
You should practice shutting down the system. You should make sure you understand the advantages and disadvantages of each method presented.
