swask(1M)swask(1M)NAMEswask - ask for user response
SYNOPSIS
catalog] session_file] software_file] jobid] date] source] ses‐
sion_file] target_file] option=value] options_file] [soft‐
ware_selections] target_selections]
Remarks
· This command supports operation on remote systems. See
below.
· For an overview of all SD commands, see the sd(5) man page by
typing on the command line.
DESCRIPTION
The command runs interactive software scripts for the software objects
selected to one or more targets specified by These scripts store the
responses in a file for later use by the and commands. The and com‐
mands can also run the interactive request scripts directly, using the
option.
If the option is specified, software is selected from the distribution
source. If the option is not specified, software installed on the tar‐
get systems is selected. For each selected software that has a request
script, executing that script generates a response file. By specifying
the option, stores a copy of the response file to that catalog for
later use by or
Remote Operation
You can enable SD to manage software on remote systems. To let the
root user from a central SD controller (also called the central manage‐
ment server or IR "manager node" ) perform operations on a remote tar‐
get (also called the host or agent):
1) Set up the root, host, and template Access Control Lists (ACLs) on
the remote machines to permit root access from the controller sys‐
tem. To do this, run the following command on each remote system:
NOTES:
· controller is the name of the central management server.
· If remote system is 11.00, make sure SD patch PHCO_22526 or a
superseding patch is installed on remote system before running
· If remote system is older than 11.00 or for some other reason
does not have in place, copy script from an 11.11 or higher sys‐
tem to the remote system.
2) and have enhanced GUI interfaces for remote operations. Enable the
enhanced GUIs by creating the file on the controller. Use this
command:
See sd(5), swinstall(1M), swcopy(1M), swjob(1M), swlist(1M), or
swremove(1M) for more information on interactive operations.
NOTE: You can also set up remote access by using directly on the remote
machines to grant root or non-root access to users from the controller
system.
Options
The command supports the following options:
Turns on verbose output to stdout.
Specifies the pathname of an exported catalog which stores the
response files created by the request script.
creates the catalog if it does not already exist.
If the -c catalog option is omitted and the
source is local, copies the response files into
the source depot, catalog.
Saves the current options and operands only to the
session_file. You can enter a relative or abso‐
lute path with the file name. The default direc‐
tory for session files is Without this option, by
default, the session file is saved only in the
default directory
You can recall a session file with the option.
Reads the list of
software_selections from software_file instead of
(or in addition to) the command line.
Specifies the source depot (or tape) from which software is
selected
for the ask operation. (SD can read both and
tape depots.)
Executes based on the options and operands saved from a
previous session, as defined in session_file.
You can save session information from a command-
line session with the session_file option.
Specifies a default set of
targets for
Sets the session
option to value and overrides the default value
(or a value in an alternate option_file specified
with the option). Multiple options can be speci‐
fied.
Reads the session options and behaviors from
option_file.
Operands
supports two types of operands: followed by These operands are sepa‐
rated by the "at" character. This syntax implies that the command
operates on "software selections at targets".
Software Selections
The selections operands consist of
supports the following syntax for each software_selection:
· You can specify selections with the following shell wildcard
and pattern-matching notations:
· Bundles and subproducts are recursive. Bundles can contain
other bundles and subproducts can contain other subproducts.
· The software specification selects all products. Use this
specification with caution.
The component has the form:
· location applies only to installed software and refers to
software installed to a location other than the default prod‐
uct directory.
· and apply only to filesets.
· and apply only to bundles and products. They are applied to
the leftmost bundle or product in a software specification.
· The <op> (relational operator) component can be of the form:
or
which performs individual comparisons on dot-separated
fields. For example, chooses all revisions greater than or
equal to The system compares each dot-separated field to find
matches.
· The (equals) relational operator lets you specify selections
with the shell wildcard and pattern-matching notations:
For example, the expression returns any revision in version
10 or version 11.
· All version components are repeatable within a single speci‐
fication (for example, If multiple components are used, the
selection must match all components.
· Fully qualified software specs include the and version compo‐
nents even if they contain empty strings. For installed
software, is also included.
· No space or tab characters are allowed in a software selec‐
tion.
