scc(5)




NAME

       scc - introduction SCC


RELEASE

       scc  1.9.28


DESCRIPTION

       System  Configuration Collector is yet another configuration collector.
       Just like the other collectors it collects configuration data  on  Unix
       systems. The difference is that each line of collected data is extended
       with a hierarchical classification of the nature of the data  and  with
       an  indicator  whether  that  data is supposed to be static or dynamic.
       For example: the size of a file system is static data and  the  current
       usage  is  dynamic  data. Consecutive collections of configuration data
       (snapshots) are compared and differences in the static data  are	 added
       to  a  logbook.	Filling a file system will not be reported in the log-
       book, but the extension of a file system will be.  Additional  software
       converts the snapshot and logbook to html-format.

       The  classification  of the data is a hierarchy with the following top-
       level items (among others):

       - general
       - boot
       - hardware
       - Volume Management
       - kernel
       - network
       - software
       - system
       - users

       Development of SCC started for HP-UX and later shifted to  Solaris  and
       Linux.	At  the	 moment, most of the Operating System configuration of
       HP-UX is collected.  Additional configuration is collected for OS  add-
       ons like MCServiceGuard and OmniBack.


INSTALLATION

       SCC  is	available  as  HPUX depot, Solaris package, RPM, *BSD package,
       Debian package and source tarball.  The software from the  depots/pack-
       ages/rpms   on	the   website  is  NOT	relocatable,  it  installs  in
       /opt/scc/bin Data- and temporary files are located in /var/opt/scc  and
       config  files in /etc/opt/scc It is possible to install the software in
       other directories.  Unpack the source tarball, edit and use  the	 relo-
       cate  script  and  generate the required depot/package/rpm.  Throughout
       this documentation only the default directories are mentioned.

       During the pre-install phase, the software runs	a  possibly  installed
       version	of SCC to capture the changes in configuration just before the
       installation.  During the post-install phase, the software removes  the
       current	snapshot  (made by the previous version of SCC) and starts the
       new version of SCC.  This means that SCC does not compare two  possibly
       incompatible snapshots, avoiding flooding the logbook.

       This  means  that  the  installation may take some time (typically less
       than 5 minutes).	 On a moderate pentium with RedHat 9.0, SCC  completed
       a  run  within a minute.	 On an old and overloaded HP-UX server, it was
       reorganizing its database, two runs of SCC took 45 minutes to complete.

       To install release 1.5.32 on HP-UX, use the commands:
	    swinstall -s $(pwd)/scc-1.5.32.hpux-1x.depot scc
       To register this file as a depot, use the command:
	    swreg -l depot $(pwd)/scc-1.5.32.hpux-1x.depot
       To add this file to an existing depot, use the command:
	    swcopy -s $(pwd)/scc-1.5.32.hpux-1x.depot scc @/your/depot
       To install release 1.5.32 of the SunOS package, use the commands:
	    pkgadd -d ./scc-1.5.32.sunos.pkg -a none scc
       You will be prompted for the execution of the pre/post-install scripts.

       To install release 1.5-32 of the RPM package, use the command:
	    rpm -U ./scc-1.5-32.rpm

       To install release 1.5-32 of the Debian package, use the command:
	    dpkg -i ./scc-1.5-32_all.deb

       To install release 1.5.32 of the source package, use the commands:
	    tar xf scc-1.5.32.src.tar
	    cd scc-1.5.32
	    ./scc-install

       To install release 1.5.32 of the FreeBSD package, use the command:
	    pkg_add scc-1.5.32.FreeBSD.tgz

       To upgrade from release 1.5.31, use the command:
	    pkg_delete scc-1.5.31
	    pkg_add scc-1.5.32.FreeBSD.tgz

       To install release 1.5.32 of the NetBSD package, use the command:
	    pkg_add scc-1.5.32.NetBSD.tgz

       To upgrade, use the command:
	    pkg_add -u scc-1.5.32.NetBSD.tgz

       To install release 1.5.32 of the OpenBSD package, use the command:
	    pkg_add scc-1.5.32-OpenBSD.tgz


PROGRAMS

       The programs of SCC have the following relationship:

       scc: main program
       this program calls scc-log and sends data to the SCC-server.
       scc-log: this program calls:
       - scc-collect: collect all data by calling modules in scc_modules
       - compare new and old snapshots, add differences to logbook
       - scc-snap2html: convert snapshot to HTML
       - scc-log2html: convert logbook to HTML

       Previous versions of SCC contained the programs scc-baseline  and  scc-
       syscmp  to  compare  (parts of) snapshots.  This functionality has been
       moved to the scc-srv.  These programs are removed from the distribution
       and from the systems when the new version of SCC is installed.


