DCE Installation, Configuration, and Management Guide

HP NonStop DCE Installation, Configuration, and Management Guide—429552-005
4-1
4 Configuring NonStop DCE
This section describes how to configure a basic DCE cell using the NonStop DCE
administration tool dce_config. This section is intended as a tutorial for the novice
DCE cell administrator and describes both creating an initial cell and adding a machine
to an existing cell.
If prompts in addition to those described in this section appear while you are
configuring a cell, respond with the requested information and continue with the
configuration. For more detailed information, see the section on configuring DCE in the
OSF DCE Administration Guide Introduction.
DCE Cell Description
A cell is a basic unit of operation and administration in DCE. A cell consists of a group
of users, systems, and resources that share common DCE services. A DCE cell
provides uniform object naming and a uniform security model. Generally, users within a
cell have a greater level of trust with each other than with users outside the cell.
Cells can be organized geographically or functionally (for example, by department).
Cell size can range from one machine to several thousand. Some organizations might
find it more convenient to have only one cell; other organizations might find it
advantageous to have numerous cells.
Cells provide boundaries for security, administration, and naming. Each cell is named
and initialized with security permissions during configuration.
A cell can contain one or more virtual hosts on a NonStop system. For continuous
access to DCE services, at least two virtual hosts are usually included in a NonStop
DCE cell. A typical site might have two virtual hosts in a production cell and one virtual
host in a development cell.
Using the dce_config Utility
After NonStop DCE has been installed, you should configure a DCE cell. The DCE cell
configuration and management program is:
/opt/dcelocal.hostname/etc/dce_config
or
/etc/dce_config
These programs are the same, and either program is used for initial cell configuration,
starting and stopping DCE demons, and cell reconfiguration.
For a new configuration, dce_config tries to assign a mutually exclusive set of
processors to each virtual host. If a processor is used by more than one virtual host,
only one processor is assigned to the new configuration. If an exclusive set of
processors is not available, processors assigned to the existing virtual host that uses
the most processors are reassigned to the new configuration, and a message is logged
that instructs the administrator to shut down and restart the older virtual host.