sam(1M)

Running SAM

SAM has been tuned to run in the Motif environment, but it can be run on text terminals as well. To run SAM in the Motif environment, be sure that Motif has been installed on your system, and that the DISPLAY environment variable is set to the system name on which the SAM screens should be displayed (or use the -display command line option).

Generally, SAM requires superuser (user root) privileges to execute successfully. However, SAM can be configured (through the use of "Restricted SAM"; see below) to allow subsets of its capabilities to be used by non-root users. When Restricted SAM is used, non-root users are promoted as root users when necessary to enable them to execute successfully.

By default, Restricted SAM executes all applications as superuser. However, certain applications like software distributor have their own security mechanism (swacl) and do not follow the Restricted SAM security model. In such cases, the application launched through Restricted SAM will be executed with the login id of the user, who invokes it.

Options

SAM recognizes the following options.

SAM Functional Areas

SAM performs these system administration tasks:

Adding New Functionality to SAM

You can easily add stand-alone commands, programs, and scripts to SAM. SAM is suspended while the executable program is running. When it finishes, the SAM interface is restored. You can also write your own help screen for each menu item you create. To add functionality to SAM, select the "Add Custom Menu Item" or "Add Custom Menu Group" action items from the SAM Areas menu. (Note that the new item is added to the hierarchy that is currently displayed, so you need to navigate to the desired hierarchy before adding the item.)

Restricted SAM

SAM can be configured to provide a subset of its functionality to certain users or groups of users. It can also be used to build a template file for assigning SAM access restrictions on multiple systems. This is done through the Restricted SAM Builder. System administrators access the Restricted SAM Builder by invoking SAM with the -r option (see "Options" above). In the Builder, system administrators may assign subsets of SAM functionality on a per-user or per-group basis. Once set up, the -f option (see "Options" above) can then be used by system administrators to verify that the appropriate SAM functional areas, and only those areas, are available to the specified user.

A non-root user who has been given Restricted SAM privileges simply executes the /usr/sbin/sam command and sees only those areas the user is privileged to access. For security reasons, the "List" and "Shell Escape" choices are not provided. (Note that some SAM functional areas require the user to be promoted to root in order to execute successfully. SAM does this automatically as needed.)

SAM provides a default set of SAM functional areas that the system administrator can assign to other users. Of course, system administrators are able to assign custom lists of SAM functional areas to users as necessary.

SAM Logging

All actions taken by SAM are logged into the SAM log file /var/sam/log/samlog. The log entries in this file can be viewed via the SAM utility samlog_viewer (see samlog_viewer(1)). samlog_viewer can filter the log file by user name, by time of log entry creation, and by level of detail.

The "Options" menu in the SAM Areas menu enables you to start a log file viewer and to control certain logging options. These options include whether SAM should automatically invoke the log file viewer whenever SAM is executed, whether SAM should trim the log file automatically, and what is the maximum log file size that should be enforced if automatic log file trimming is selected.

VT320 Terminal Support

Because the VT320 terminal has predefined local functions for keys labeled as F1, F2, F3 and F4, users should use following mapping when they desire to use function keys:

Since DEC terminals do not support the softkey menu, that menu is not displayed on those terminals.

Many applications use TAB for forward navigation (moving from one field to another) and shift-TAB for backward navigation. Users having DEC terminals or using terminals in DEC emulation modes such as VT100 or VT320 may note that these terminals/emulators may produce the same character for TAB and shift-TAB. As such, it is impossible for an application to distinguish between the two and both of them are treated as if the TAB key was pressed. This presents an inconvenience to users if they want to go backward. In most cases, they should complete rest of the input fields and get back to the desired field later.

VT100 Terminal Support

VT100 does not allow the F1-F8 function keys to be configured. Therefore, the following keyboard mappings apply to VT100 terminals:

See the comments on softkeys and TAB keys in the "VT320 Terminal Support" subsection above.

Configuration: HP 700/60 Terminal in DEC Mode, or DEC Terminal with PC-AT-Type Keyboard

Customers using the following configuration may want to be aware of the following keyboard difference.

It may be possible for a user with the "HP 700/60 terminal in DEC mode, or DEC terminal with PC-AT-type keyboard" configuration to be told to press function key F1 through F4 to achieve some desired result. For an HP 700/60 terminal in DEC mode or DEC terminals, these functions keys may be mapped onto PF1-PF4 keys. However, the PC-AT-type keyboard does not provide PF1-PF4 keys, as does the DEC/ANSI keyboard.

These keys are above the number pad on the right side of the keyboard. Please note that although this keyboard is called a PC AT-type keyboard, it is supplied by HP. A PC AT-type keyboard can be recognized by location of Esc key at the left-top of the keyboard.

Wyse60 Terminal Support

On Wyse60, use the DEL key (located next to Backspace) to backspace. On an HP 700/60 with a PC AT-type keyboard in Wyse60 mode, the DEL key is located in the bottom row on the number pad.

Wyse60 terminals provide a single line to display softkey labels unlike HP terminals which provide two lines. Sometimes this may result in truncated softkey labels. For example, the Help on Context label for F1 may appear as Help on C. Some standard labels for screen-oriented applications, such as SAM and swinstall are as follows: