Mining dependencies from disk images

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9727344-B2
Application number	US-201213595860-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 27, 2012
Priority date	Feb 2, 2010
Publication date	Aug 8, 2017
Grant date	Aug 8, 2017

Abstract

Methods and arrangements for automatically finding the dependency of a software product on other software products or components. From an install image or directory, a signature is found by deriving the same from a directory structure of the software. Further, a directory tree structure is built and an approximate sub-tree matching algorithm is applied to find commonalities across software products.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
utilizing at least one processor to execute computer code configured to perform the steps of:
extracting file system structures corresponding to each of at least two software products;
identifying, from the file system structures, matching subtrees that represent subtrees of more than one directory across the at least two software products; and
based on the candidate subtrees, generating a dependency graph which indicates:
common components across at least two software products; and
dependencies among the common components.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said identifying comprises:
identifying candidate subtrees which fulfill at least one predetermined matching criterion; and
labeling the candidate subtrees.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said labeling comprises labeling via ascertaining a signature of each candidate subtree.

4. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said labeling comprises labeling via employing text mining of file contents in each candidate subtree.

5. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said labeling comprises manual labeling of candidate subtrees.

6. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said identifying of candidate subtrees comprises identifying candidate subtrees that are approximately similar to other subtrees across at least two software products.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said identifying comprises identifying maximal subtrees that are similar across the at least two software products.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said identifying comprises identifying candidate subtrees above a minimum threshold size.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said identifying comprises detecting different versions of common components across the at least two software products.

10. The method according to claim 9 , wherein said detecting comprises detecting different versions of common components via analyzing labels associated with the components.

11. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising registering a unique signature of a software product with a common inventory database.

12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said extracting comprises extracting a file system structure from an install image corresponding to the software products.

13. The method according to claim 1 , whereby said extracting is performed without installing the software products.

Assignees

• Ananthanarayanan Rema
• Chaturvedi Vinatha
• Chenthamarakshan Vijil E
• Deshpande Prasad M
• Krishnapuram Raghuram
• Mohammed Shajeer K
• IBM

Inventors

• Ananthanarayanan Rema
• Chaturvedi Vinatha
• Chenthamarakshan Vijil E
• Deshpande Prasad M
• Krishnapuram Raghuram
• Mohammed Shajeer K

Classifications

• G06F17/30

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F9/44 Primary

  Arrangements for executing specific programs · CPC title

• G06F8/71

  Version control (security arrangements therefor G06F21/57); Configuration management · CPC title

• G06F16/00

  Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor · CPC title