Son of Snoop on Steroids (SOSOS)
User’s Guide
1. Background
SOSOS is a computer hardware and software inventory program. It gathers over 220 pieces of information about computers and optionally stores this information in a database. It can be run locally or can be used by an administrator to scan a network.
SOSOS was designed to make the life of the System Administrator easier… many tools are available to gather data similar to SOSOS, but few allow you to automatically record the results into a database.
SOSOS is available only as Visual Basic “source code”. That means that you’ll have to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to compile the source code into a usable program that will run on your computer.
SOSOS is completely free of charge. The SOSOS source code is considered in the “public domain”. That means you can do anything you want with it, to include making money from it. There is no licensing requirement.
The “official” home of SOSOS is at http://www.sosos.emmet-gray.com.
SOSOS gathers information about PCs including hardware information such as CPU, memory, hard drives, and serial numbers; software information such as operating system, installed software, and software components; configuration information such as IP address, running processes, desktop settings, and services; and security-related information such as shared resources, modems, account policies, security patches, and virus activity.
Note: SOSOS does not gather any personal information, look at emails, user documents, or track Internet activity.
SOSOS does not have a built-in database… instead it relies on a 3rd-party database application to store its information. A database is not absolutely required. However a lot of SOSOS functions are designed around a database and will be disabled when a database is not configured.
See the Setup and Configuration Guide for additional information on how to compile, configure, and deploy SOSOS in your organization.
SOSOS is actually a suite of programs consisting of the following:
SOSOS – the main application (includes
all of the features below)
RunSOSOS – a command-line version for unattended
gathering of data
PollSOSOS – a command-line version for
network scanning
ViewSOSOS – a read-only interface to
SOSOS database
ConfigureSOSOS – a setup utility for
the SOSOS suite
SOSOS.exe is the “main” application that may be the only application that’s required in a home or small office environment.
In the most common scenario for a corporate environment, the average user may never see the SOSOS program. The data from their PCs may be gathered by the RunSOSOS program which is designed by default to be “stealthy” and to be run during the login process with no user intervention.
Users can double-click on the SOSOS.exe program to manually scan their PC, save the data, print, or save a report. Administrators can do more…they can use SOSOS to poll remote PCs for their data.
The ViewSOSOS application has the same user interface as the SOSOS application with most of the data gathering features disabled. A user with appropriate database permissions can use ViewSOSOS to look at the data for any PC in the database.
Note: Administrators may prefer to use direct access to the underlying database to view, query, edit, and manage the SOSOS information.
This User’s Guide covers only the SOSOS and ViewSOSOS programs. See the Setup and Configuration Guide for information about the other members of the SOSOS suite.
The most common task in SOSOS is to collect data from the local PC. You perform this function by clicking on the Collect Data button (or from the File/Collect Data menu). The SOSOS screen will look like the following:
Click on the item in the left-hand list (i.e. CPU) to view the data for that item.
SOSOS supports three different methods of viewing the collected data.
After the data has been collected (via the “Collect Data” button), the user has the opportunity to:
4.1 File Menu
The File Menu is used to perform the most common tasks:
File Menu:
4.2 Data Menu
The Data Menu is used to import and export data
Data Menu:
There may be situations where you want to record data from PCs that are not connected to any network. To handle this, SOSOS can export its data into an XML file. An Administrator can take this XML file to another PC (that is on the network) import the XML file and save the data to the database.
4.3 Poll Menu
The Poll Menu is used to collect SOSOS data from remote PCs on a LAN. This operation requires the user to have administrator rights on the remote PCs. Typically this function would be performed by a member of the Domain Administrators group.
There are several choices as to the method used to generate the list of PCs that will be “polled”.
Poll Menu:
After selection of a polling method, the menu will look similar the following (using the Network Browsing method as an example):
Generate List by Network Browsing:
Note: The top portion of the form is dependent upon the polling method selected and may display different options from this example (using the Network Browsing method).
Poll Option:
Logging Options:
Note: The file name displayed is automatically generated using an embedded date format for the current day.
Status:
Note: During polling, the Close button becomes the Cancel button. It may take several seconds to interrupt the polling process… be patient.
4.4 View Menu
The View Menu controls the visual aspects of the application.
View:
Note: Users can edit existing records in the Grid and Report View, but cannot add or delete a record.
Note: The selected view will be remembered and automatically used the next time the program is run.
4.5 Options Menu
The Options Menu allows the user to select view options and display fonts.
Options:
Note: The selected options will be remembered and automatically used the next time the program is run.
4.6 Setup Menu
The Setup Menu is used to configure the SOSOS options.
Setup:
SOSOS does not have a built-in database… instead it relies on a 3rd-party database application to store its information.
You can use SOSOS to view existing records in the database for the current PC and for other PCs. However, distributing SOSOS to every user may not be in the best interest of security.
5.1 ViewSOSOS
ViewSOSOS is a read-only interface to the SOSOS application that is designed so that users may view, but not edit the data. The data gathering and database writing features are disabled.
Note: The protection of the data actually takes place at the database application itself by controlling the access given to the individual users or groups of users.
See the SOSOS Setup and Configuration Guide for additional information on how to set up and deploy the database applications.
The SOSOS and ViewSOSOS applications are useful for viewing a single PCs set of records at a time, and do not support any type of querying capability.
Administrators will probably prefer to use direct access to the underlying database to view, query, edit, and manage the SOSOS information. The real power of SOSOS is the ability to write queries against the database to quickly answer real-life questions of a system administrator.
A common deployment scenario is to use Microsoft’s SQL Server as the database server and to use Microsoft Access as the “front end”. Modern versions of Microsoft Access support a “project file” (with an *.adp extension), which provides users with an easy way to interact with data on the SQL Server data without having SQL Server client software installed.
See the Microsoft Access help files for instruction on how to create a project file.
Below is a sample of a Microsoft Access Project file:
With appropriate authority, users can create queries, generate reports, etc., “as if” the entire database was a Microsoft Access *.mdb file.