Frontmatter

©January 1998, The Open Group All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

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Preface

The Open Group

The Open Group is the leading vendor-neutral, international consortium for buyers and suppliers of technology. Its mission is to cause the development of a viable global information infrastructure that is ubiquitous, trusted, reliable, and as easy-to-use as the telephone. The essential functionality embedded in this infrastructure is what we term the IT DialTone. The Open Group creates an environment where all elements involved in technology development can cooperate to deliver less costly and more flexible IT solutions.

Formed in 1996 by the merger of the X/Open Company Ltd. (founded in 1984) and the Open Software Foundation (founded in 1988), The Open Group is supported by most of the world's largest user organizations, information systems vendors, and software suppliers. By combining the strengths of open systems specifications and a proven branding scheme with collaborative technology development and advanced research, The Open Group is well positioned to meet its new mission, as well as to assist user organizations, vendors, and suppliers in the development and implementation of products supporting the adoption and proliferation of systems which conform to standard specifications.

With more than 200 member companies, The Open Group helps the IT industry to advance technologically while managing the change caused by innovation. It does this by:

• Consolidating, prioritizing, and communicating customer requirements to vendors

• Conducting research and development with industry, academia, and government agencies to deliver innovation and economy through projects associated with its Research Institute

• Managing cost-effective development efforts that accelerate consistent multi-vendor deployment of technology in response to customer requirements

• Adopting, integrating, and publishing industry standard specifications that provide an essential set of blueprints for building open information systems and integrating new technology as it becomes available

• Licensing and promoting the Open Brand, represented by the "X" mark, that designates vendor products which conform to Open Group Product Standards

• Promoting the benefits of the IT DialTone to customers, vendors, and the public

The Open Group operates in all phases of the open systems technology lifecycle including innovation, market adoption, product development, and proliferation. Presently, it focuses on seven strategic areas: open systems application platform development, architecture, distributed systems management, interoperability, distributed computing environment, security, and the information superhighway. The Open Group is also responsible for the management of the UNIX trademark on behalf of the industry.

The Development of Product Standards

This process includes the identification of requirements for open systems and, now, the IT DialTone, development of CAE and Preliminary Specifications through an industry consensus review and adoption procedure (in parallel with formal standards work), and the development of tests and conformance criteria.

This leads to the preparation of a Product Standard which is the name used for the documentation that records the conformance requirements (and other information) to which a vendor may register a product.

The "X" device is used by vendors to demonstrate that their products conform to the relevant Product Standard. By use of the Open Brand they guarantee, through the X/Open Trade Mark License Agreement (TMLA), to maintain their products in conformance with the Product Standard so that the product works, will continue to work, and that any problems will be fixed by the vendor.

Open Group Publications

The Open Group publishes a wide range of technical documentation, the main part of which is focused on specification development and product documentation, but which also includes Guides, Snapshots, Technical Studies, Branding and Testing documentation, industry surveys, and business titles.

There are several types of specification:

• CAE Specifications

  CAE (Common Applications Environment) Specifications are the stable specifications that form the basis for our Product Standards, which are used to develop X/Open branded systems. These specifications are intended to be used widely within the industry for product development and procurement purposes.

  Anyone developing products that implement a CAE Specification can enjoy the benefits of a single, widely supported industry standard. Where appropriate, they can demonstrate product compliance through the Open Brand. CAE Specifications are published as soon as they are developed, so enabling vendors to proceed with development of conformant products without delay.
  

• Preliminary Specifications

  Preliminary Specifications usually address an emerging area of technology and consequently are not yet supported by multiple sources of stable conformant implementations. They are published for the purpose of validation through implementation of products. A Preliminary Specification is not a draft specification; rather, it is as stable as can be achieved, through applying The Open Group's rigorous development and review procedures.

