installver command

The installver command performs two main functions. The tool computes a checksum on the installed files and compares the checksum to the shipped bill of materials for the product. The installver command can also compute a new baseline checksum for each file in the inventory of a configured system to use to identify file changes in later comparisons.

Purpose

This topic describes the location of the command file, command syntax, and links to task information about using the tool.

The default log file is the app_server_root/logs/installver.log file. You can redirect the output using the -log parameter and an argument. Use the -log parameter without the file argument to generate the default log file.

Computing the checksum

The installver tool computes a checksum for each installed file in the product. The tool compares each computed checksum to the correct checksum for the file. The correct checksums are shipped in the bill-of-material files. One bill-of-materials file exists for each component.

The tool parses the bill-of-materials file for each component to find the correct checksum value for each file in the component. Each product file has an entry in some bill-of-materials file. The entry for a product file lists the product file path and the correct checksum value.

Shipped bill-of-material files

Each bill-of-materials file is named files.list. Each component has one files.list file. Each files.list file is in one of the app_server_root/properties/version/install/6.1.0.0/backup/component_name directories. A component_name directory exists for each component.

For instance, the files.list file for the activity component is in the app_server_root /properties/version/install/6.1.0.0/backup/activity directory. The file resembles the following example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<componentfiles componentname="activity">
       <file>
              <relativepath>properties/version/activity.component</relativepath>
              <checksum>1a20dc54694e81fccd16c80f7c1bb6b46bba8768</checksum>
              <permissions>644</permissions>
              <installoperation>remove</installoperation>
       </file>
       <file>
              <relativepath>lib/activity.jar</relativepath>
              <checksum>2f056cc01be7ff42bb343e962d26328d5332c88c</checksum>
              <permissions>644</permissions>
              <installoperation>remove</installoperation>
       </file>
</componentfiles>

Comparing the computed checksum to the correct checksum

As the tool processes each product file in each bill-of-materials file, the tool also computes the actual checksum value of the corresponding installed product file. The tool then compares the checksum of the product file to the correct checksum value in the bill-of-materials file. The tool then reports any differences.

Location of the command file

The installver command file is located in the bin directory of the installation root directory:

Change directories to the bin directory to start the installver tool from the command line. The tool runs on any supported operating system except z/OS.

Use the following command to run the tool from a user profile that has *ALLOBJ authority on iSeries systems:
installver

Syntax for displaying usage information

  • installver -help

Syntax for listing all components

  • installver -listcomponents

Syntax for comparing product files to the bill-of-material files

Use the following command syntax to automatically check the bill of materials against the installed file system.

See Verifying against the bill of materials for examples of using the command to compare the installed files to the product bill-of-materials files.

Example comparisons and command usage

Compare checksums and include specified files only in the comparison:
  • installver -include fn1;fn2;fn3

See Comparing specific file and component checksums for examples of using the command to compare only files or components that you specify.

Compare checksums and include specified components only in the comparison:
  • installver -includecomponent comp1;comp2;comp3;...
Compare checksums and exclude certain components from the comparison:
  • installver -excludecomponent comp1;comp2;comp3;...

See Excluding files from a checksum comparison for examples of using the command to exclude files from the comparison.

Compare checksums and ignore user-excluded files:
  • installver -ignoreuserexclude
Compare checksums and ignore IBM-excluded files:
  • installver -ignoreibmexclude
List all components only:
  • installver -listcomponents
Create template (for listing excluded files) only:
  • installver -createtemplate

Create template (for listing excluded files) only

installver -createprofiletemplate

Parameters

The following parameters are associated with the command.

-createprofiletemplate
Creates a template properties file for excluding files from the checksum comparison. Edit the template properties file to add a line for each file that you want to exclude from verification.

The installver tool creates the profile_root/properties/ivu_user.template file.

If you specify a file name, the installver tool creates the file in the working directory, which is the profile_root/bin directory by default.

Perform the following procedure:
  1. cd app_server_root/bin
  2. installver -createprofiletemplate
The installver tool creates the template properties file in the properties directory of the default profile:
profile_root/properties/ivu_user.template
-help

Displays usage information.

-verbose

Provides verbose console output of what the tool checks and what the tool discovers.

Syntax for creating and using a new baseline checksum for an inventory of configured files

Use the following syntax to create and compare an inventory of configured files to the currently installed files.

Create an inventory list of the files that are currently installed in the installation root directory

  • installver -createinventory [path/file_name], such as installver -createinventory user_data_root/system.inv

Compare the inventory list to files that are currently installed in the installation root directory

  • installver -compare /path/file_name

Compare and display trace results

  • installver -compare /path/file_name -trace
Display usage information
  • installver -help
Compare and exclude specified files from the inventory comparison
  • installver -compare /path/file_name -exclude fn1;fn2;fn3;...
Compare and include only specified files in the inventory comparison
  • installver -compare /path/file_name -include fn1;fn2;fn3;...

Next

After verifying your installation, you can create profiles or deploy an application on an existing application server profile.

After installing, updating, and verifying, the next step is to use the product. Start the application server to use the administrative console to deploy an existing application. See Fast paths for WebSphere Application Server for more information.



Related tasks
Verifying checksums of installed files
Related reference
verifyinstallver command
Reference topic Reference topic    

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