5.7. Central monitoring of software installation statuses with the software monitor

The software monitor is a database in which information is stored concerning the software packages installed across all UCS systems. This database offers an administrator an overview of which release and package versions are installed in the domain and offers information for the step-by-step updating of a UCS domain and for use in identifying problems.

The software monitor can be installed from the Univention App Center with the application Software installation monitor. Alternatively, the software package univention-pkgdb can be installed. Additional information can be found in Installation of further software.

UCS systems update their entries automatically when software is installed, uninstalled or updated. The system on which the software monitor is operated is located by the DNS service record _pkgdb._tcp.

The software monitor brings its own UMC module Software monitor. The following functions are available:

Systems

allows to search for the version numbers of installed systems. It is possible to search for system names, UCS versions and system roles.

Packages

allows to search in the installation data tracked by the package status database. Besides searching for a Package name there are various search possibilities available for the installation status of packages:

Selection state

The selection state influences the action taken when updating a package. Install is used to select a package for installation. If a package is configured to Hold it will be excluded from further updates. There are two possibilities for uninstalling a package: A package removed with DeInstall keeps locally created configuration data, whilst a package removed with Purge is completely deleted.

Installation state

The installation state describes the status of an installed package in relation to upcoming updates. The normal status is Ok, which leads to a package being updated when a newer version exists. If a package is configured to Hold it will be excluded from the update.

Package state

The package state describes the status of a setup package. The normal status here is Installed for installed packages and ConfigFiles for removed packages. All other statuses appear when the package’s installation was canceled in different phases.

Fig. 5.9 Searching for packages in the software monitor

If you do not wish UCS systems to store installation processes in the software monitor (e.g., when there is no network connection to the database), this can be arranged by setting the Univention Configuration Registry Variable pkgdb/scan to no.

Should storing be reactivated at a later date, the command univention-pkgdb-scan must be executed to ensure that package versions installed in the meanwhile are also adopted in the database.

The following command can be used to remove a system’s program inventory from the database again:

$ univention-pkgdb-scan --remove-system [HOSTNAME]