SysInfoTM 4.2.1 Release Notes

Documentation Guide
The following table indicates what platforms are supported for this
release of
SysInfo.
This platform list is subject to change with each dot dot release of
SysInfo.
| Supported Class Information |
OS |
Mfg |
Hard- ware |
Gen |
Ker |
Sys |
Dev |
SW |
Part |
Prt |
GUI |
Notes |
AIX 4.1.4 - 5.1 | IBM | pSeries (RS6000) |
Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
AIX 3.2 - 5.1 (aka AIX 5i) and releases after 5.1 should work,
but are untested. |
BSD/OS 3.1 - 4.2 | BSDi | x86 |
Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y |
|
FreeBSD 3.2 - 4.5 | | x86 |
Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y |
See Platform Notes |
HP-UX 10.20 - 11.11 | HP | hp9000 |
Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Versions prior to 10.20
should work but are untested. Version 11.11 is also known as 11i. |
IRIX 6.5 | SGI | MIPS |
Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
IRIX 6.5 tested. IRIX 5.x - 6.4 may no longer work.
|
Linux 2.2, 2.4 (glibc 2.1 and later) | | x86 |
Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Supported Distributions: Red Hat 6.0 and later. Other distributions with Linux kernel 2.2 + glibc
2.1 and later should work.
See Platform Notes |
Solaris 2.5.1 - 9 | Sun | SPARC |
Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
See Platform Notes |
Solaris 7 - 8 | Sun | x86 |
Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Tested on limited hardware. |
KEY:
Y - Yes, it's supported
N - No, it's not supported
P - Planned
|
SUPPORTED CLASS INFORMATION KEY:
Gen - General Information (-class general)
Ker - Kernel Information (-class kernel)
Sys - SysConf Information (-class sysconf)
Dev - Device Information (-class device)
SW - Software Information (-class software)
Part - Partition Information (-class partition)
Prt - Printer Information (-class printer)
GUI - Graphical User Interface
|
The following are the system requirements for binary (precompiled)
distributions:
- Your system must be one of the systems specified in the Supported Systems table.
- 10 - 150 MB of disk space for the installed software.
- Super-user (root) privileges are required for proper installation.
- Run-time memory usage varies from 1 MB - 100 MB depending on
system configuration and installed software.
License Information
The
SysInfo
license scheme
allows no-cost use by fully accredited educational institutions.
Government and military organizations, including
research institutions primarily funded by government sources, are not eligible
for free licenses.
All other customers need to purchase the proper license.
More information, including
pricing is available by clicking
here.
SysInfo will automatically allow 60-days of free
use (with all features)
for demonstration purposes when installed with no license.
Just download and install it.
MagniCompTM
offers FREE
SysInfo
licenses to educational institutions.
SysInfo will automatically detect if it's being run on a
system in a domain known to be an education domain.
This includes the following domains:
- .edu
- .edu.CC
- .cc.state.us
- .ac.CC
- .uni-*.de
where CC is a country code.
Please click
here for more information on
MagniCompTM's
Free Educational License Program.
Major New Features/Improvements
Changes added to 4.2.1
This release contains primarily bug fixes:
- Fixed bugs causing many details to be missing from hardware and software items when displayed in the GUI.
- Improved checks for bogus serial #'s.
- Improved details of PCI database and added more than 600 additional entries.
- Fixed core dump bug on certain HP-UX systems.
- Fixed core dump for site license files.
- AIX systems now show CPU type and speed on newer systems.
- Fix Solaris 2.5.1 core dump due to bogus KDT values.
- Fix Sun core dump on systems with corrupt OBP banners.
- Include full PCI database in device searches for Sun's
- Linux systems know properly associate devices with there appropriate bus.
- Include sysinfomotd utility for putting system info in /etc/motd.
- Fixed bug in -format report which generated incorrect field data for
framebuffer resolutions
Changes added to 4.2
This release contains the following significant new features:
- Easier installation is provided by the use of
self contained,
self extracting binary distributions. Binary distributions now contain
required tools for extraction. You don't need to worry about providing
tools not provided by your OS vendor!
- The Graphical User Interface (GUI) has being completely
redesigned. Major improvements include:
- Supports viewing data by hierarchical tree and in the
new
columns format.
- Data is now provided in a tabbed format making it much easier
to find the data you want quickly.
