WHAT IS INSTMON?
instmon (INSTall MONitor) is a program that monitors the installation of various programs and detects what files where installed. It can be very helpful when you want to keep track of the files a `make install' command copied to your directory structure. instmon is meant mainly for system administrators, but it can be useful to normal users as well.
REQUIREMENTS
instmon is a shell script, so it needs a working version of /bin/sh and the standard UNIX (or GNU) tools.
For advanced monitoring methods, you may also need:
- strace (for the trace detection method)
- installwatch (for the watch detection method)
For building archives you might need:
- tar (for tar archives)
- dpkg,dpkg-deb (for deb archives)
- rpm (for rpm archives)
Note that I have only tested instmon with the GNU tools, so on other systems it is possible that you encounter problems using it. Please let me know if you do.
HOW TO COMPILE/INSTALL
Since instmon is a shell script, you needn't compile it - it will simply run everywhere. To install it, just type `make install' as root. This will copy the instmon executable in /usr/local/bin and the manual page in /usr/local/man/man8. It will also create the directory /usr/local/lib/instmon, where it will place some helper scripts needed by instmon. Finally, it will create /usr/local/share/instmon, where instmon will be storing installation log files.
If you like, you could run `make install-instmon' instead. This is the same as `make install', with the difference that instmon will monitor its own installation, leaving in the end the file instlog.instmon-2.0 in /usr/local/share/instmon.
HOW TO USE
To monitor an installation, simply run `instmon <packagename>'. instmon will spawn a monitored shell, where you can do the installation and exit when you're finished. <packagename> is optional (it defaults to the basename of the current directory), and it should be the name of the package you want to install. It is recommended that <packagename> has the form name-version. For more information, please read the manual page.
TROUBLESHOOTING/FEEDBACK
If you have any trouble running instmon (it fails to run properly for you), or if you simply have some suggestions, please contact me with the details.
Enjoy using instmon!
Vasilis Vasaitis (vvas@hal.csd.auth.gr)