This section abstracts some of the resource data from Appendix B of A Practical Guide to Solaris. Please send me any additions or corrections to this list. Thanks,
Contents
- System Documentation and Information
- Where Can I Find More Documentation?
- Where Can I Look Up a Word?
- What Are Some Useful Solaris Internet Sites?
- What Are the Names of Some Solaris Newsgroups?
- What Are Some Useful Mailing Lists?
- How Do I Find the Program I Want on the Internet?
- Utility Programs
- Security Programs
- Communication Programs
- Miscellaneous Programs
System Documentation and Information
Distributions of Solaris come with reference manual pages stored online. You can read these documents, referred to as man pages, using the man or xman utility (give the command man man). You can read man pages to get more information about specific topics or to determine what features are available with Solaris. You can search for topics using the apropos utility (give the command apropos apropos or man apropos).
In addition to the man utility, Solaris offers other online information. AnswerBook2 provides queriable, hypertext-linked access to additional information on utilities, hardware, software, and system features.
Where Can I Find More Documentation?
There are quite a few good books available on different aspects of using and administrating UNIX systems in general and Solaris systems in specific. In addition you may find the following documents useful:
|
Tool |
What It Does |
Where to Get It |
|
Solaris FAQ |
A thorough FAQ maintained by Casper Dik and broken into groups: General/Sources of Information/System Administration/ Networking/Troubleshooting/ Software Development/Kernel Parameters. |
|
|
FAQs |
Frequently Asked (Answered) Questions of all types. |
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub (Get index-byname and search for solaris. This index is large [300K+] as it covers all news groups.) metalab.unc.edu/pub/solaris/FAQS |
|
RFCs |
Request for Comments. |
ftp://ftp.uu.net/inet/rfc (download rfc-index for a list of RFCs) |
|
Sun Security Bulletin Archive |
A list of almost all of the security bulletins sent out by Sun. |
There are many online dictionaries on the Web. The following list shows a few of them.
|
Name |
Specialty |
Where to Get It |
|
whatis?com |
knowledge exploration tool |
|
|
Tech Encyclopedia |
computer terms |
|
|
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing |
computer terms |
|
|
Military Maritime Command and Control System (MCCIS): Project Documentation |
security |
cliffie.nosc.mil/~NAPDOC/docprj/security/glossary-of-compusec-terms/index.html |
|
Sun Glossary |
general and Solaris specific computer terms |
|
|
Merriam-Webster |
English language |
What Are Some Useful Solaris Internet Sites?
Often these particular sites are so busy that you cannot log in. When this happens you are usually given a list of alternative, or mirror, sites to try.
|
Location |
What It Does |
Where to Get It |
|
Sun |
(USA) Sun's Solaris home page. Links to downloads, drivers, articles, and more. |
|
|
UNC |
(USA) The browser and ftp entry into the University of North Carolina's Metalab (formerly named sunsite), which contains a lot of Solaris source, binary, and documentation files. |
|
|
Sun |
(USA) Sun provides compiled free software for Solaris 2.5, 2.6, and System 7 on x86 and SPARC platforms. |
|
|
Sun |
(USA) Sun provides all AnswerBook2 documentation ever produced on CD. |
|
|
Sun |
(USA) Sun provides a searchable index of white papers, bug reports, problem issues, patches, FAQs, and more (registered users only). |
|
|
Sun (Canada) |
(CA) The Sun Canadian groups put up a lot of freeware in the pub directory tree both as source and as precompiled binaries ready to install. |
|
|
Sun |
(USA) A list of Solaris links. |
|
|
GNU |
(USA) Central site for Free Software Foundation (GNU) software. |
ftp://ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu (cd to pub/gnu.) Also see www.gnu.org. |
|
Network Associates |
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) information. |
www.pgp.com (commercial site, has free software) |
|
X Consortium |
(USA) Central site for X Window System software. |
|
|
Doug |
(USA) Source code, security, and intrusion detection tools, lpd information, and more. |
What Are the Names of Some Solaris Newsgroups?
One of the best ways of getting specific information is through a newsgroup. Frequently you can find the answer to your question just by reading postings to the newsgroup. Try using dejanews power search to look through newsgroups (www.dejanews.com) to see if your question has already been asked and answered. If necessary, you can post your question for someone to answer. Make sure your question has not been answered before you post it.
| Newsgroup | Area Covered |
|
alt.solaris.x86 |
Intel group |
|
alt.sys.sun |
Small general Solaris newsgroup |
|
comp.sys.sun.admin |
Administrators |
|
comp.sys.sun.apps |
Applications |
|
comp.sys.sun.hardware |
Hardware |
|
comp.sys.sun.misc |
Miscellaneous |
|
comp.sys.sun.wanted |
Sun hardware and software wanted to buy |
|
comp.unix.solaris |
Main Solaris newsgroup |
What Are Some Useful Mailing Lists?
