To SMIT or not to SMIT (Was: Re: objectrepository and odme)

[timothy.d.born]

In article <1174 at nlsun1.oracle.nl>, bengsig at oracle.nl (Bjorn Engsig) writes:
> In a number of articles, the ODM, it's editor odme, and SMIT are discussed, and
> in article <4740 at awdprime.UUCP> jerry at heyman.austin.ibm.com (Jerry Heyman) says:
> |
> |A thing to note when using smit.  It always modifies the appropriate odm
> |database, but doesn't update a stanza file that has the same information in
> |it.  This is a shortcoming of the tool and is being addressed.
> Yes, this is a shortcoming, in my opinion a somewhat different one, though;
> being in the database world has taught my one very important thing: NEVER,
> EVER keep redundant information, and I guess this is actually what confuses
> people, and makes us uncertain weather to use SMIT or the other tools.  What
> happens if I create a user by editing /etc/passwd, mkdir, chown, create
> .profile, and run passwd?  What happens if I nfs mount a directory using
> /etc/mount?  As these examples show, it is often hard for us to make sure
> that all the sysadm information is consistent.  If your answer to this is,
> 'always use SMIT', then: How do I use SMIT to increase the maximum number of
> processes per user?  (Done by 'chdev -l sys0 -a maxuproc=200')
> -- 
> Bjorn Engsig,         E-mail: bengsig at oracle.com, bengsig at oracle.nl
> ORACLE Corporation    Path:   uunet!orcenl!bengsig
> 
>             "Stepping in others footsteps, doesn't bring you ahead"


Bjorn, I have to agree with you.  The redundant stuff burns us every time.

As for SMIT modifying ODM, I believe it, but I have been assured repeatedly
by my IBM reps that SMIT is not doing things behind my back.  To quote
from bos/README (3003; pretty much the same info was in 3002 README):

"Please notice that SMIT is a read-only shell; by itself, it alters nothing
on your system.  Instead it executes commands that do all the work.  Therefore 
execution of commands from SMIT gives the same results as execution from
the command line."

So which is right?  SMIT does or does not play with ODM?

Speaking of redundant, did anyone else notice that you have to assign 
your node name TWICE in order for it to stick?  uuname -s and hostname -S
must both be run, otherwise you have a schizo system. 

-tim
t.born at att.com