- Startup is significantly faster.
- Switching back and forth between data views is now nearly instantaneous.
- Custom Reports is a new feature which allows you to
customize a report and save the results to a file or send to a printer.
- Popup help tips are now provided to help you quickly use all
the features you never knew about.
- Improved layout and design makes finding the feature you
want much easier.
- Popup detail windows appear when clicking on certain types
of data and
provide detailed information about the selected item.
- Support and Diagnostic items have been added to the
Help menu to help you quickly obtain support from
MagniComp.
- X configuration options are now fully documented in
sysinfo(1).
- Many more improvements were also implemented.
- Up to 70% performance improvement for Hardware
class information.
We've improved how data read from SysInfo's configuration files is
stored and accessed.
We've measured up to a 70% improvement in performance for Hardware
class data retrieval.
- New Printer class has been implemented.
This class provides
information on all printer queues known to the system
- HTML is now supported as an output encoding format via the new
-encode html option.
- Significantly improved hardware information is now provided
on Linux, FreeBSD, and BSD/OS systems running on Intel x86 based
hardware via the x86 DMI standard.
Improvements include accurate CPU clock speed,
accurate manufacturer and model identification,
true system serial number, and identification of numerous additional
devices.
- Default amount of output for the Command Line Interface has
been reduced to just
General
and
Hardware
class data in order to speed execution time and reduce data "overload".
- PCI device identification is significantly improved. Our
database of known PCI devices has increased by a factor of 10 to over
8 thousand entries.
- SysConf class information has been revamped to be more
complete and consistent across all platforms.
- New -format tree option
deprecates -format pretty.
The latter is still accepted for backwards compatibility.
- New -format columns option displays output in a
column oriented manner vs. the hierarchical tree format used by default.
- New -output option can be used to specify the
file to write output to.
- New -noserial option disables comparing
device serial numbers to detect duplicate
devices.
- New Kernel Bit Size data in
General
class information indicates whether a system is running 32-bit or 64-bit.
- DOS Partition information has been greatly improved on x86
Linux, FreeBSD, and BSD/OS systems.
Platform Specific Changes
AIX |
- SCSI probes are now supported providing much more detailed
information about SCSI devices.
- Device classification has being completely revamped providing
more accurate device typing.
|
HP-UX |
- Software class information is once again fully supported.
|
Linux |
- Improved RAID device recognition has been implemented.
Support for recognizing Compaq Smart Arrays as well as other
general SCSI based RAID arrays has been added.
- Detailed information on monitors is now supported using
VESA/DDC data.
- System memory is now accurately reported using DMI data.
- USB device identification is now provided.
- Improve detection of SCSI devices.
- Detect floppy disk drives.
|
SGI |
- IRIX device classification has
being completely revamped providing
more accurate device typing.
- Various device definition updates.
|
Sun |
- Memory bank information is now reported on Exx00 and Fire MidFrame
systems.
- Various device definition updates.
|
New Platform Support
AIX 5.1 (5L) |
SysInfo now supports AIX 5.1 (aka 5L)
|
HP-UX 11.11 (11i) |
SysInfo now supports HP-UX 11.11 (aka 11i)
|
Additional Changes
See the CHANGES file for a more complete list of specific
changes/bug fixes in this release.
Changes added to 4.1
This release contains the following significant new features:
- A Graphical User Interface (GUI) is now provided and is started by
default whenever the environment supports it.
The traditional Command Line Interface (CLI) is used otherwise or when
a user specifies the
-nw
(no window) option on the command line.
- A Perl object API called
mcSysInfo
is now provided. Documentation can be found in
mcsysinfoperl(3).
The SysInfo GUI is built on top of
mcSysInfo.
- Up to 20X performance improvement retrieving
hardware class data has been achieved
on Sun's which have
Veritas and/or
Sun DiskSuite
software installed.
- Improved device identification, particularly for disks, on Linux.
- Major documentation updates including adding more descriptions
of -format report output and re-organizing man pages into smaller
files.
- Detailed CPU information is now provided for
device class data. The new data includes
everything from CPU clock speed, manufacturer, and model to detailed cache
data.
- The system's CPU Speed is now displayed under
general class data.
- Sun Fire hardware support has been added.
- Improved device information, especially memory configuration,
on SGI IRIX systems.