Subscribing to a mailing list allows you to participate in an electronic discussion. With most lists, you can send email to and receive email from a group of users that is dedicated to a specific topic. Moderated lists do not tend to stray as much as unmoderated lists, assuming the list has a good moderator. The disadvantage of a moderated list is that some discussions may be cut off when they get interesting if the moderator deems the discussion has gone on for too long. Mail lists described as bulletins are strictly unidirectional: You cannot post information to these lists but can only receive periodic bulletins. If you have the subscription address for a mailing list but are not sure how to subscribe, put the word help in the body and/or header of email that you send to the address. You will usually receive instructions via email.
|
List Name |
Subscription Address |
Type |
Description |
|
bugtraq |
moderated |
Full disclosure mailing list on operating system, program bugs, and security holes. Tendency for tangential discussions. |
|
|
CERT |
bulletins |
Security advisories. |
|
|
CIAC |
majordomo@rumpole.llnl.gov |
bulletins |
Announcements about viruses and vendor security holes. |
|
firewalls |
majordomo@gnac.com |
open |
Discussions about firewall policy and implementation issues. Discussions can be off track. |
|
firewall wizards |
moderated |
Moderated doppelganger for firewalls. |
|
|
freefire |
bulletins |
Announcements of free firewalls and toolkits. |
|
|
ssa-managers |
majordomo@eng.auburn.edu |
open |
Issues relating to SPARCStorage devices and the controlling software (A1000, D1000, SPARCStorage array, A5000, Veritas Volume Manager, Solstice DiskSuite, and so on). |
|
sun-managers |
majordomo@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu |
open |
Mail list cross-posted to comp.sys.sun.admin for discussions about Sun operating systems and SPARC-based computers. |
|
SunSolve Early Notifier |
bulletin |
Early notification of the release of OS patches. |
|
|
Best of Security |
bulletin |
A digested form of bugtraq. |
|
|
COAST Sec-urity archive |
bulletin |
Periodic updates and announcements from the COAST team. |
|
|
WWW Security |
open |
Discussions of WWW security issues and their solutions. |
How Do I Find the Program I Want on the Internet?
There are many ways to learn of interesting software packages and where they are available on the Internet. The following tables list many free packages and sites. Many of these sites have additional packages available; you just have to look around for them (click on various directories from your browser or use cd and ls from ftp-see the following sections).
Another way to learn about a package is through a newsgroup. If your newsreader can use HTML links in the messages to download the software directly, it will locate the package and run ftp automatically. If not, you will have to use the steps outlined in the following sections and use ftp or your browser to download the software.
Following are just a few of the many sites on the Internet from which you can obtain utility programs that run on Solaris systems.
|
Tool |
What It Does |
Where to Get It |
|
cdrecord |
A CDROM burner that works with most available CD-R and CD-RW devices. |
|
|
Subnet mask calculator |
Calculates subnet masks (used when setting up a network). |
|
|
patch (GNU) |
Similar to the Solaris-supplied patch, but better. |
|
|
fastpatch |
For applying Sun OS patches to Solaris 2.5.1 or lower. Much faster than installpatch, but cannot be backed out. |
|
|
fix-modes |
Sets system file and directory permissions to more reasonable defaults. |
|
|
lsof |
Displays all open files (including devices and network connections). |
|
|
lynx |
A free text-only character-based Web browser. |
|
|
memconf |
Shows what kinds of SIMMs are in which slots in a SPARC station. |
|
|
proctool |
Get information on processes. |
|
|
procmail |
Email filtering software. |
|
|
qps |
A fast, minimial replacement for built-in ps. Will work when ps does not. |
|
|
sformat |
An improved, free replacement disk analyzer and formatter for UNIX (requires scg). |
ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/sformat |
|
star |
Free, faster, POSIX-compliant replacement for Solaris tar. |
|
|
RAPS/toptool |
Software performance monitoring tool for Solaris. |
|
|
top |
A utility that gives continual reports about the state of a system, including a list of which processes are using most of the CPU's resources. |
There are many sites that contain many programs dedicated to system security..
