Software Distributor Administration Guide for HP-UX 11i

Using Control Scripts
Requesting User Responses (swask)
Chapter 11 407
Requesting User Responses (swask)
SD-UX packaged applications can use interactive control scripts to query
a user and obtain installation or configuration information that cannot
be known at package time. For example, different hardware or OS
versions may require different configuration, or some software may need
a specific IP address or hostname for configuration.
SD-UX runs the interactive control scripts by the swask command or by
the ask default option for the swinstall and swconfig commands. (SD-UX
does not query the user but the control script does.)
Using swask
• The swask command runs interactive software request scripts for the
software objects selected.
• These scripts store the responses in a response file (named
response) for later use by the swinstall or swconfig commands.
(swinstall and swconfig can also run the interactive request scripts
directly, using the ask option.)
• A response file is generated for each piece of selected software that
has a corresponding request script.
• swask uses the command-line only; there is no Graphical User
Interface.
Syntax swask [-v] [-c
catalog ] [-C session_file ] [-f software_file ]
[-s
source ][-S session_file ][-x option=value] [-X options_file ]
[
software_selections ][@ target_selections ]
Options and
Operands
-v Turns on verbose output to stdout and displays all
activity to the screen.
-c
catalog Specifies the pathname of an exported catalog which
stores the response files created by the request script.
swask creates the catalog if it does not already exist.
If the -c
catalog option is omitted and the source is
local, swask copies the response files into the source
depot:
distribution .path/ catalog .