Project 2

Project 2: Basic Systems Administration

(c) 1997, Howard E. Motteler

Assigned Wed Feb 26; Due Wed Mar 5; 20 pts

Project Goals

The goals of this project are to learn some basics of systems administration, and to make sure everyone has access to a Minix system so we can proceed to more interesting projects.

Project Groups

If you have installed Minix on your own machine you can work individually or in groups of up to three. Students working in the circuits lab (room 237) should form groups of two or (preferably) three. Each lab group should choose a "main" machine, and perhaps an alternate machine as well; you will be making accounts for yourselves on each of these machines. Because there are only ten machines in the lab groups may have to share machines.

The Project

You are to set up a Minix account and compile a trivial C program. As a group, you should

Boot up your machine to run minix. I will leave some extra boot floppies in the cupboard in the left-rear corner of the lab, and you may want to make your own boot disk, as well
Think of a name for your group, preferably of not more than about eight letters
Create an entry for your group in /etc/group. Be sure to choose a group number different from existing group numbers. If you set up accounts on more than one machine, use the same group name and number on each
Create a directory /usr/home, for user home directories.
Format a floppy disk, with mkfs, that you will turn in as a group

Each user in the group should

Make an entry in /etc/password. Use your gl username and assign unique numbers to the users. Each user should be a member of the group you created in /etc/group. If set up accounts on more than one machine, use the same user-name and number on each. You may want to to make /usr/bin/ash your default shell; it has many of the features of bash and ksh, including command-line edting. Unfortunately, there is no csh or tcsh.
Make a directory in /usr/home, using your gl username
Change ownership of your home directory to yourself
Copy the startup file "/.profile" to your home directory. You should add the statement "umask 022" (or whatever you'd like it to be) to your .profile, and you may want to customize your environment further.
Make a directory "floppy" in your home directory, where you can mount a floppy-disk filesystem, to save work you want to keep with you
Mount the floppy (preferably in the directory you just created) that you will turn in as a group
Make a directory in the top level of the floppy, cd to this directory, and write a simple C program "hello.c" to print your name, SSN, and user-id
Compile your program to produce a binary "hello"
Unmount the floppy and give it to the next group member, until everyone in the group has created a directory and their own "hello" program

You should also copy the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files to the floppy, after all your accounts are created.

What to turn in

Each group should turn in a single floppy. Students with user-ids jbob4, fnord2, and squick1 in the borg group would create a floppy with directories jbob4, fnord2, and squick1 at the top-level, with their respective files hello.c and hello in their subdirectories. Each user's files and directories should be owned by themselves, and all files and directories (in this example) should be in the borg group.

The floppy should be clearly labeled with the group and user names, and machine number.

Grading

Ten points are for getting the floppy right, and ten for setting up your accounts in good order. Except for cases of gross negligence or excessive weirdness, everyone in a group will receive the same grade.

Since you will need to turn in a floppy disk rather than using the submit program, there are slightly different rules for early and late projects. The project is due Wednesday by 6:30 pm. If you turn in your project Monday by 6:30 pm, you get a 10% bonus; if you turn it in after Wednesday 6:30 but before next Monday at 6:30 there is a 15% penalty; and in general, if we say a "checkpoint" is 6:30 pm on days the class meets, then there is a 15% penalty for each checkpoint you miss.

Note that since 15% of 20 points is only 3 points, it's not that big a deal, for this project, if you are little late.