Distributed management framework

Distributed and remote administration of resources (users, printers, filesystems, and networks, for example) depend on several underlying technologies:

User equivalence

All SCOadmin managers that allow for remote administration issue remote commands (rcmds) over TCP/IP. Each user, including root, who wants to use this capability must have an equivalent account on each system to be managed.

For more information about user equivalence, see ``Establishing user equivalence''. To configure user equivalence, use the User Equivalence Manager.

Network Information Service (NIS)

With NIS, you can:

• Distribute users between an NIS server and all NIS clients on a network.

• Create a single repository for important system files, such as /etc/hosts and /etc/passwd, that are served to clients on an as-needed basis.

• Export user home directories to any other system in an NIS domain, when used in conjunction with the automount facility of NFS.

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

With SNMP, you can both monitor and control TCP/IP-based networks by querying remote hosts and devices for data (such as the host's status, routing table, and system activity) and by issuing commands to remotely manipulate such data.

SNMP is useful in the following ways:

• System administrators can use SNMP from the command line to detect and correct network problems.

• Developers can build SNMP into their device drivers to provide and monitor status information.

• Network managers can use third-party graphical Network Management Stations operating over SNMP to monitor and administer large networks.

For more information, see ``How SNMP works'' and ``Configuring the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)''.