  Preliminary Specifications are analogous to the trial-use standards issued by formal standards organizations, and developers are encouraged to develop products on the basis of them. However, experience through implementation work may result in significant (possibly upwardly incompatible) changes before its progression to becoming a CAE Specification. While the intent is to progress Preliminary Specifications to corresponding CAE Specifications, the ability to do so depends on consensus among Open Group members.
  

• Consortium and Technology Specifications

  The Open Group publishes specifications on behalf of industry consortia. For example, it publishes the NMF SPIRIT procurement specifications on behalf of the Network Management Forum. It also publishes Technology Specifications relating to OSF/1, DCE, OSF/Motif, and CDE.

  Technology Specifications (formerly AES Specifications) are often candidates for consensus review, and may be adopted as CAE Specifications, in which case the relevant Technology Specification is superseded by a CAE Specification.

In addition, The Open Group publishes:

• Product Documentation

  This includes product documentation-programmer's guides, user manuals, and so on-relating to the Pre-structured Technology Projects (PSTs), such as DCE and CDE. It also includes the Single UNIX Documentation, designed for use as common product documentation for the whole industry.

• Guides

  These provide information that is useful in the evaluation, procurement, development, or management of open systems, particularly those that relate to the CAE Specifications. The Open Group Guides are advisory, not normative, and should not be referenced for purposes of specifying or claiming conformance to a Product Standard.

• Technical Studies

  Technical Studies present results of analyses performed on subjects of interest in areas relevant to The Open Group's Technical Program. They are intended to communicate the findings to the outside world so as to stimulate discussion and activity in other bodies and the industry in general.

Versions and Issues of Specifications

As with all live documents, CAE Specifications require revision to align with new developments and associated international standards. To distinguish between revised specifications which are fully backwards compatible and those which are not:

• A new Version indicates there is no change to the definitive information contained in the previous publication of that title, but additions/extensions are included. As such, it replaces the previous publication.

• A new Issue indicates there is substantive change to the definitive information contained in the previous publication of that title, and there may also be additions/extensions. As such, both previous and new documents are maintained as current publications.

Corrigenda

Readers should note that Corrigenda may apply to any publication. Corrigenda information is published on the World-Wide Web at http://www.opengroup.org/corrigenda.

Ordering Information

Full catalogue and ordering information on all Open Group publications is available on the World-Wide Web at http://www.opengroup.org/pubs.

This Document

This Distributed Software Administration (XDSA) specification, which is based on the IEEE 1387.2 Software Administration Standard, addresses this problem, for software administration in both stand-alone and distributed environments. XDSA defines a software packaging layout, a set of information maintained about software, and a set of utility programs to manipulate that software and information. It extends the IEEE 1387.2 Standard by adding significant functionality to deliver enhanced update and patch facilities.

This specification, like the IEEE 1387.2 Standard, specifies distributed operations without specifying the mechanism for how it is to be achieved. The Open Group has published a specification defining interoperability for XDSA, which uses the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) Remote Procedure Call (RPC) mechanism - see referenced specification XDSA-DCE. The Open Group wishes to embrace other interoperability mechanisms for distributed XDSA working, so hopes to publish further such specifications as and when sufficient industry support for them becomes evident.

Structure

• Chapter 1: General - describes the scope, objectives, dependencies, and conformance issues related to this specification.

• Chapter 2: Software Structures - describes the software classes and attributes applicable to distributed software administration.

• Chapter 3: Common Definitions for Utilities - defines the common parts of the Systems Administration utilities which are defined in Software Administration Utilities .

• Chapter 4: System Administration Utilities - defines each of the utilities which must be provided in a conformant implementation of this specification.

• Chapter 5: Software Packaging Layout - describes the components which make up the package: the directory structure, the software definition file formats, and the serial format of the layout in the directory structure.

• Appendix A: Sample Files - these are offered for information and guidance of implementors.

