How to Create a Manifest

You can create a manifest of a system immediately after an initial Solaris software installation. This type of manifest will provide you with a baseline for comparing changes to the same system over time. Or, you can use this manifest to compare with the manifests for different systems. For example, if you take a snapshot of each system on your network, and then compare each test manifest with the control manifest, you can quickly determine what you need to do to synchronize the test system with the baseline configuration.

1. Assume the Primary Administrator role, or become superuser.

   The Primary Administrator role includes the Primary Administrator profile. To create the role and assign the role to a user, see Chapter 2, Working With the Solaris Management Console (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

2. After installing the Solaris software, create a control manifest and redirect the output to a file.

   # bart create options > control-manifest

   -R

   Specifies the root directory for the manifest. All paths specified by the rules will be interpreted relative to this directory. All paths reported in the manifest will be relative to this directory.

   -I

   Accepts a list of individual files to be cataloged, either on the command line or read from standard input.

   -r

   Is the name of the rules file for this manifest. Note that –, when used with the -r option, will be read the rules file from standard input.

   -n

   Turns off content signatures for all regular files in the file list. This option can be used to improve performance. Or, you can use this option if the contents of the file list are expected to change, as in the case of system log files.

3. Examine the contents of the manifest.

4. Save the manifest for future use.

   Choose a meaningful name for the manifest. For example, use the system name and date that the manifest was created.

Example 5–1 Creating a Manifest That Lists Information About Every File on a System

If you run the bart create command without any options, information about every file that is installed on the system will be cataloged. Use this type of manifest as a baseline when you are installing many systems from a central image. Or, use this type of manifest to run comparisons when you want to ensure that the installations are identical.

For example:

# bart create
! Version 1.0
! Thursday, December 04, 2003 (16:17:39)
# Format:
#fname D size mode acl dirmtime uid gid
#fname P size mode acl mtime uid gid
#fname S size mode acl mtime uid gid
#fname F size mode acl mtime uid gid contents
#fname L size mode acl lnmtime uid gid dest
#fname B size mode acl mtime uid gid devnode
#fname C size mode acl mtime uid gid devnode
/ D 1024 40755 user::rwx,group::r-x,mask:r-x,other:r-x 3fd9ea47 0 0
/.java D 512 40755 user::rwx,group::r-x,mask:r-x,other:r-x 3f8dc04d 0 10
/.java/.userPrefs D 512 40700 user::rwx,group::---,mask:---
other:--- 3f8dc06b 010
/.java/.userPrefs/.user.lock.root F 0 100600 user::rw-
group::---,mask:---,other:--- 3f8dc06b 0 10 -
/.java/.userPrefs/.userRootModFile.root F 0 100600 user::rw-,
group::---,mask:---,other:--- 3f8dc0a1 0 10 -
.
.
.
/var/sadm/pkg/SUNWdtmad/install/depend F 932 100644 user::rw-,
group::r--,mask:r--,other:r-- 3c23a19e 0 0 -
/var/sadm/pkg/SUNWdtmad/pkginfo F 594 100644 user::rw-
group::r--,mask:r--,other:r-- 3f81e416 0 0 -
/var/sadm/pkg/SUNWdtmad/save D 512 40755 user::rwx,group::r-x
mask:r-x,other:r-x 3f81e416 0 0
/var/sadm/pkg/SUNWdtmaz D 512 40755 user::rwx,group::r-x
mask:r-x,other:r-x 3f81e41b 0 0
/var/sadm/pkg/TSIpgxw/save D 512 40755 user::rwx
group::r-x,mask:r-x,other:r-x 3f81e892 0 0
.
.
.

Each manifest consists of a header and entries. Each manifest file entry is a single line, depending on the file type. For example, for each manifest entry in the preceding output, type F specifies a file and type D specifies a directory. Also listed is information about size, content, user ID, group ID, and permissions. File entries in the output are sorted by the encoded versions of the file names to correctly handle special characters. All entries are sorted in ascending order by file name. All nonstandard file names, such as those that contain embedded newline or tab characters, have the nonstandard characters quoted before being sorted.

Lines that begin with ! supply metadata about the manifest. The manifest version line indicates the manifest specification version. The date line shows the date on which the manifest was created, in date form. See the date(1) man page. Some lines are ignored by the manifest comparison tool. Ignored lines include blank lines, lines that consist only of white space, and comments that begin with #.