Conform

Chapter 1: Introduction

A significant part of managing any integrated network is managing the filesystems in a sensible and consistent manner. There are a number of tools for providing connectivity, but precious few for providing consistency---keeping those filesystems in a sane and stable state.

conform is a tool for handling filesystem consistency. It compares (the contents of) a filesystem with a description of what should be on the filesystem. It reports (and optionally repairs) any inconsistencies found. It can be used to install new software, to rebuild damaged filesystems, to configure new machines or to detect security breaches.

This document describes the program (conform), the description and source files it uses (the conformary), and a number of auxilliary programs and scripts.

Included also are two papers which have previously been written describing conform and the conformary.

• Conform
• The Conformary
• Support Programs
• What you need to do when
• What Would We Do Without Conform
• Software Installation Can Be Fun
• File Index
• Macro Index
• Program Index