		S A T O O L S - F A Q
		---------------------
(agreed, it's a bit short yet).

1.	INTRODUCTON

	This document lists a number of frequently asked questions
	about satools. Its divided into different sections, first one general
	section, then one section per function (or command).

2.	GENERAL QUESTIONS

2.1	Q: Is it free?
	A: Its GPL:ed with some the additions, see the files COPYING and
	   COPYING.EXTRA.

3.	QUESTIONS ABOUT MACHINES (AND SADBCMD)

3.1	Q: Can i import data from other databases?
	A: Yes, create a file with the format:

		key	<key> <key>
		<column> <key> <value>

	   and feed it to mkmachines -i file. For example:

	   	key madonna madonna
	   	arch madonna sun4c
	   	key cheer cheer
	   	arch cheer sun4m

3.2	Q: How do i create my own database?
	A: The simplest way is to use xsadb and select the menu choice
	   for creating a database.
	   You can also do it by first making a directory for the database
	   below $SADBDIR or $SAHOME/sadb. The directory must be called
	   <database-name>.db, for a users database that would be:

	   	$SAHOME/sadb/users.db

	    Second, you store data in that new database by running mkmachines
	    with some extra options to specify which database to use:

	    	mkmachines -db users -i -

	    The -i - option tells mkmachines to read data from stdin. The
	    format of std-in shall be in the format:

	    	<column> <key> <value>

	    For instance to fill the database with two records with information
	    about users room feed mkmachines with:

	        room lasse XY012934
	        room steve XZ012939

	    But there is one thing yet to be done and that is to actually add
	    the users "lasse" and "steve" to the "key" column. This does it:

	        key lasse lasse
	        key steve steve

	    Whitout this, the database can not be searched.

	    Finally, make a link or copy the sadbcmd-command to file named
	    "users". Now you can run the command "users" in the same way as
	    you can run the command "machines".

4.	QUESTIONS ABOUT SADIST

4.1	Q: Can i specify several host lists to the hosts-command in the
	   Control file or the sadist.cfg file?
	A: Yes, normally the hosts-macro looks something like this:
		hosts {machines -domain mydomain -exist true}
	   but by using the tcl-command concat, several selections may
	   be used, like:
	   	hosts {concat [machines -domain dom1] [machines -domain dom2]}

4.2	Q: Do a have to have a machines database and use sahostinfo?
	A: No, you can specify the line:
		database none
	   in the controlfile. The only variables you can use in the
	   datafiles then is the $host variable, all the others (like
	   $subnet, $ip, $osvers ...) are the of course unknown.

