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  Solaris� Patch Manager
Jody Little
Little takes an in-depth look at Sun's new Solaris Patch Manager and explores how its automated features can turn patch management from a dreaded chore to a manageable task.

Solaris Dynamic Tracing
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Increasing Performance with Complete Software Observability

The OpenLDAP Proxy Server
Reinhard Voglmaier
Most people think of proxy servers only as servers that access resources on behalf of their users, but they can do much more. In this article, I will discuss LDAP proxy servers in particular and describe the functionality of this type of proxy. They can add access control, serve resources to their users, verify that users are who they claim to be, restrict access to resources, and rewrite requests using regular expressions. LDAP proxy servers also provide attribute mapping; this means they can map one attribute to another or hide an attribute altogether. These servers are frequently used for load balancing and fault tolerance, and can also have a cache to store results of frequently requested queries.

Backup Scripts from UnixReview.com: Part II
Ed Schaefer
I still host the Shell Corner column, and each month a lucky reader wins $100.00 when UnixReview.com publishes their submission (see http://www.samag.com/documents/s=7033/sam0204d/ for Part I). This month, I present three unpublished backup submissions: backup_algo: Juan Vera (juan@coredump.com.ar) presents a Bourne shell script that creates a compressed tar backup file without overwriting the previous backup. The backup file name is based on date and a sequential number. qd2nfs.ss: Mark Foster (mdf@foster.cc) submits a Bourne shell script that backs up essential directories to an NFS-mounted /share directory. The script is meant to be executed before doing upgrades. As the script executes, the admin interactively decides whether to back up the directory. tgzdir: Alan Eldridge (alane@geeksrus.net) submits a Korn/Bash script that backs up individual directory objects to compressed tar files. Alan's script includes options to control the number of history files to keep, rename hidden object names, change the backup target directory location, etc.

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Book Review: C++ Coding Standards: 101 Rules, Guidelines, and Best Practices
Jeffrey L. Taylor
Reading this book reinforces a trend I noticed more than 10 years ago when GUIs became mainstream � programming applications in C, particularly C++, is for professionals. The required body of knowledge has simply grown too big for casual programmers. However, if you choose to program in C++, you need this book � or one like it � within reach. Borrowing it, reading it once, and returning it won't do. Read it now and re-read it as part of your entering-alpha-test code review.

Archiving Korn Shell History Files
John Spurgeon, Ed Schaefer
Shell history gives users the ability to manipulate commands previously entered at the command line. It is not an auditing tool. Nevertheless, systems administrators often resort to looking at shell history files to trace user activity. When used as an audit utility, shell history has serious drawbacks. For example: Once a shell history file contains the maximum number of commands, old commands are removed as new ones are entered. History files may be modified by a user who is trying to cover his tracks. Timestamps are not available to determine when a command was executed. History files are typically stored in the user's home directories making it difficult to process the information. It can be tricky to tell who executed certain commands if someone used su to become another user, such as root.

Tapes: A Modern History, Trends
Henry Newman
During the past 30 years or so, tape technology has not changed nearly as much as rotating storage (disks). But in most environments, especially enterprise environments, tape is still a requirement for continuity of operation. In most cases, even if you have an off-site remote mirror, tapes are still required as a third copy. Given that, most sites are still going to need tape in the future. So this month I will talk about many of the issues surrounding tape hardware.