David Miller wrote:
I wrote "dconf" in memory of the sysbook project. The aim here was not to create indexed, human-readable documentation, but rather a file that contains all hardware, software and latent configuration. That allows you to backup a system's configuration, diff 2 configurations (whether that is from 2 different timestamps, or 2 different identical systems is irrelevant) and helps comaintaining systems (since it can send changes via email or allows to trace back in time when something was modified and by whom).
This is perfect for support issues, as you can go back to a customer and tell him that you did not leave the system behind like that and point out the individual changes they have made to their configuration (even hardware changes).
You can find dconf at:
http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/dconf/It can use some love of system administrators to complete the database of configurations files and commands. I also have less extensive configurations file for AIX, Solaris, Debian and SLES that can use some love...
Thanks - I'll check it out. Looks like sysreport / sosreport will do a lot of what I'm looking for, but I'm always looking for things like this. Things that help me sleep better at night.
Our System Book script was written in perl as well, with the output in LaTeX markup so we could generate a pdf for it as we were the only UNIX guys in a Windows shop. They were RS/6000 M80s with SSA trays and boy was that book thick when we printed it out. Ah, the good old days....
Ocsinventory-NG (http://www.ocsinventory-ng.org/) has agents for linux and windows boxes that periodically report their hardware and software configuration to a server that maintains it in a database. The companion GLPI (more extensive inventory) program will also track the history of changes. However, it only tracks the installed rpm packages, not local configuration changes other than windows registry settings.