USING SCC

       After   the   installation,   the   data	  is  available	 in  directory
       /var/opt/scc/data.  The file scc.<hostname>.log	contains  the  logbook
       and the file scc.<hostname>.cur contains the current snapshot.

       To  run	SCC  again,  just start /opt/scc/bin/scc.  To keep an accurate
       logbook of your system, you can schedule it with cron:

	    0 6 * * * /opt/scc/bin/scc

       Any errors produced by programs called by scc-collect, appear under the
       classification  "messages".  Most of the times they indicate some hard-
       ware or software error on the system.  Running SCC is some  kind	 of  a
       health check for your system.

       It is possible to send your SCC-data (snapshots, logbooks and the html-
       files) to a  server  running  the  server-software  of  SCC  (scc-srv).
       Before  you  send your data to a server, you have to prepare the server
       by installing scc-srv and configuring the server.  On the server,  sum-
       maries of the SCC-data are generated and all data is accessible through
       a web-interface.

       To mark the completion of certain changes you performed	on  a  system,
       use  the	 -c  option  of	 scc(1).  To mark changes in the snapshot when
       implementing a RFC, use the following commands:

       scc		  # record changes up to this moment
       # perform the tasks required by the RFC
       scc -c "RFC 123"	  # record changes due to RFC


CUSTOMIZING/EXTENDING SCC

       scc-collect(1) and its modules use sensible defaults to avoid that many
       systems	require	 a configuration file.	When the defaults are insuffi-
       cient, check the code for a reference  of  scc-localize.	  This	script
       contains	 several  environment variables that influence the behavior of
       scc.   To  adjust  scc,	copy  /etc/opt/scc/newconfig/scc-localize   to
       /etc/opt/scc/conf/scc-localize  and  uncomment  the required variables.
       Be sure to preserve the execution permission of the file.

       scc-collect(1) collects OS and OS-related configuration data.  It  does
       not  collect  data  of  the  applications you developed.	 To extend the
       snapshots, refer to the manual page  of	scc-plugin(1).	 It  offers  a
       starting point to collect other configuration data.

       DBA's  will only be interested in part of the SCC-data of a system.  By
       using the file /etc/opt/scc/conf/scc-split.conf it is possible to split
       the snapshot in several parts.  Each Oracle SID can have its' own snap-
       shot and logfile.  When these snapshots are  send  to  the  scc-server,
       they  can  be  added to a separate realm that only contains SCC-data of
       Oracle SID's.  Refer to	/etc/opt/scc/newconfig/scc-split.conf  and  to
       scc-log(1) for examples and more details.

       SCC ships with several user modules that are not run by default.	 Check
       the directory /opt/scc/bin/scc_modules for scripts containing "_u_"  in
       their  name.   These are user-modules that can be activated by means of
       the -e option of scc.  Refer to the manual page of  scc-collect(1)  and
       scc(1) for a more detailed description of the use of modules.

       To  add	specific  user	modules	 for  all  your systems, customize the
       depot/rpm and packages.	This can be achieved by unpacking  the	source
       tarball and adding the required files.  Then regenerate the source tar-
       ball.  This new tarball can be untarred for each depot/rpm/package  you
       require	for your systems.  Refer to the README file in the source tree
       for more details concering producing the depot/rpm/package.


