5.8

Action Description
To extract data from Linux and UNIX
shell scripts and return the data to
VCM, use the Sh parser.
The Sh parser extracts data such as environment variables,
exported variables, and umask settings from Linux and
UNIXshell scripts.
n Environmental Variables: The Sh parser extracts
settings of environmental variables in the form of
variable=value, and handles multiple variables on a
line (such as variable1=value1;
variable2=value2). This parser also handles
variables where the values are read from a file, and the
value is set to the content of the file. Read-only
variables are extracted and identified.
n Exported Variables: Includes multiple variables
exported at simultaneously.
n Umask settings for file permissions on files and
directories.
To handle tabular data, use the
tabular parser.
Tabular data usually consists of a grid of data. The
separator between fields can be any regular expression.
To handle well-formed XML files and
other files, use the WFF parser.
The Well Formed Formulae (WFF) parser handles well
formed formulae, such as XML, but can be defined to
handle any well-structured document.
To handle Windows configuration
files, use the INI parser.
The INI parser (key/value data) handles all types of
Windows-style configuration files, key/value files, and
some files that contain blocks of data. The key/value files
can use any delimiter, including white space. The delimiter
is a regular expression. Any value other than the delimiter
is allowed in the value and data blocks.
To handle tree-based data, use the
tree parser.
Tree-based data is key/value data in which path
information is contained in the key.
To break a file into tokens, use the
Tokenizer Parser
Breaks a file into a series of tokens of varying types.
Directives describe the types of tokens to collect and the
regular expressions required to collect those tokens.
Identification Expressions
The identification expression is a regular expression that identifies the file to be parsed. VCM matches the
file identified by a custom information collection filter against this expression. The parser directive obtains
the desired content of the file when the file name matches this expression.
For example, the identification expression for several custom information types appears as follows:
n builtin:profile identification expression is \/[.]?profile$
n builtin:krb5.conf identification expression is \/etc\/krb5\.conf$
n builtin:pamd identification expression is \/etc\/pam\.d\/.*$
n builtin:httpd_conf identification expression is apache[2]?\/.*\.conf$
Configuring Linux, UNIX, and Mac OS X Machines
VMware, Inc.
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