As part of the VMware Smart Assurance deployment and configuration process, you need to modify certain files. User modifiable files include configuration files, rule set files, templates, and seed files that contain encrypted passwords. Original versions of these files are installed into appropriate subdirectories under the BASEDIR/smarts/ directory.
The original versions of files should not be altered. If a file must be modified, a new version should be created and then stored as a local copy of the file in BASEDIR/smarts/local or one of its subdirectories.
When VMware Smart Assurance software requires one of these files, it is designed to first search for a modified file in BASEDIR/smarts/local or one of its subdirectories. If a modified version of a file is not found in the local area, VMware Smart Assurance software then searches corresponding BASEDIR/smarts directories for the original version of the file.
To ease file editing and storage, VMware Corporation provides the sm_edit utility with every VMware Smart Assurance product suite. When invoked, sm_edit opens the specified file in a text editor. This utility ensures that modified files are always saved to the appropriate local area and that non-local copies of all files remain unchanged. If an appropriate subdirectory does not exist for the file you are modifying, sm_edit creates the appropriate subdirectory before saving the modified file to that location. For files with header information set for encryption, sm_edit encrypts certain fields in the file. In addition, sm_edit preserves the file permissions of modified files, which helps ensure that important configuration files are not altered by unauthorized users.
In UNIX, you can configure sm_edit to use your favorite text editor when you invoke sm_edit.
To use sm_edit from the command line, specify the filename and include the subdirectory under /local where the file resides. For example, to edit the ics.conf, type:
# BASEDIR/smarts/bin> sm_edit conf/ics/weights.conf
In this example, sm_edit searches in the BASEDIR/smarts/local/conf/ics directory for the ics.conf file. If it finds the ics.conf file, it opens the file in a text editor. If sm_edit does not find the ics.conf file in the BASEDIR/smarts/local/conf/ics directory, it creates a local copy of the ics.conf file and writes it to the BASEDIR/smarts/local/conf/ics directory.
The VMware Smart Assurance System Administration Guide provides additional information about the sm_edit utility, including how to configure the utility to use a specific editor.