· The software can take the place of the version component. It
has the form:
[instance_id]
within the context of an exported catalog, where is an inte‐
ger that distinguishes versions of products and bundles with
the same tag.
Target Selections
supports the following syntax for each target_selection.
A host may be specified by its host name, domain name, or Internet
address. If host is specified, the directory must be an absolute path.
To specify a relative path when no host is specified, the relative path
must start with or otherwise, the specified name is considered as a
host.
Target Selections with IPv6 Address
The command also supports specifying the host as an IPv6 address on HP-
UX Release 11i v3, as shown below:
If both the hostname and the path are specified, then the first occur‐
rence of a slash is treated as the separator.
The IPv6 address can optionally be enclosed in a pair of square brack‐
ets and
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Default Options
In addition to the standard options, several SD behaviors and policy
options can be changed by editing the default values found in:
the system-wide default values.
the user-specific default values.
Values must be specified in the defaults file using this syntax:
The optional prefix denotes one of the SD commands. Using the prefix
limits the change in the default value to that command. If you leave
the prefix off, the change applies to all commands.
You can also override default values from the command line with the or
options:
The following section lists all of the keywords supported by the com‐
mands. If a default value exists, it is listed after the
The location for SD logfiles and the default par‐
ent directory for the
installed software catalog. The default
value is for normal SD operations. When
SD operates in nonprivileged mode (that
is, when the default option is set to
· The default value is forced to
· The path element is replaced with the
name of the invoking user, which SD
reads from the system password file.
· If you set the value of this option
to path, SD replaces with the invok‐
ing user's home directory (from the
system password file) and resolves
path relative to that directory. For
example, resolves to the directory in
your home directory.
· If you set the value of the default
option to a relative path, that path
is resolved relative to the value of
this option.
SD's nonprivileged mode is intended only
for managing applications that are spe‐
cially designed and packaged. This mode
cannot be used to manage the HP-UX oper‐
ating system or patches to it. For a
full explanation of nonprivileged SD,
see the available at the web site.
See also the and options.
Executes the request script, if one is associated
with the selected
software, and stores the user response
in a file named
If the command first determines if a
response file already exists in the cat‐
alog and executes the request script
only when a response file is absent.
Controls the automatic selection of prerequisite
and corequisite software that is not
explicitly selected by the user. When
set to requisite software will be auto‐
matically selected for configuration.
When set to requisite software which is
not explicitly selected will not be
automatically selected for configura‐
tion.
The option is ignored when this option
is set to
Controls the automatic selection
of the first left-most dependency in a
list of OR dependencies that satisfies a
requisite when another dependency in the
list that also satisfies the requisite
is explicitly selected by the user.
When set to the first left-most depen‐
dency in a list of OR dependencies that
satisfies a requisite is not automati‐
cally selected when another dependency
in the list that also satisfies the req‐
uisite is explicitly selected. If set
to the first left-most dependency in a
list of OR dependencies that satisfies a
requisite is automatically selected even
when another dependency in the list that
also satisfies the requisite is explic‐
itly selected.
This option is ignored when the option
is set to
Automatically selects the latest patches (based on
superseding and ancestor
attributes) for a software object that a
user selects. The option can be used in
conjunction with to limit which patches
will be selected. Requires patches that
are in an enhanced SD format. Patches
not in enhanced format will not respond
to
Controls the handling of errors generated by
scripts. If
stops and an error message appears. The
message gives the script location and
says execution cannot proceed until the
problem is fixed. If all script errors
are treated as warnings, and attempts to
continue operation. A message appears
giving the script location and saying
that execution will proceed.
Defines the directory path where the Installed
Products Database (IPD)
is stored. This information describes
installed software. When set to an
absolute path, this option defines the
location of the IPD. When this option
contains a relative path, the SD con‐
troller appends the value to the value
specified by the option to determine the
path to the IPD. For alternate roots,
this path is resolved relative to the
location of the alternate root. This
option does not affect where software is
installed, only the IPD location.
This option permits the simultaneous
installation and removal of multiple
software applications by multiple users
or multiple processes, with each appli‐
cation or group of applications using a
different IPD.
Caution: use a specific to manage a spe‐
cific application. SD does not support
multiple descriptions of the same appli‐
cation in multiple IPDs.
