About This Manual

A product kit is the standard mechanism by which software products are delivered to and maintained on a Compaq Tru64^TM UNIX operating system. This manual describes the procedures for creating, installing, and managing the collections of files and directories that make up a product kit to be installed on a customer's system. Kits can be distributed on CD-ROM, diskette, or magnetic tape.

Audience

This manual is intended for software developers who are responsible for creating product kits. They are expected to have experience with UNIX based operating systems, shell script programming, and system administration.

New and Changed Features

The following list describes the major changes made to this manual:

• Added information about restrictions on subset names (Section 3.1).

• Divided the Creating Subsets chapter into three chapters: Preparing Subsets (Chapter 3), Creating Subset Control Programs (Chapter 4), and Producing and Testing Subsets (Chapter 5).

• Updated the SCP library routines in Table 4-1 and the global variables in Table 4-4.

• Added a new method to determine subset installation status (Section 4.7).

  Note

  This information replaces former methods of determining subset installation status and may require changes to the way you code subset control programs.

• Added restrictions for kernel product kits used to support third party hardware (Section 7.1).

• Removed instructions for building a consolidated firmware CD-ROM from the appendices. This information will be updated and relocated to Compaq Tru64 UNIX Best Practices.

Previous versions of this manual are available on the World Wide Web at the following URL: http://www.tru64unix.compaq.com/docs/. Technical updates to this manual are also available from the same location.

Organization

This manual is organized as follows:

Related Documentation

You may find the following documents helpful when preparing product kits:

• Sharing Software on a Local Area Network describes Remote Installation Services (RIS) and Dataless Management Services (DMS). RIS is used to install software across a network instead of using locally mounted media. DMS allows a server system to maintain the root, /usr, and /var file systems for client systems. Each client system has its own root file system on the server, but shares the /usr and /var file systems.

  This manual may be helpful if you are preparing a product kit that will be installed in a RIS environment.

• Writing Device Drivers provides information for systems engineers who write device drivers for hardware that runs the operating system. Systems engineers can find information on driver concepts, device driver interfaces, kernel interfaces used by device drivers, kernel data structures, configuration of device drivers, and header files related to device drivers.

  This manual may be helpful if you are preparing product kits for a device driver.

• The Installation Guide describes the procedures to perform an Update Installation or a Full Installation of the operating system on all supported processors and single-board computers. It explains how to prepare your system for installation, boot the processor, and perform the installation procedure.

• The Installation Guide -- Advanced Topics describes the advanced installation procedures such as Installation Cloning, Configuration Cloning, and how to customize the installation process with user supplied files.

• System Administration describes how to configure, use, and maintain the operating system. It includes information on general day-to-day activities and tasks, changing your system configuration, and locating and eliminating sources of trouble. This manual is intended for the system administrators responsible for managing the operating system. It assumes a knowledge of operating system concepts, commands, and configurations.

• Reference Pages Sections 8 and 1m describe commands for system operation and maintenance and are intended for system administrators. In printed format, this is divided into two volumes.

• The Release Notes describe known problems you might encounter when working with the operating system and provides possible solutions for those problems. The printed format also contains information about new and changed features of the operating system, as well as plans to retire obsolete features of the operating system. Obsolete features are features that have been replaced by new technology or otherwise outdated and are no longer needed. These are intended for anyone installing the operating system or using the operating system after it is installed.

The Tru64 UNIX documentation is available on the World Wide Web at the following URL:

http://www.tru64unix.compaq.com/docs/

Icons on Tru64 UNIX Printed Manuals

The printed version of the Tru64 UNIX documentation uses letter icons on the spines of the manuals to help specific audiences quickly find the manuals that meet their needs. (You can order the printed documentation from Compaq.) The following list describes this convention:

Some manuals in the documentation help meet the needs of several audiences. For example, the information in some system manuals is also used by programmers. Keep this in mind when searching for information on specific topics.

The Documentation Overview provides information on all of the manuals in the Tru64 UNIX documentation set.

Reader's Comments

Compaq welcomes any comments and suggestions you have on this and other Tru64 UNIX manuals.

You can send your comments in the following ways:

• Fax: 603-884-0120 Attn: UBPG Publications, ZKO3-3/Y32

• Internet electronic mail: readers_comment@zk3.dec.com

  A Reader's Comment form is located on your system in the following location:

  /usr/doc/readers_comment.txt

Please include the following information along with your comments:

• The full title of the manual and the order number. (The order number appears on the title page of printed and PDF versions of a manual.)

• The section numbers and page numbers of the information on which you are commenting.

• The version of Tru64 UNIX that you are using.

• If known, the type of processor that is running the Tru64 UNIX software.

The Tru64 UNIX Publications group cannot respond to system problems or technical support inquiries. Please address technical questions to your local system vendor or to the appropriate Compaq technical support office. Information provided with the software media explains how to send problem reports to Compaq.

Conventions

The following conventions are used in this manual:

%
$

A percent sign represents the C shell system prompt. A dollar sign represents the system prompt for the Bourne, Korn, and POSIX shells.

#

A number sign represents the superuser prompt.

% cat

Boldface type in interactive examples indicates typed user input.

file

Italic (slanted) type indicates variable values, placeholders, and function argument names.

[ | ]
{ | }

In syntax definitions, brackets indicate items that are optional and braces indicate items that are required. Vertical bars separating items inside brackets or braces indicate that you choose one item from among those listed.

colored text

In syntax definitions, literal elements are colored green. Variable values, placeholders, and function argument names are colored red. No special colored text is used outside of syntax descriptions.

. . .

In syntax definitions, a horizontal ellipsis indicates that the preceding item can be repeated one or more times.

cat(1)

A cross-reference to a reference page includes the appropriate section number in parentheses. For example, cat(1) indicates that you can find information on the cat command in Section 1 of the reference pages.

[Return]

In an example, a key name enclosed in a box indicates that you press that key.

[Ctrl/x]

This symbol indicates that you hold down the first named key while pressing the key or mouse button that follows the slash. In examples, this key combination is enclosed in a box (for example, [Ctrl/C] ).