swbis - Distributed Software Administration -------------------------------------------- Version 1.13.3 swbis is a GNU package The official home page is http://www.gnu.org/software/swbis Please send bug reports to The latest version is found at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/swbis The entry in the FSF/UNESCO Free Software Directory is http://directory.fsf.org/GNU/swbis.html The maintainer is Jim Lowe http://savannah.gnu.org/users/jhlowe Please see the AUTHORS file Introduction ------------ swbis is a software administration system for GNU/Linux systems and systems that are UNIX system-like. It implements the Open Group's CAE Spec C701 (XDSA) Distributed Software Administration. This spec closely follows ISO/IEC 15068-2:1999 (now withdrawn) which was identical to IEEE 1387.2:1995. The implementation relies on POSIX functionality as provided by a typical GNU system. It has security enhancement extensions that use GNU Privacy Guard. Although swpackage is a self-contained tar writing utility and swinstall will use generic tar for file loading, several features are based on bit-for-bit sameness with the GNU tar POSIX tar interchange format and other GNU tar features, hence, GNU tar is a special tool requirement to access the full features of swbis. Its package management features are unique. It is network transparent, and requires no new programs, services, or configuration on the remote target host. It connects to remote hosts using the stock system ssh client program and executes the POSIX shell which must be one of /bin/bash, /bin/ksh (public domain, recent AT&T ksh93, or mksh), or OpenSolaris /usr/xpg4/bin/sh. It connects to POSIX shell via its standard input using its unique ability to read shell program code and data on stdin. File loading (for installation) is performed by the system tar (/bin/tar) command. It is back compatible with the tar archive format and typical file layouts for source and run-time packages. Its security features include multiple embedded package signatures and MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-2 digests for the payload and individual files. The package management utilities can operate locally or from a central host to a heterogeneous collection of remote U*IX-Like hosts with supported checks for reinstall, downdate, compatibility and prerequisites. In addition to package management, there are several other applications of the package management utilities: Format translation of RPM and dpkg packages (swpackage), data copying from host to host (swcopy), creation of tar archive distributions from a detailed recipe file (swpackage and swign), and the ability to sign a directory and verify it thus to act as a directory content integrity checker (swign and swverify). * ISO/POSIX Utilities (location: /bin) : swcopy - Distribution copying utility. swpackage - Packages files according to a PSF file. swverify - Authenticates a signed package. swinstall - Install a posix package swlist - List the catalog swremove - Remove installed software swconfig - Configure installed software * Non-POSIX (Ad Hoc) Utilities (location: /bin) : swign - Signs a directory by loading the ./catalog/ directory into the current directory. * Non-POSIX Library Utilities (location: /swbis) : (et.al., others not mentioned) swbistar - write a tar archive (not used by any utility) swbisparse - parse INFO, INDEX, and PSF files (not used by any utility) lxpsf - The first step translator for RPM,deb packages (used by swpackage when translating). arf2arf - Internal Library interface utility to extract and verify the signed and digested byte streams. (used by swverify) iswverify - swverify helper, used by swverify Requirements ------------ Compilation: ------------ GNU make is required and zlib.a With these satisfied swbis should compile on almost any GNU/Linux or BSD host. For Use (in general): --------------------- To support complete functionality of the utilities, /bin/bash (or public domain ksh as /bin/ksh) and GNU tar as /bin/tar (or as /bin/gtar with special options) are required. For verification and signing GNU gpg is required. GNU tar is only required when using the 'swign' utility or certain features of swlist, in other contexts 'pax' or 'tar' can be specified for archive reading and writing. GNU tar can be installed as /bin/gtar with appropriate changes to the 'swbisdefaults' configuration file. For further details on the