About This Manual

A product kit is the standard mechanism by which layered products are delivered to and maintained on a Compaq Tru64TM UNIX® (formerly DIGITAL UNIX) operating system. This manual describes the procedures for creating, installing, and managing the collections of files and directories that make up a layered product kit that will be installed on a customer's system. Kits can be distributed on CD-ROM, diskette, or magnetic tape. A hardware product kit can only be distributed on CD-ROM in Direct CD format.

Audience

This book is intended for software developers who are responsible for creating product kits. They are expected to be moderately experienced with UNIX based operating systems and should have experience performing system administration tasks.

New and Changed Features

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

Organization

This manual is organized as follows:

Chapter 1 Introduction
  Presents an introduction to the kit-building process.
Chapter 2 Creating the Kit Directory Structure
  Describes how to create kit directories and build product kits.
Chapter 3 Creating Subset Control Programs
  Describes how to write subset control programs (SCPs) to install and manage software subsets.
Chapter 4 Building Subsets and Control Files
  Describes how to create subsets and subset control files with the newinv and kits utilities.
Chapter 5 Hardware Product Kits
  Describes how to create, test, and deliver hardware product kits for new or existing hardware.
Chapter 6 Producing Distribution Media for User and Kernel Product Kits
  Describes how to produce a user or kernel product kit on the distribution media.
Chapter 7 Testing a User or Kernel Product Kit
  Describes how to test user and kernel product kits on the target system.
Appendix A Creating a Consolidated CD-ROM
  Dscribes how to create a consolidated CD-ROM.
Appendix B Standard Directory Structure
  Describes the standard directory hierarchy.
Glossary Defines terms used in this manual.

Related Documents

The printed version of the Tru64 UNIX documentation set is color coded to help specific audiences quickly find the books that meet their needs. (You can order the printed documentation from Compaq.) This color coding is reinforced with the use of an icon on the spines of books. The following list describes this convention:

Audience Icon Color Code
General users G Blue
System and network administrators S Red
Programmers P Purple
Device driver writers D Orange
Reference page users R Green

Some books in the documentation set help meet the needs of several audiences. For example, the information in some system books 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 books in the Tru64 UNIX documentation set.

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

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:

Please include the following information along with your comments:

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] ).