- The usual assortment of hardware and OS updates for most platforms.
The following is a list of major bug fixes and changes:
- Changed units of PartInfo_t.{Size,AmtUsed} from bytes to MB
to fix address space limitations on some platforms.
- Many other bugs have also been fixed.
See the CHANGES file for a list of specific
changes/bug fixes in this release.
We recommend upgrading from all previous versions if you wish to use
any of the new features or are affected by any of the above mentioned
bugs.
Changes added to 4.0.2
This is a bug fix release. While we recommend you always run the
latest version we specifically recommend you upgrade to this release
for the following specific reasons:
- You are using HP-UX.
- You are using Sun UltraSPARC-III based systems such as Sun Blade 1000.
- You are experiencing any kind of SysInfo problem.
See the CHANGES file for a list of specific
changes/bug fixes in this release.
New Platform Support
AIX 4.3 |
SysInfo now supports AIX 4.3
|
Linux 2.2 on x86 |
This release adds Device class support for Linux systems.
|
Solaris 8 (SunOS 5.8) |
Full support for all Solaris 8
systems, including 64-bit (UltraSPARC) systems.
|
Changes added to 4.0.1
This is a bug fix release. While we recommend you always run the
latest version we specifically recommend you upgrade to this release
for the following specific reasons:
- You are using UPGRADE licenses which do not work.
- You are using HP-UX.
- You are using Solaris 2.x and later.
See the CHANGES file for a list of specific
changes/bug fixes in this release.
Changes added to 4.0
- Provide information on installed software.
SysInfo uses OS specific interfaces to obtain information on what
software is installed on a system. Information includes:
- Name
- Version
- Revision for this Version
- Description of software
- Verbose Description
- Product URL
- Product License
- Category pkg belongs to
- Sub Category
- OS name runs on
- OS version runs on
- Architecture runs on
- Instruct. Set Arch.
- Installation Date
- Build Date
- Production Stamp
- Base Dir for files
- Space used by FileList
- List of Files
- Misc Descriptions
- Name of vendor
- Email of vendor
- Phone of vendor
- Vendor's Stock # for Pkg
Here's an example from a Solaris 7 system:
SUNWxwrtl X Window System & Graphics Runtime Library Links in /usr/lib
Name : SUNWxwrtl
Version : 3.7.2100
Revision : 0.98.08.05
Category : system
Sub Category : usr
Architecture : sparc
Date Installed : Nov 03 1999 10:15
Production Stamp : fantasyland980815103017
Base Directory : /usr
Vendor Name : Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Classes : none
Tz : US/Pacific
Path : /sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sadm/install/bin
Oambase : /usr/sadm/sysadm
Maxinst : 1000
Sunw Pkgvers : 1.0
Patchlist : 107648-09 107656-05
Patch Info 107648 09 : Installed: Thu Oct 14 21:40:19 PDT 1999 From: fern Obsoletes: Requires: 107078-17 Incompatibles:
Patch Info 107656 05 : Installed: Thu Oct 14 21:41:05 PDT 1999 From: fern Obsoletes: Requires: 107648-06 Incompatibles:
Pkgsav : /var/sadm/pkg/SUNWxwrtl/save
Pkg No Unified : TRUE
Update : yes
Part of Product : OpenWindows 2.6.0
Description : X Window System & Graphics Runtime Library Links in /usr/lib
Verbose Description : X Window System & Graphics runtime library link
Additionally, a list of files associated with each software instance
is provided with the following attribute information:
- Type: File, dir, symlink, etc
- Path to file
- Link To name
- Size of file
- MD5 checksum
- List of Pkgs file is used by
- Provide information on storage partitions.
SysInfo now provides a list of all storage partitions and their usage,
if available. This information provides data regardless of whether
a partition is directly on a hard disk or on a "meta" device provided
through Veritas or other storage management software.
