Shell Programming and Scripting

Hello all,

I'm planning to write a script to monitor the changes on configuration files on my application server, i have around 50 properties files which really crucial for the application to perform well but we have a challenge here is that all the application team (development, testing and operations team) use the generic credentials which makes my job worse to find the culprit who makes the changes in properties files without informing us (its even difficult to change the password because its a vast application and involves a lot of scripts, changing the password in all scripts is going to be a big project and Application wont work with specific user credentials) we use Citrix connect to application.

I would want a script to notify me as and when the changes are made to any of property file and what has been changed and also IPaddress of the person from where he logged on.

Please let me know if there is any readily available script, that will be great help.

Using plaintext passwords in scripts is a no-go for security reasons.
You 'tell your customers' to 'not write down the password' yet 'you' share them with every script?!

Using credentials (per user) gives you more ability to trace which user(-group) has done what.
Unlike as of now, where everyone using the scripts use the same password/login.

You 'save it all', and set the archive flag (is this valid in *nix like systems?)
Afterwards, all you need to do is to list the files without archieve flag, as that should be removed when the file is changed.

I believe rsync has such a function, to just list (not sync) the files different from last run.
That list could be used to figure differences.

If the projecto cos are git or svn, tell them to do 'commits', so you could see in each project the source change.

My 2 cents, hth

If it is Linux operating system, i would use inotifywait (works on local filesystems only)

Other then that rsync could be used in such manner with dry run option and log file.

Best regards
Peasant.