See also the and options, which control
SD's nonprivileged mode. (This mode is
intended only for managing applications
that are specially designed and pack‐
aged. This mode cannot be used to man‐
age the HP-UX operating system or
patches to it. For a full explanation
of nonprivileged SD, see the available
at the web site.)
Controls the log level for the events logged to
the command log file,
the target agent log file, and the
source agent log file by prepending
identification numbers to log file mes‐
sages:
No such identifiers are prepended
(default).
Applies to ERROR messages only.
Applies to ERROR and WARNING messages.
Applies to ERROR, WARNING, and NOTE mes‐
sages.
Applies to ERROR, WARNING, NOTE, and
certain other log file messages.
Controls the amount of detail written to the log‐
file. When set
to this option adds detailed task infor‐
mation (such as options specified,
progress statements, and additional sum‐
mary information) to the logfile. This
information is in addition to log infor‐
mation controlled by the option.
See below and the sd(5) manual page, by
typing for more information.
Defines the default log file for
Controls the log level for the events logged to
the command logfile and the
target agent logfile. A value of
provides no information to the logfile.
enables verbose logging of key events to
the log files.
enables very verbose logging, including
per-file messages, to the log files.
Controls the time in minutes to cache and re-use
the results of hostname
or IP address resolution lookups. A
value of 0 disables the facility to
cache and re-use lookup results. The
maximum value allowed is 10080 minutes,
which is one week.
A value of:
disables the lookup caching mechanism.
is the maximum value allowed.
Used in conjunction with the
or options to filter the available
patches to meet the criteria specified
by the filter. A key use is to allow
filtering by the "category" attribute.
Requires patches that are in an enhanced
SD patch format.
This option controls the exit code returned by
SD's controller commands.
This option is applicable only for a
single target operation, and ignored
when multiple targets are used.
When set to the default value of swask
returns:
0 If there were no errors, with or
without warnings.
1 If there were errors.
When set to swask returns :
0 If there were no warnings and no
errors.
1 If there were errors.
2 If there were warnings but no errors.
This option controls SD's nonprivileged mode.
This option is ignored
(treated as true) when the invoking user
is super-user.
When set to the default value of true,
SD operations are performed normally,
with permissions for operations either
granted to a local super-user or set by
SD ACLs. (See swacl(1M) for details on
ACLs.)
When set to false and the invoking user
is local and is not super-user, nonpriv‐
ileged mode is invoked:
· Permissions for operations are based
on the user's file system permis‐
sions.
· SD ACLs are ignored.
· Files created by SD have the uid and
gid of the invoking user, and the
mode of created files is set accord‐
ing to the invoking user's umask.
SD's nonprivileged mode is intended only
for managing applications that are spe‐
cially designed and packaged. This mode
cannot be used to manage the HP-UX oper‐
ating system or patches to it. For a
full explanation of nonprivileged SD,
see the available at the web site.
See also the and options.
Controls the verbosity of the output (stdout):
disables output to stdout. (Error and
warning messages
are always written to stderr).
enables verbose messaging to stdout.
Session Files
Each invocation of defines a task session. The invoca‐
tion options, source information, software selections,
and target hosts are saved before the task actually com‐
mences. This lets you re-execute the command even if the
session ends before proper completion.
Each session is saved to the file This file is overwrit‐
ten by each invocation of
To save session information in a different location, exe‐
cute with the session__file option.
A session file uses the same syntax as the defaults
files. You can specify an absolute path for a session
file. If you do not specify a directory, the default
location for a session file is
To re-execute a session, specify the session file as the
argument for the session__file option.
When you re-execute a session file, the values in the
session file take precedence over values in the system
defaults file. Likewise, any command line options or
parameters that you specify when you invoke take prece‐
dence over the values in the session file.
Software and Target Lists
You can use files containing software and target selec‐
tions as input to the command. See the and options for
more information.
Environment Variables
The environment variables that affect the command are:
Determines the language in which messages are dis‐
played.
If is not specified or is set to the
empty string, a default value of is
used. See lang(5) for more informa‐
tion.
NOTE: The language in which the SD
agent and daemon log messages are
displayed is set by the system con‐
figuration variable script, For exam‐
ple, must be set to or to make the
agent and daemon log messages display
in Japanese.
