
WHAT IS INSTMON?

  instmon (INSTall MONitor) is a program that monitors the installation
of various programs and detects what files where installed. It can be
very helpful when you want to keep track of the files a `make install'
command copied to your directory structure. instmon is meant mainly for
system administrators, but it can be useful to normal users as well.

REQUIREMENTS

  instmon is a shell script, so it needs a working version of /bin/sh
and the standard UNIX (or GNU) tools.

  For advanced monitoring methods, you may also need:

  - strace        (for the trace detection method)
  - installwatch  (for the watch detection method)

  For building archives you might need:

  - tar           (for tar archives)
  - dpkg,dpkg-deb (for deb archives)
  - rpm           (for rpm archives)

  Note that I have only tested instmon with the GNU tools, so on other
systems it is possible that you encounter problems using it. Please let
me know if you do.

HOW TO COMPILE/INSTALL

  Since instmon is a shell script, you needn't compile it - it will
simply run everywhere. To install it, just type `make install' as root.
This will copy the instmon executable in /usr/local/bin and the manual
page in /usr/local/man/man8. It will also create the directory
/usr/local/lib/instmon, where it will place some helper scripts needed
by instmon. Finally, it will create /usr/local/share/instmon, where
instmon will be storing installation log files.

  If you like, you could run `make install-instmon' instead. This is the
same as `make install', with the difference that instmon will monitor
its own installation, leaving in the end the file instlog.instmon-2.0 in
/usr/local/share/instmon.

HOW TO USE

  To monitor an installation, simply run `instmon <packagename>'.
instmon will spawn a monitored shell, where you can do the installation
and exit when you're finished. <packagename> is optional (it defaults to
the basename of the current directory), and it should be the name of the
package you want to install. It is recommended that <packagename> has
the form name-version. For more information, please read the manual
page.

TROUBLESHOOTING/FEEDBACK

  If you have any trouble running instmon (it fails to run properly for
you), or if you simply have some suggestions, please contact me with the
details.


Enjoy using instmon!
Vasilis Vasaitis (vvas@hal.csd.auth.gr)