The information collected includes:
- Entry type
- Dev Path e.g. /dev/c0t0s1
- Dev Name e.g. c0t0
- Basename e.g. c0t0s1
- Name e.g. s1
- Part # for this disk e.g. 1
- Type e.g. ufs
- Description of Type
- Numeric value of Type if any
- String value for Usage (below)
- Mount Name e.g. /usr
- Mount Options e.g. rw,quota
- Size of partition in bytes
- Amt of space currently used
- Size of 1 sector
- Starting Sector #
- Ending Sector #
- Number of Sectors (size)
Here are 2 examples:
c0t0d0s0 is a 7.9 GB ufs partition in use as /
Name : c0t0d0s0
Device Path : /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0
Usage Status : FILESYSTEM
Mount/Usage : /
Mount/Usage Options : rw suid dev=2580000 largefiles
Type : ufs
Size : 7.9 GB
Amount In Use : 5.5 GB
Sector Size : 512
# of Sectors : 16469712
c0t0d0s1 is a 400 MB SWAP partition
Name : c0t0d0s1
Device Path : /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1
Usage Status : SWAP
Type : SWAP
Size : 400 MB
Sector Size : 512
Starting Sector : 16469712
Ending Sector : 17289215
# of Sectors : 819504
- C callable API.
SysInfo now provides a documented C callable API for embedding SysInfo
into C applications.
The API abstracts and cleans up the previously undocumented API.
See mcSysInfo(3) for the API documentation.
- Major restructuring of code.
The entire source code base has been re-organized and broken into distinct
subdirectories.
- GNU autoconfigure configuration.
The GNU autoconfigure (i.e. configure) is now used to configure
the source code for compilation.
See the Installation (INSTALL.html)
documentation for more information.
- Improved SCSI device support.
The SCSI code has undergone another upgrade to support the SCSI-3 standard.
Detailed information is also now supported for CD/DVD devices which
support the SCSI "CD" query.
- Improved ATA/ATAPI device support.
The ATA/ATAPI (aka IDE) code has undergone a major upgrade and now is
compliant with ATA-1 through ATA-3.
- Full Linux support.
Support for Device class information has been added thanks to
newly added features
in the Linux 2.2 kernel.
- Improved installation.
The installation of binary (precompiled) distributions has been much
improved with the introduction of the setup (installation)
program.
See the Installation (INSTALL.html)
documentation for more information.
- Improved DOS Partition information.
Supported for decoding DOS partition information has been revised
significantly.
SysInfo now understands how to decode Extended DOS partition information.
- Automatic detection of the configuration file directory.
SysInfo will now find it's own configuration files (i.e. the config
directory) automatically.
It does this by looking for the config directory relative to
where the program is installed.
See the sysinfo(1) man page for more
information.
- Cleaner runtime for multiple OS versions.
SysInfo now has a much improved method of installing and supporting
multiple versions of an OS from one sysinfo installation directory.
The primary, user run, sysinfo program is now a
wrapper script (formerly called metasysinfo in previous releases)
which runs the appropriate SysInfo binary based on OS specific runtime
configuration rules.
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and platform updates.
See the CHANGES file for more information.
Changes from Previous Releases
Please see the
Version 3.5 Release Notes
for information about that release.
AIX (IBM) |
Support for querying SCSI devices has been added as of SysInfo
version 4.2. However, devices in use - especially disks in use -
will not contain the additional SCSI data because AIX (through
at least version 4.3.3)
does not
provide a means of querying a SCSI device which is already in use.
|
HP-UX |
When obtaining software class information on HP-UX, SysInfo
may appear to be sluggish taking several minutes to gather information
depending on the speed and hardware configuration of the system.
It may also use lots of memory (20-70MB).
These problems are due to the use of the HP-UX swlist command which
is both slow in outputting information and copious in its output.
|
Solaris 7 and later |
Special compilation care is required on Solaris 7 and later.
See the
Solaris 7 and later
compilation notes in the
Installation
documentation.
|
Sun/SPARC EDID |
VESA Extend Display Identification Data (EDID)
for monitors appears to only be available from Creator
Series 2 (FFB2) and later Creator frame buffers. No sign of
EDID data
on any other Sun framebuffer so far.
|
Linux |
Support for device class information is provided for Linux systems
which run the Linux 2.2 or later kernel.
Only devices connected to the PCI bus will be recognized by
SysInfo even if Linux recognizes the device.
Devices connected to ISA, EISA, MicroChannel, or other
legacy buses will not be identified by SysInfo.
|
FreeBSD |
On FreeBSD 4.0 and later, devices on PCI buses are recognized.
On releases prior to 4.0, both PCI and ISA bus devices are recognized.
There is no EISA support.
|
Copyright (c) 1992-2002 MagniComp
$Revision: 1.46 $