• Appendix B: Rationale and Notes- this gives background information on particular issues which have been recorded during development of the POSIX 1387.2 Standard and of this XDSA specification. It includes explanations and rationale which is considered likely to be useful to implementors and application writers.

A Glossary and Index are also provided.

Typographical Conventions

• Bold font is used in text for filenames, keywords, type names and environmental variables

• Italic strings are used for emphasis or to identify the first instance of a word requiring definition. Italics in text also denote:

  • attributes, data types and variable names

  • parameters (also called metavariables)

  • option arguments and extended options

  • command names

  • utilities; these are shown as follows: name

• Normal font is used for the names of constants and literals.

• Syntax, code fragments, and fixed values (for example, true) are shown in fixed width font.

Trademarks

Motif,® OSF/1,® UNIX,® and the "X Device"® are registered trademarks and IT DialTone^TM; and The Open Group^TM; are trademarks of The Open Group in the U.S. and other countries.

Acknowledgements

Referenced Documents

ISO/IEC 646

ISO/IEC 646:1991, Information Processing - ISO 7-bit Coded Character Set for Information Interchange.

ISO POSIX-1

ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996, Information Technology - Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) - Part 1: System Application Program Interface (API) [C Language] (identical to ANSI/IEEE Std 1003.1-1996). Incorporating ANSI/IEEE Stds 1003.1-1990, 1003.1b-1993, 1003.1c-1995 and 1003.1i-1995. ANSI/IEEE Standard 1003.1-1996¹.

ISO POSIX-2

ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993, Information Technology - Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) - Part 2: Shell and Utilities (identical to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 as amended by IEEE Std 1003.2a-1992).

ISO/IEC 10646

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993, Information Technology - Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) - Part 1: Architecture and Basic Multilingual Plane.

POSIX 1387.2

IEEE Std. 1387.2-1995, Information Technology - Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) System Administration - Part 2: Software Administration.

XDSA-DCE

CAE Specification, February 1997, Systems Management; Distributed Software Administration - DCE-RPC Interoperability (XDSA-DCE) (ISBN: 1-85912-137-3, C430), published by The Open Group.

The following documents provide additional bibliographical references for associated information:

[B1]

Desktop Management Task Force, Desktop Management Interface Specification, Version 1.0, 29 April 1994.²

[B2]

ISO 639: 1988, Code for the representation of names of languages.³

[B3]

ISO/IEC 2022: 1994, Information processing - Character code structure and extension techniques.

[B4]

ISO 2047: 1975, Information processing - Graphical representations for the control characters of the 7-bit coded character set.

[B5]

ISO 3166: 1993, Codes for the representation of names of countries.

[B6]

ISO 4217: 1995, Codes for the representation of currencies and funds.

[B7]

ISO/IEC 4873: 1991, Information technology - ISO 8-bit code for information interchange - Structure and rules for implementation.

[B8]

ISO/IEC 6429: 1992, Information technology - Control functions for coded character sets.

[B9]

ISO/IEC 6937: 1994, Information technology - Coded graphic character set for text communication - Latin alphabet.

[B10]

ISO 8601: 1988, Data elements and interchange formats - Information interchange - Representation of dates and times.

[B11]

ISO/IEC 8806: 1991, Information Technology - Computer graphics - Graphical Kernel System for Three Dimensions (GKS-3D) language bindings - Part 4: C.

[B12]

ISO 8859, Information processing - 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets.

[B13]

ISO/IEC 9899: 1990, Programming languages - C.⁴

[B14]

ISO/IEC 10164-18: 1997: Information Technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Systems Management - Part 18: Software Management Function.

[B15]

ISO/IEC 10646-1: 1993, Information technology - Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) - Part 1: Architecture and Basic Multilingual Plane.

[B16]

ISO/IEC TR 10000-1: 1992, Information technology - Framework and taxonomy of International Standardized Profiles - Part 1: General principles and documentation framework.