Determines the locale to be used to override any
values for locale
categories specified by the settings
of or any environment variables
beginning with
Determines the interpretation of sequences of
bytes of text data as
characters (for example, single ver‐
sus multibyte characters in values
for vendor-defined attributes).
Determines the language in which messages should
be written.
Determines the format of dates
(create_date and mod_date) when dis‐
played by Used by all utilities when
displaying dates and times in and
Determines the time zone for use when displaying
dates and times.
Environment variables that affect scripts:
Holds the path to the Installed Products Database
(IPD), relative to
the path in the environment variable.
Note that you can specify a path for the
IPD using the default option.
Defines the current directory of the script being
executed, either
a temporary catalog directory, or a
directory within in the Installed Prod‐
ucts Database (IPD). This variable
tells scripts where other control
scripts for the software are located
(for example, subscripts).
Holds the tag name of the
control_file being executed. When pack‐
aging software, you can define a physi‐
cal name and path for a control file in
a depot. This lets you define the con‐
trol_file with a name other than its tag
and lets you use multiple control file
definitions to point to the same file.
A control_file can query the variable to
determine which tag is being executed.
Defines the location of the product, which may
have been changed from
the default product directory. When
combined with the this variable tells
scripts where the product files are
located.
A variable which defines a minimum set of
commands available for use in a control
script (for example,
Defines the root directory in which the session is
operating, either
"/" or an alternate root directory.
This variable tells control scripts the
root directory in which the products are
installed. A script must use this
directory as a prefix to to locate the
product's installed files. The config‐
ure script is only run when is
Contains the pathname of a file containing the
value of every option
for a particular command, including
software and target selections. This
lets scripts retrieve any command
options and values other than the ones
provided explicitly by other environment
variables. For example, when the file
pointed to by is made available to a
request script, the targets option con‐
tains a list of software_collec‐
tion_specs for all targets specified for
the command. When the file pointed to
by is made available to other scripts,
the targets option contains the single
software_collection_spec for the targets
on which the script is being executed.
This variable contains the fully qualified soft‐
ware specification of
the current product or fileset. The
software specification allows the prod‐
uct or fileset to be uniquely identi‐
fied.
RETURN VALUES
returns one of these codes:
Command successful on all targets
Command failed on all targets
Command failed on some targets
DIAGNOSTICS
The command writes to stdout, stderr, and to the logfile.
Standard Output
An interactive session does not write to stdout. A non-
interactive session writes messages for significant
events. These include:
· a begin and end session message,
· selection, analysis, and execution task mes‐
sages for each target_selection.
Standard Error
An interactive session does not write to stderr. A non-
interactive session writes messages for all WARNING and
ERROR conditions to stderr.
Logging
Both interactive and non-interactive sessions log summary
events at the host where the command was invoked. They
log detailed events to the logfile associated with each
target_selection.
Command Log
The command logs all stdout and stderr messages to
the the logfile Similar messages are logged by an
interactive session. You can specify a different
logfile by modifying the option.
swagentd Disabled
If the daemon has been disabled on the host, it can be
enabled by the host's system administrator by setting the
entry in to and executing
EXAMPLES
Run all request scripts from the default depot depot and
write the response file back to the same depot:
Run the request script for from depot on remote host cre‐
ate the catalog on the local controller machine, and
place the response file in the catalog:
Run request scripts from remote depot on host only when a
response file is absent, create the catalog on the local
controller machine, and place the response file in the
catalog:
FILES
Contains the user-specific default values for some or all
SD
options. If this file does not exist, SD looks
for user-specific defaults in
Contains session files automatically saved by the SD com‐
mands or
explicitly saved by the user.
Contains the master list of current SD options, with
their default
values, for documentation purposes only.
The directory which contains all of the configurable
(and non-configurable) data for SD. This direc‐
tory is also the default location of log files.
Contains the active system-wide default values for some
or all SD options.
The Installed Products Database (IPD), a catalog of all
products
installed on a system.
Contains all stdout and stderr messages generated by
AUTHOR
was developed by the Hewlett-Packard Company.
SEE ALSOswconfig(1M), swinstall(1M), sd(5).
available at
SD customer web site at
swask(1M)
