Confdump Agent: Confdump-Agent - Dump static and runtime system configuration

Introduction

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

It has two main use-cases:

to quickly 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 never to make any change to the target system. Therefore, Confdump-Agent might fail to dump a configuration, but no bug can damage the target system. At Straton IT, we run this software on customers' mission-critical servers and must be sure not to cause any issue.

Confdump-Agent is available as a universal (per platform) standalone executable. It can be copied and run on any supported system without installation or third-party components.

Getting Confdump-Agent

Confdump-Agent is available for download on our SourceForge page, https://sourceforge.net/projects/confdump/ .

Usage

Tables

The information to query must be specified on the command-line as a list of table names. These "tables" contain the system configuration consolidated by Confdump-Agent in a structured form. Please refer to the examples below for common table names or see the "--help-tables" option.

Dumpers

A dumper is a component of Confdump-Agent that provides access to configuration information. Its implementation and/or interface are often OS-specific.

Each table name is in the form "dumper.name" or "name". If the dumper name is not specified, it defaults to "main". The "main" dumper is always loaded, while other dumpers may be created on request with the "--add-dumper" option.

The following dumpers are defined:

Linux: "main" (the default dumper) currently provides 12 custom tables that give access to storage, daemons, processes and sockets configuration mostly, plus some basic environment information (running kernel and environment variables).
Windows: "WMI" (aliased to "main", the default dumper) gives access to the power of the Windows Management Interface.
Windows: "Win32" provides extra information not available through WMI, currently sockets and scheduled tasks.

Output

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

Command-line Options

"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

    WMI dumper options:
      namespace (sets the WMI namespace to query, defaults to ROOT\CIMv2)

Examples

Basic: list Linux' block devices

    confdump-sys --table CD_BlockDevice

Basic: query the system make and serial number on Windows

    confdump-sys --table Win32_SystemEnclosure --table Win32_ComputerSystem

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.

System support

Confdump-Agent has been tested on:

RedHat Enterprise Linux 4
RedHat Entreprise Linux 5
Microsoft Windows 2000
Microsoft Windows 2003
Microsoft Windows 2008

Compiling

See INSTALL.txt.

Changelog

See CHANGES.txt.

Copyright

Author: Thomas Equeter.

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.