Software distribution application supporting verification of external installation programs

摘要

The present invention relates to a software distribution application, which is used to deploy software products to multiple endpoints. The software distribution application supports either bundled packages (detailing all the operations to be executed on the endpoints) or native packages (including a simple command for launching an external installation program); an introspection attribute is added to discriminate the two types of packages. Whenever an endpoint receives ( 314 ) a native package, a snapshot of the endpoint is taken ( 332 ) using a reverse engineering tool (such as AutoPack). The desired software product is then installed launching ( 334 ) the corresponding external installation program. As soon as the installation has been completed, a further snapshot of the endpoint is taken ( 336 ). A reversed package is built ( 338 - 339 ) according to a comparison between the two snapshots. The reversed package is then used to verify whether the actions executed on the endpoint at the installation time are still in place. In this way, it is possible to repair any inconsistency in the software configuration of the endpoint automatically.