Cray System Management Documentation > Cray System Management (CSM) Administration Guide > System Admin Toolkit (SAT) > About SAT > Introduction to SAT

Introduction to SAT

The System Admin Toolkit (SAT) is designed to assist administrators with common tasks, such as troubleshooting and querying information about the HPE Cray EX System and its components, system boot and shutdown, and replacing hardware components.

SAT Command-Line Utility

The System Admin Toolkit (SAT) provides a command-line utility called sat that runs from Kubernetes control plane nodes (ncn-m nodes). The sat command-line utility is organized into multiple subcommands that perform different administrative tasks. For example, sat status provides a summary of the system component statuses while sat bootprep provides a way to create CFS configurations, IMS images, and session templates to prepare for booting the system. For more information on the available SAT commands, see SAT Command Overview.

Most sat subcommands depend on services or components from other products in the HPE Cray EX software stack. For more information, see SAT Dependencies.

In CSM 1.3 and newer, the sat command is automatically available on all the Kubernetes control plane nodes. For more information, see SAT in CSM. Older versions of CSM do not have the sat command automatically available, and SAT must be installed as a separate product.

SAT Container Environment

On Kubernetes control plane nodes, the sat command-line utility runs within a container using Podman, a daemonless container runtime. There are two options for running the sat command-line utility, interactive mode and non-interactive mode. In both options, a container is launched in the background to execute the command. It is important to note that:

Using either the interactive mode with sat bash or the non-interactive mode with sat always launches a container.
The SAT container does not have access to the NCN file system.

SAT Interactive Mode

The SAT interactive mode involves executing sat bash to launch a container before executing the sat command. This option launches an interactive shell in which to enter sat commands. The interactive mode is useful for:

Allowing read and write access to local files on ephemeral container storage.
Saving time when using successive sat commands because a new container does not need to launch for each command.

To check a system’s status using the interactive mode:

(ncn-m001#) Use sat bash to launch an interactive shell.
```
sat bash
```
((CONTAINER_ID) sat-container#) Use sat status to review the status of the system’s components.
```
sat status
```

SAT Non-Interactive Mode

The SAT non-interactive mode involves executing the sat command directly on a Kubernetes control plane node. This option launches a container, executes the sat command, and exits the container once the command completes. The non-interactive mode is useful for:

Calling sat with a script.
Running a single sat command as part of several steps that need to be executed from a management NCN.

To check a system’s status using the non-interactive mode:

(ncn-m001#) Use sat status to review the status of the system’s components.

sat status

SAT Container Environment Man Page

To view the man page describing the SAT container environment, use either man sat or man sat-podman on the Kubernetes control plane nodes.

NOTE: Only the man page for the SAT container environment is available with man sat and man sat podman. To view man pages for the actual sat commands used to perform system administration tasks, see SAT Man Pages.

For example:

(ncn-m#) View the man page for the SAT container environment using its short name.
```
man sat
```
(ncn-m#) View the man page for the SAT container environment using its long name.
```
man sat-podman
```

SAT Man Pages

The top-level sat man page describes the command-line interface, documents the global options affecting all subcommands, documents configuration file options, and refers to the man pages for each subcommand. Each individual sat subcommand also has a man page describing its options.

To view sat man pages when running SAT commands in interactive mode, use man. To view sat man pages when running SAT commands in non-interactive mode, use sat-man. For more information on interactive and non-interactive mode, see SAT Container Environment.

For example, in SAT interactive mode:

((CONTAINER_ID) sat-container#) View the top-level sat man page.
```
man sat
```
((CONTAINER_ID) sat-container#) View the man page for the sat status subcommand.
```
man sat-status
```

For example, in SAT non-interactive mode:

(ncn-m#) View the top-level sat man page.
```
sat-man sat
```
(ncn-m#) View the man page for the sat status subcommand.
```
sat-man sat-status
```