|
Tool |
What It Does |
Where to Get It |
|
COAST/CERIAS |
COAST/CERIAS Security Archives at Purdue. |
ftp://coast.cs.purdue.edu/pub/tools/unix
www.cs.purdue.edu/coast/archive |
|
CERT |
Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute Computer Emergency Response Team coordination center. |
|
|
cops |
Finds bad passwords and audits your system. |
|
|
crack |
Finds bad passwords. |
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|
sudo |
Restricts and audits su usage. |
|
|
priv |
Restricts and audits su usage. |
|
|
des |
File encryption. |
|
|
Sun Security Bulletins |
Sun Security Bulletins. |
|
|
Sun Security Patches |
Sun Security Patches. |
|
|
privtool |
A free mail user agent that is a look-alike for Sun's OpenLook mailtool, but which provides an interface to PGP. |
|
|
PGP |
Software, information, and related products. |
www.pgp.com or www.nai.com ftp://ftp.hacktic.nl/pub/replay/pgp |
|
PGPelm |
A PGP-enabled version of the popular UNIX email client Elm. |
|
|
RIPEM |
An encryption routine that has received more widespread use than PEM, but still lacks the broad base of PGP. Current versions are available outside the United States without restrictions. |
|
|
PGP and PEM sendmail |
Encryption routines. There are PGP and PEM extended versions of sendmail. Also see RIPEM. |
ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp/utils
(PGP sendmail extensions and other PGP enabled
programs) |
|
SKIP |
Encrypts all traffic between two machines at the session level. |
|
|
IPSec |
Secures machine-to-machine communications (notes). |
|
|
cfs |
Cryptographic filesystem by Matt Blaze. |
www.cryptography.org |
|
tripwire |
Checks your host for possible signs of intruder activity. |
ftp://coast.cs.purdue.edu/pub/COAST/Tripwire www.tripwiresecurity.com |
|
satan |
Scans your host and network for known vulnerabilities (showing its age). |
ftp://ciac.llnl.gov/pub/ciac/sectools/unix/satan ftp://coast.cs.purdue.edu/pub/COAST/tools/SATAN_Extensions.tar.Z |
|
SecurID card |
Security Dynamics Technologies, Inc. |
|
|
Miscellaneous security |
Miscellaneous security. |
Also check www.hacktic.nl (Hack-Tic Magazine Archive [in Dutch]) and www.cryptography.com (U.S. and Canada only). |
|
Tool |
What It Does |
Where to Get It |
|
BIND |
The original domain name services source code. |
|
| qpopper | The most popular standalone POP daemon. | ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/eudora/servers/unix/popper |
|
cyrus |
An IMAP and POP mail server. |
|
|
dp |
A free PPP replacement. |
|
|
majordomo |
Free mailing list software. |
|
|
smartlist |
Free mailing list software. |
|
|
mailman |
GNU mailing list manager. |
|
|
listserv |
Free mailing list software. |
|
|
ppp |
A free PPP replacement. |
|
|
Everything serial |
Serial port utilities, resources, programming tips, PPP, and modem settings. |
|
|
pine |
A popular cross-platform mail client. |
ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/pine |
|
sendmail |
The original version of sendmail from the University of California at Berkeley. |
|
Tool |
What It Does |
Where to Get It |
|
Acroread |
The Adobe Acrobat PDF reader. |
www.adobe.com (click on Free Plug-ins and Updates, UNIX adjacent to Acrobat Reader, and then on Solaris.) |
|
apache |
The most popular Web server in the world. |
|
|
inn |
The most popular USENET news server source. |
|
|
bootpd |
A Bootp server for UNIX (also answers DHCP requests). |
|
|
dhcp |
A DHCP server for UNIX. |
|
|
gnuplot |
A GNU X plotting program. |
|
|
change-sun-hostid |
A suite of utilities for manipulating system hostid and other NVRAM properties on SPARC stations. |
|
|
ImageMagick |
A suite of image manipulation, display, and conversion programs. |
|
|
GIMP |
GNU Image Manipulation Program (similar to PhotoShop). |
|
|
perl |
A popular general-purpose language, frequently used for WWW CGI scripting. |
|
|
CPAN |
Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. |
|
|
Tcl/Tk |
Popular extension language and GUI toolkit. |
|
|
neosoft |
Tcl/Tk archive. |
|
|
ups |
A graphical debugger. |
|
|
sysinfo |
Query system information, configuration, and devices. |
|
|
xmgr |
An X plotting/graphing program. |
|
|
tgif |
X-based drawing program. |
|
|
xfig |
X-based drawing program. |
|
|
transfig |
Translates xfig files to other formats. |
|
|
xv |
X-based image display, manipulation, and conversion program. |
|
|
sas |
Commercial program from SAS Inc. |
|
|
samba |
Turns your UNIX workstation into a CIFS/SMB file server that looks like an NT server. |
|
|
netatalk |
Turns your UNIX workstation into an Appletalk server for Macs. |
|
|
xview |
An OpenLook GUI toolkit. |
|
|
proctool |
A GUI that gives enhanced ps-like functionality. |
|
|
SE |
The system engineer's toolkit. This is a suite of utilities for diagnosing system performance problems and finding bottlenecks. |
|
|
xpdf |
A PDF document viewer. |
|
|
mxgdb |
A GUI front end to gdb debugger. |
|
|
System patches |