shell requirement and a strategy for host compatibility: see swbis(7) : LANG=C nroff -man 1.0 lists nothing, but replacing awk properly lists the catalog entry: as10k1 r=1.0.8 v=1mdk All distributed SW ----------------------------- If you hit ctrl-c during a remote install, stranded shell processes and its sshd parent might be left running on the target host. To clean this up, do: swremove --cleansh @ USER@HOST # i.e. Same USER and HOST SSH Oddities and Observations ----------------------------- Problems were observed when running swinstall on a SunOS host (SunOS sparc-solaris1 5.9) using the Sun ssh client (Sun_SSH_1.0) The problem only affected installs to remote hosts and seemed to go away if an OpenSSH ssh client was used instead of Sun's. How to install -------------- Simply, ./configure && make See the file INSTALL for more details. To make the autotools -------------------- aclocal && autoconf && autoheader && automake To make under a different revision ---------------------------------- # Example sh bin/reversion.sh 1.0.10a ./configure && make && make distclean Internal Design of the sw (except swpackage) -------------------------------------------------------- ,-------------------------------------. | # Target Script read from stdin | | "( | | bash -s # < Task_Script_1 | | bash -s # < Task_Script_2 | | bash -s # < Task_Script_3 | | )" ^ | | /|\ ,-----<< Data | | | | ,---<< Errors, | | | | | Protocol | | fd0 fd1 fd2 | `------------o---o----o---------------' /|\ | | | | \|/ | \|/ | ,----o---o----o---. | fd1 fd0 fd2 | | | | (bash -s) | | | | fd0 fd1 fd2 | `----o----o---o---' | | | | | | ,----o----o---o---. | fd0 fd1 fd2 | | | | (sshd) | `---------o-------' TARGET HOST | ------------- | NETWORK ,-----------o----------. | Public Network | 1 or more "ssh hops" `-----------o----------' | NETWORK | ----------------- ,---------o-------. MANAGEMENT HOST | (ssh) | | | | fd0 fd1 fd2 | `----o----o----o--' | | | /|\ | errors & | | protocol events & | data | control script output script | \|/ & | | data \|/ `------------------------, | | | ,----o----o----o------------. | | fdN fdM fdP (closed) | | | | \|/ | (Main Program) | | | sw [Parent] | ,---o-------------------, | | | fd E | | | | | | | | (Logger Process) | | | | sw [child] | | | | | | 1: Send Main Target Script| | Process SWI_ | | | | | | | | Monitor Remote stderr | | 2: Send Task_Script_N | | Send Events to Parent | | Monitor SWI_ | event | \ / | | (See swicol.c) | fd | | | | Wait for END event <---o---<---o--' | | Check exit status | | | | messages. | | Write to stderr | | | | \|/ | | | | Write Log | | | | | \|/ | | `--o----------------o-------' `----o---------o--------' | | | | STDIN_FILENO STDOUT_FILENO LOG STDERR_FILENO Debugging and Hacking --------------------- Make program execution verbose: ------------------------------- Add verbose switches, up to ten (10) may have increasing effect, for example swcopy -vvvvvv -x verbose=8 , same as -vvvvvvvvv -v --debug-verbose --debug-events Show the internal events listing to stderr --swi-debug-name=NAME write a ascii dump of the the internal package object Inspect the scripts that are generated -------------------------------------- Try these options: --debug-task-scripts write the individual task scripts to files in /tmp --source-script-name=NAME write the main script to NAME. --target-script-name=NAME write the main script to NAME. NAME may be a number, for example 2 meaning stderr The --debug-task-scripts option fills /tmp with files like: /tmp/swbis_task_load_control.sh /tmp/swbis_task_Remove_catalog_entry /tmp/swbis_task_Make_catalog_entry_directory /tmp/swbis_task_Lock_Session To run a task script manually from the command line for testing, you must provide input it expects, scripts which do not receive input always will read one block of data. For example: (cat /tmp/swbis_task_Remove_files; dd if=/dev/zero count=1) | (cd / && bash -s -vx ) 1>/tmp/xxout 2>&1 Turn on Debugging statements ---------------------------- Define this at the top of every file .c or .cxx on a file-by-file basis: #define FILENEEDDEBUG 1 Then recompile. This turns on E_DEBUG statements that appear in source code as: E_DEBUG("msg"); E_DEBUG2(format, arg1); /* like sprintf, fprintf, etc */ E_DEBUG3(format, arg1, arg2); Turn on older (deprecated, maybe broken) debugging statements ---------------------------------------------------------------- See include/debug_config.h End of README