System Configuration Collector

The System Configuration Collector application was designed to collect configuration data of systems in snapshots. The structure of the snapshot allows SCC to compare a snapshot with the previous one and to detect changes in the configuration.

Upon detecting changes, SCC adds the differences to a logbook. The snapshot and the logbook are converted to HTML for local inspection. Optionally, the SCC-files can be send to a system running the SCC server software. On the server, summaries of the SCC-data are generated and search/compare operations on the snapshots and logbooks are available via a web-interface.

The logbook is a starting point in case a system "suddenly" does not work correctly and the administrator is wondering what he/she has changed in the last weeks or months.

As most of us know by experience, configuration changes can have accidental side-effects on (other) systems. By examining the entries in the logbooks and considering the consequences, the cause of an actual problem might be found more easily than by just trying to remember the changes that were performed.

The snapshots can be used to compare the configuration of two systems. Imagine systems, that are supposed to be identical, but behave differently. Comparing parts of the snapshots of the two systems can indicate the cause of the difference in behaviour. All collected snapshots of a site can be analyzed when conducting a due diligence investigation.