What is MAT?

MAT is an easy to use network enabled UNIX configuration and monitoring tool.   It provides an integrated tool for many common system administration tasks.  The GUI interface hides much of the differences between UNIX varieties in a heterogeneous environment.  The straight forward interface hides the complexity of the underling configuration files, allowing many of the mundane administrative tasks to be safely delegated to others.  From a single MAT console you can manage every UNIX host on your network where the MAT agent is installed.

Tools:

MAT is a time saver.  MAT provides many of the tools a System Administrator needs during the day, including DNS, NIS, Backups, and Replication.  A powerful feature is the ability to run a MAT command on many hosts at once.  For example a new group could be added to all machines just by doung a select all, then adding the new group.  For generic files a simple editor window is provided, with this the configuration files for a sites web servers could be changed, just by editing one.   

Monitoring:

MAT provides two kinds of monitoring, namely current status, and historic logs.  Through the Status screen you can inspect the current state of the machine.  The MATd screen gives you access to historical data on the machine.  It lets see how heavily loaded you machines are, how the network interface is performing, and many other parameters.

The MATd daemon allows you to specify alarm thresholds.  It can watch your FTP and Email server for failures.  It can watch your disks from getting full.  It can watch the CPU use for thrashing, and several others.  You can taylor your response to each alarm situation, including taking corrective action.

Administration:

The administrative tasks can be delegated to other individuals.  A MAT user can be granted as much or little access as you require.  Users can be given different access rights on all your MAT hosts.  Every MAT user can be managed from a single console.  A log file records al l the MAT commands issued on a host, and is viewable from the MAT console. MAT is comprised of three parts:

1. The MAT console
2. The MAT agent
3. The MAT daemon

The MAT console provides an easy to use interface through which the user manages the remote host.  The console only needs to be installed on one machine on your network.  The console issues commands to the MAT agent of the managed host.  The console also interprets the data returned by the agent.  The console will graph many of the parameters monitored by the MAT daemon. The MAT agent is responsible for doing the actual work of retrieving data, modifying configuration files, and running commands.  It is installed on every host you wish to manage.  The MAT daemon is responsible for monitoring a host.  It periodically monitors and records system parameters for later analysis.