[B17]

ISO/IEC JTC1 N1335, Final Report of ISO/IEC JTC1 TSG-1 on Standards necessary to define Interfaces for Application Portability (IAP).

[B18]

International Organization for Standardization/Association Fran'c[??]'aise de Normalisation (ISO/AFNOR, 1989): Dictionary of Computer Science/Dictionnaire de L'Informatique.

[B19]

IEEE Std 100-1992, IEEE Standard Dictionary of Electrical and Electronics Terms.

[B20]

IEEE Std 1003.0-1995, IEEE Guide to the POSIX\(rg\d Open Systems Environment (OSE).

[B21]

IEEE P1003.1a/D12, Draft Revision to Information technology - Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX\s-6®\d) Part 1: System Application Program Interface (API) [C Language]⁵

[B22]

IEEE P2003/D7, Standard for Information Technology - &Test Methods for Measuring Conformance to POSIX\s-6®\d.

[B23]

IEEE P2003.2/D11, Standard for Information Technology - Test Methods for Measuring Conformance to POSIX\s-6®\d - Part 2: Shell and Utilities.

[B24]

RFC 819, Su, Z. and Postel, J. B. Domain naming convention for Internet user applications.⁶

[B25]

RFC 822, Crocker, D. - Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messages.

[B26]

RFC 920, Postel, J. B. and Reynolds, J. K. Domain requirements.

[B27]

RFC 921, Postel, J. B., Domain name system implementation schedule - revised.

[B28]

RFC 1123, Braden, R. T., Requirements for Internet hosts - application and support.

[B29]

RFC 1514, Grillo, P. and Waldbusser, S., Host Resources MIB

[B30]

American Telephone and Telegraph Company, System V (five) Interface Definition (SVID), Issues 2 and 3.⁷

[B31]

University of California at Berkeley - Computer Science Research Group, 4.3 Berkeley Software Distribution, Virtual VAX-11 Version, April 1986.

[B32]

Guide, May 1992, Systems Management: Identification of Management Services (XIMS), (S190), published by The Open Group.

[B33]

Guide, Sept 1993, Systems Management: Managed Object Guide (XMOG), (G302), published by The Open Group.

[B34]

CAE Specification, March 1994, Systems Management: Management Protocols (XMP) API, (C306), published by The Open Group.

[B35]

Guide, Sept 1993, Systems Management: Reference Model (XRM), (G207), published by The Open Group.

[B36]

Preliminary Specification, August 1994, The Common Object Request Broker: Architecture and Specification, (C432), published by The Open Group and OMG⁸.

[B37]

XPG3, February 1992, Portability Guide, Issue 3 - 7-volume set plus Overview, (T010), published by The Open Group.

[B38]

July 1996, The Single UNIX Specification - 5-volume set for UNIX 95, (T910), published by The Open Group.

Footnotes

1.

IEEE publications are available from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 445 Hoes Lane, PO Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331, USA.

2.

DMTF documents can be obtained via the World Wide Web from http://www.dmtf.org/

3.

ISO/IEC documents can be obtained from the ISO Central Secretariat, Case postale 56, 1 rue de Varemb'e´', CH-1211, Gen'e`'ve 20, Switzerland/Suisse.

4.

IEC documents can be obtained from the IEC office, 3 rue de Varemb'e´', Case Postale 131, CH-1211, Gen'e`'ve 20, Switzerland/Suisse.

5.

Numbers preceded by "P" are IEEE authorized standards projects that were not approved by the IEEE Standards Board at the time this publication went to press. For information about obtaining drafts, contact the IEEE.

6.

Internet Requests for Comments (RFC) are available from the DDN Network Information Center, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA, USA 94025.

7.

Available from AT&T, Morristown, NJ: UNIX Press, 1986, 1989.
This is one of several documents that represent an industry specification in a related area. The creators of such documents may be able to identify newer versions of relevance.

7.

Available from The Regents of the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.

8.

Joint publication with the Object Management Group.

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