PERFORMANCE

       Usually scc completes its runs within minutes.  When  you  notice  that
       runs  of	 scc  on  a system take very long to complete, you can use the
       profiling data to determine  the	 cause.	  Edit	/etc/opt/scc/conf/scc-
       localize to activate the variable SCC_PROFILING and run scc.  When this
       file does not exist, you can copy it from /etc/opt/scc/newconfig.  Pro-
       filing  data is added to the snapshot and can be found in the html-file
       under the classification: "profiling".  Each line of the profiling data
       consists of the following fields:
       - timestamp
       - seconds since previous stamp
       - seconds since start of run
       - comment
       Look  for  large	 values in the second column to locate the code of scc
       that is causing this performance problem.  An example of profiling data
       is:
       var:profiling::11.20.10:	   0 :	  0 :start of run
       var:profiling::11.20.10:	   0 :	  0 :start of run:    scc_0000_s_general
       var:profiling::11.20.13:	   3 :	  3 :end of run: scc_0000_s_general
       var:profiling::11.20.13:	   0 :	  3 :start of run:     scc_0100_s_boot
       var:profiling::11.20.17:	   4 :	  7 :end of run:      scc_0100_s_boot
       var:profiling::11.20.17:	   0 :	  7 :start of run:     scc_0200_s_hardware
       var:profiling::11.20.18:	   1 :	  8 :end of: hardware: AutoRAID
       var:profiling::11.20.18:	   0 :	  8 :end of: hardware: FC60-array
       var:profiling::11.21.43:	  85 :	 93 :end of: hardware: disk
       var:profiling::11.21.54:	  11 :	104 :end of: hardware: ioscan
       var:profiling::11.22.18:	  24 :	128 :end of: hardware: stm
       var:profiling::11.22.18:	 121 :	128 :end of run:      scc_0200_s_hardware
       var:profiling::11.22.18:	   0 :	128 :start of run:     scc_0300_s_kernel
       var:profiling::11.22.25:	   7 :	135 :end of run:       scc_0300_s_kernel
       var:profiling::11.22.25:	   0 :	135 :start of run:     scc_0400_s_vol_mngt
       var:profiling::11.22.34:	   9 :	144 :end of: Volume Management: file systems
       var:profiling::11.22.43:	  18 :	153 :end of run:       scc_0400_s_vol_mngt
       var:profiling::11.22.43:	   0 :	153 :start of run:     scc_0500_s_network
       var:profiling::11.26.43:	 240 :	393 :end of run:       scc_0500_s_network
       var:profiling::11.26.43:	   0 :	393 :start of run:     scc_0500_u_named
       var:profiling::11.26.44:	   0 :	393 :end of run:       scc_0500_u_named
       var:profiling::11.26.44:	   1 :	394 :start of run:     scc_0600_s_software
       var:profiling::11.28.14:	  90 :	484 :end of: software: ignite
       var:profiling::11.43.28: 1004 : 1398 :end of run:      scc_0600_s_software
       var:profiling::11.43.28:	   0 : 1398 :start of run:     scc_0700_s_hp_ov
       var:profiling::11.43.31:	   3 : 1401 :end of run:       scc_0700_s_hp_ov
       var:profiling::11.43.31:	   0 : 1401 :start of run:     scc_0700_u_hp_ovou_srv
       var:profiling::11.43.31:	   0 : 1401 :end of run:       scc_0700_u_hp_ovou_srv
       var:profiling::11.43.31:	   0 : 1401 :start of run:     scc_0800_s_oracle
       var:profiling::11.43.32:	   1 : 1402 :end of run:       scc_0800_s_oracle
       var:profiling::11.43.32:	   0 : 1402 :start of run:     scc_0900_s_system
       var:profiling::11.43.35:	   3 : 1405 :end of run:       scc_0900_s_system
       var:profiling::11.43.35:	   0 : 1405 :start of run:     scc_1000_s_users
       var:profiling::11.43.40:	   5 : 1410 :end of run:       scc_1000_s_users
       var:profiling::11.43.40: 1410 : 1410 :end of run
       var:statistics::profiling

       The  software  module  used  1004  seconds to complete after collecting
       ignite data.  After adding some more calls to the  profiling  function,
       it  appeared that the SD-UX commands took way too long.	Further inves-
       tigation indicated the source of the  problem.	After  correcting  the
       problem, scc ran much faster.


SECURITY

       As  the	programs  of  SCC must run as root to obtain all the necessary
       configuration data, the environment of  SCC  must  be  well  protected.
       This  is accomplished by creating separate directories for the data and
       programs of SCC and properly securing them.

       Therefore SCC is not relocatable	 during	 installation.	As  only  root
       should  run  these  programs there is no need for ordinary users to put
       the SCC-directory in their PATH.


COPYRIGHT

       SCC is free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
       Copyright (C) 2001-2004 Open Challenge B.V., 2004-2005 OpenEyeT Profes-
       sional Services, 2005-2009 QNH.


SEE ALSO

	scc(1), scc-cmp(1), scc-collect(1), scc-log(1), scc-log2html(1),
	scc-plugin(1), scc-snap2html(1), scc(4), scc(5)


VERSION

       $Revision: 1.37 $