How to create a BOM / Inventory of a linux box for each boot up.

Posted by mylinuxguy@reddit | linuxadmin | View on Reddit | 10 comments

A bit of background.... I have access to a lot of different systems. Some are older than others and some are updated more than others. I move drives from one server to another. I don't have a 'standard' setup. I'd like to be able to look at a report or set of files that is uniform across all systems so that I can look at it and know what server it was on when it booted up....

I know what I want.... I just don't know how to express it exactly. I did a google / ai query:

I want to get a list of all installed packages, set of hardware at each boot for linux

and got:

1. Listing Installed Packages:

Debian/Ubuntu (apt):
Use sudo apt list --installed to list all installed packages.
You can also use dpkg --get-selections | grep -w "install" to list installed packages.
Red Hat/CentOS/Fedora (dnf/yum):
Use dnf list installed or yum list installed to list installed packages.
Arch Linux (pacman):
Use pacman -Q to list installed packages.

2. Hardware Information at Boot:

lshw:
Install the lshw package if you don't have it: sudo apt install lshw (Debian/Ubuntu) or sudo dnf install lshw (Red Hat/CentOS/Fedora).
Run sudo lshw to get a comprehensive hardware listing.
lspci:
Use lspci -v to get detailed information about PCI devices.
lsusb:
Use lsusb -v to get detailed information about USB devices.
dmesg:
dmesg shows kernel messages, including hardware detection messages, at boot.
udevadm:
udevadm info /dev/<device> provides information about specific devices.
cat /proc/cpuinfo:
Displays information about the CPU.
cat /proc/meminfo:
Displays information about the RAM.
cat /proc/version:
Displays the kernel version.

3. Logging Hardware Information at Boot:

You can log the output of these commands to a file at each boot by creating a script that runs these commands and redirects the output to a log file. You can then place this script in the /etc/rc.local directory (for older systems) or use a systemd service (for newer systems) to run it at boot.

which is sort of what I envisioned..... I've actually played around with this before... but never really got it going.

So... my first question is what would this info be called and second... is there something that already does this or do I need to write a script to do this for me.

Thanks

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Hotshot55@reddit

If you want packages to be there, then standardize and use some form of config management.

The rest of this sounds like a massive waste of time, there's no reason to dump a bunch of info at boot time just to occasionally reference for whatever reason.

dodexahedron@reddit

And there are numerous inventory-tracking options out there already as well.

Heck, even Zabbix will do that for you, for free.

jpmoney@reddit

Agreed. This has X-Y problem written all over it.

Focus on getting things standardized.

michaelpaoli@reddit

list of all installed packages, set of hardware

dpkg -l, or equivalent, depending what the OS's package management system is. If one is or may be using / have installed, snaps and/or flatpacks, may also want the appropriate commands to cover that. Likewise also, if applicable (and installed for system, rather than a user doing so for themselves), homebrew, etc.

lshw

chock-a-block@reddit

Prometheus and Nessus can do this and more.

zBl4cksTar@reddit

There's GLPI, it's an open source ITSM if you install the agent it makes the inventory for you, there's also Wazuh that get some information/vulnerabilities from the agent

craigmontHunter@reddit

How fancy are you looking for? Configuration management is the best option, just keep everything where it needs to be. We use CFEngine for end user systems, it tracks hardware info, updates, reporting, whatever you need. There are a bunch of other tools that do the same thing, Zabbix also comes to mind. As fun as it is to reinvent to wheel there are a large number of free and paid options to achieve what you’re looking for.