Confdump Files

Confdump-Agent - Dump static and runtime system configuration

1. Description

    Confdump-Agent collects system configuration, both static (as set by an
    administrator) and runtime (currently in use by the system).

    It has two main usages:
    - to easily examine system information (example: Linux block devices) that
      isn't easily accessible otherwise
    - to gather a configuration dump as complete as possible for later
      reporting by Confdump-Server.

    Confdump-Agent has been designed to never make any change to the system.
    The worse bugs can make the dump fail but never impact the underlying
    computer. We run this software on production servers of our customers and
    value our peace of mind.

    The information to query must be specified on the command-line as a list of
    tables from dumpers. These tables contain the system configuration in a
    structured form after system-specific parsing performed by the agent.

    The following dumpers (OS-specific information sources) are available:
    - Linux: "main", the default dumper provides 12 custom tables that provide
      access to storage, daemons, processes and sockets configuration mostly,
      plus some basic environment information (running kernel, environment
      variables).
    - Windows: "WMI" (aliased to "main") gives access to most of the power of
      the Windows Management Interface.
    - Windows: "Win32" provides information not available through WMI: sockets
      and scheduled tasks

    The result can be output in text format (YAML-like, easier to read by
    humans) and XML (easier to read by other software such as Confdump-Server).

    Confdump-Agent is available as a standalone executable that can be dropped
    on a target system without any system prerequisite.


2. Usage

    "confdump-sys --help" output:

    Getting help:
      -h [ --help ]         This information
      --help-tables         displays a list of tables that can be queried and exits
                            (can be combined with --output-file)

    Configuration selection:
      --table arg           tables to query (can be specified multiple times); 
                            format: [dumper.]table
      --tables-from arg     read a list of tables to query from this file

    Extra dumpers:
      --add-dumper arg      instanciate a new Dumper with a given alias (can be 
                            specified mutiple times); format: alias=Dumper
      --dumper-arg arg      set an option on an instanciated Dumper (can be 
                            specified mutiple times); format: alias.option=value

    Output:
      --output-format arg (=text) sets output format to one of: text, xml
      --output-file arg           output to a file instead of standard output


3. Examples

3.1 Basic: list Linux' block devices

    confdump-sys --table CD_BlockDevice

3.2 Basic: query the system make and serial number on Windows

    confdump-sys --table Win32_SystemEnclosure --table Win32_ComputerSystem

3.3 Advanced Windows example

    confdump-sys --add-dumper iis2=wmi --dumper-arg iis2.namespace=root\MicrosoftIISv2 --add-dumper win32=win32 --tables-from tables.txt --output-format xml --output-file dump.xml

    With a "tables.txt" files containing:
    main.Win32_Service
    main.Win32_Process
    main.Win32_LogonSession
    main.Win32_SessionProcess
    main.Win32_ComputerSystem
    main.Win32_OperatingSystem
    main.Win32_SystemEnclosure
    main.Win32_Share
    main.Win32_TimeZone
    main.Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_System
    iis2.IIsWebServer
    iis2.IIsWebServerSetting
    iis2.IIsWebServer_IIsWebVirtualDir
    iis2.IIsWebVirtualDir
    iis2.IIsWebVirtualDirSetting
    win32.CD_Socket
    win32.CD_ScheduledTask

    This will produce a comprehensive XML dump that can be later analyzed by
    Confdump-Server to evaluate the risk of rebooting this system.


4. System support

    Confdump-Agent has been tested on RHEL versions 4 and 5 (6 should work as
    well) and Windows Server versions 2000, 2003 and 2008.


4. Compiling

    See "INSTALL.txt"


5. Copyright

    Copyright (C) 2009-2011  Straton IT, SARL.

    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 as published by
    the Free Software Foundation.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
    ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
    FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for
    more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
    with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

    See the gpl.txt file for the whole license.