MicroLink

Information Technology
College
Assignment
For the course

Unix System Administration and Support

Name of Student: --------Natnael Ketema G/meskel

Id Number: ----------------RD/12,619/18

Student Type: -------------Regular

1. History of UNIX

Submitted to: MR. SURAFEL

 The operating system found its beginning at Bell laboratories in New Jersey. Bell
Laboratories was (1960-1968) involved on the development of a multi-user, time-sharing
operating system called MULTICS (Multiplexed Information and computing system), In 1969
Bell Laboratories pulled out of the project.

One of the Bell laboratories people involved in the project was ken Thompson. He liked
the potential MULTICS had, but felt it was too complex and that the same-thing could be
done in simpler way. In 1969 the Next project UNICS (UNiplex Information and computing
System), which was created by some the people from the MULTICS project (ken Thompson,
Dennis Ritchie and Rudd Canaday). Although the Operating System has changed, the name
stuck and was eventually shortened to UNIX. This first version of UNIX was written in the
low-level PDP-7 assembler language, which at that time was the most popular
minicomputer

In 1973 Ken Thompson teamed up with Dennis Ritchie, who write the first C compiler, to
rewrite the UNIX kernel in C. The following Year a version of UNIX known as the fifth Edition
was first licenced to universities. The seventh edition, released in 1978, served at dividing
point for two divergent lines of UNIX development. This two branch they are known as
System V or ATT UNIX and Berkeley Standard Distribution – BSD UNIX

Meanwhile, the University of California at Berkeley started the development of its own
version of UNIX. Berkeley was also involved in the inclusion of transmission control
protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) networking protocol.

The following were the major mile stone in UNIX history early
1980’s

 AT & T was developing into its system V UNIX.

 Berkeley took initiative on its own UNIX BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) UNIX.
 Sun Micro Systems developed its Own BSD- based UNIX called SunOS and later was
renamed to sun Solaris.
 Microsoft and the Santa Cruz operation (SCO) were involved in another version of
UNIX called XENIX.
 Hewlett- Packard developed HP-UX for its workstations.
 DEC released ULTRIX.

2. Hierarchical relationship of UNIX flavours

Submitted to: MR. SURAFEL

 A UNIX flavours operating systems are one that behaves in manner similar to a UNIX system.

A UNIX- like application is one that behaves like the corresponding Unix command or shell.
There is no standard for defining the term, and some difference of opinion is possible as to the
degree to which a given operating system or application is UNIX flavour.

The term can include free and open source operating system inspired by Bell labs Unix or
designed to emulated its feature commercial and proprietary work alike, and even versions
based on the licenced Unix source code (which may be sufficiently “UNIX flavour” to pass
certification and bear the “UNIX” trademark).

The open Group owns the UNIX trademark and administers the Single UNIX Specification, with
the “UNIX” name being used as a certification mark. They do not approve of the construction “UNIX-
like”, and consider it a misuse of their trademark. Their guidelines require “UNIX” to be presented in
uppercase of otherwise distinguished from the surrounding text, strongly encourage using it s a
branding adjective for a generic word such as “system”, and discourage its use in hyphenated
phrases.

Other parties frequently treat “UNIX” as a generalized trademark. Some add a wildcard character
to the name to make an abbreviation like “Un*x” or “*nix”, since Unix-like system often have UNIX-
like names such as AXI,A/UX,HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, Minix, Ultrix, Xenix, Xinu, and XNU. These patterns
do not literally match many system names, but are still generally recognized to refer to any UNIX
system, descendant, or work-alike, even those with completely dissimilar names such as
Darwin/macOS, illumos/Solaris or FreeBSD.

3. Valuable advantage of source code to UNIX users

UNIX is an old but highly tested operating system. UNIX is an open operating system in which the
source code is available and reviewable. A skilled team of administrators can secure UNIX system
more positively than NT.

Organization did make use of the source code of some open source packages. These organizations
developed organization-specific customization or incorporated open source components in the (T
infrastructure. In these cases, having the source code of the open source components was an
advantage during integration and debugging. Consequently, it is not the possibility to make
modifications that is valued but rather the insight into the inner workings of a component that can
be gained by examining the source code that is greatly appreciated.

4. Downsides of UNIX source code availability

Some disadvantage of source code availability is:

 A simple organizational OS structure is difficult to use a small businessman.

 An administrators having less knowledge or skill can unsecure the System.
 Less Graphical User Interface (GUI).
 Mostly command based OS.

Submitted to: MR. SURAFEL

 Sometimes commands became complex.

5. Three functional area of any Computer System

 Application Software: software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks.
There are several categories of application software that we’ll look into shortly:
 General purpose application software.
 Special purpose application software.
 Bespoke application software.
 System software: software designed to operate the computer hardware and to provide
platform for running application software.
There are several different types of system software that we will look at in more detail
very shortly.
 Operating systems are a collection of programs that make the computer
hardware conveniently available to the user and also hide the complexities of the
computer’s operation.
 Utility programs are small, powerful programs with a limited capability, they are
usually operated by the user (or) operator to maintain a smooth running of the
computer system.
 Library programs are a compiled collection of subroutines (eg. Libraries make
many functions and procedures available when you write a program)
 Translator software (Assembler, Compiler, Interpreter)
 Hardware: Are the physical parts of the computer, such as CPU, keyboard, mouse
(touchpad), etc….

Application Software

Operating System

Other System Software

Hardware

6. Role of System Administrators

Submitted to: MR. SURAFEL

 A system administrator is a person responsible to maintain and operate a computer system or
network for a company or other organization.

The duties of a system administrator are wide-raging, and vary widely from one organization to
another. System admins are usually charged with installing supporting, and maintaining severs or
other computer systems, and planning for and responding to service outages and other problems.

The system administrator is responsible for the following things:

 User administration (setup and maintaining account)

 Maintaining system
 Verify that peripherals are working properly
 Quickly arrange repair for hardware in occasion of hardware failure
 Monitor system performance
 Create file systems
 Installing and upgrading software
 Create a backup and recovery policy
 Monitor network communication
 Implement the policies for the use of the computer system and network
 Setup security policies for users. A system administrator must have a strong grasp of
computer security (eg. Firewalls and intrusion detection systems)
 Password and identity management

References website address

Submitted to: MR. SURAFEL

 Wikipedia …………………….. en.m.wikipedia.org
 ownisecu …………………….. www.owniecu.com
 linfo ……………………………….. www.linfo.org
 albion …………………………….. www.albion.com
 quora ……………………………… www.quora.com
 reddit ………………………………. www.reddit.com
 linux ………………………………. www.linux.co.cr
 Unix Administration book

Submitted to: MR. SURAFEL