Creating reports

Managing an inventory of hardware and software updates for an entire PC fleet on paper or even in Excel would require a lot of hard work and time. However, Linux Extension for AIDA64 can provide a very detailed inventory of all the hardware and software components in a PC, create a report of these (even automatically, if required) and send these reports to any selected computer or server. From there, all the system administrator needs to do is thumb through the reports and solve any potential problems.

Creating reports with Linux Extension for AIDA64 is easy. We just need to select the file corresponding to the used computer architecture, and then add the command-line options after the file: “./aida64 [options]”.

Linux Extension for AIDA64 saves reports as CSV files as this format can be easily processed or imported to a database.

We need to make sure that reports are created in the same language! For example, if we have created reports in Hungarian but would like to change the report language to English, it is recommended to store the new reports separately from those previously generated as otherwise Change Manager will detect changes in almost all data.

Command-line options

-h

A brief description of supported command-line options (available only in English).

-d

Debug mode. Saves lshw debug information into an XML file in the current (or specified) directory. It is recommended to use it together with “-l”.

-l <filename>

Writes all messages to a log file.

-e

Logs empty/unknown items. It is recommended to use it together with “-d”.

-o <path>

Specifies the output directory.

-g <language>

Selects the report language. The specified language file has to be present in the /lng directory. The default language is “en” (English).

-x <filename>

Instead of running lshw, loads the XML file created previously by lshw.

-n <hostname>

Uses the specified hostname in the report. To be used together with “-x“.

-s <days>

The number specified here determines the frequency of report creation in days. The default value is 0 (no scheduling). The program stores the last report creation date in a file (aida64_last_report) in the /tmp directory.

Command-line option examples

./aida64_x64 -g en

Searches for the language file „/lng/en.lng”, and if it is available, it loads the English language file and then creates the report in English.

./aida64_x64 -d -e -l error.log

Logs the errors in the log file “error.log”.

./aida64_x64 -o /srv/reports/

Saves the report to the specified /srv/reports directory.

./aida64_x64 -x /srv/lshw.xml -n Office-debian

Converts the XML file created by LSHW to a CSV file, using the “Office-debian” hostname for the report.

./aida64_x64 -s 1

Creates only one report per day, no matter how many times we run the program on the given day.