The following programs are currently executed by cops -- see the appropriate man page or other documentation for more information on each of the following: root.chk dev.chk group.chk home.chk rc.chk passwd.chk pass.chk user.chk cron.chk misc.chk is_able.chk crc.chk bug.chk In addition, it runs the U-kuang expert system, which runs these additional programs: init_kuang kuang addto clearfiles filewriters members
cops uses three internal variables that may be changed to determine where who gets any reports generated, if it is to mailed or saved to a file. Thes variables may be set by command line flags or by actually changing the variables in the code. $SECURE_USERS is used to determine who gets mailed any results, and is set when the -m flag is used. $SECURE is the directory that cops is in, and is set by the -s flag. Finally, if the variable $MMAIL is set to be NO (or the -m flag is used), then cops will save the report in a subdirectory with the same name as the host it is being run on, in a file called year_month_date (where this stands for the actual values/date, not that string.) Otherwise, cops will mail the report to the whomever is listed in $SECURE_USERS.
If the variables $ONLY_DIFF and $MMAIL are set to be "YES", then cops will examine the last report saved to a file, and compare it with the current one. If any differences do exist, then it will be mailed; else, the report will be discarded.
If you suspect that something is amiss, or if you're just curious or a gluttons for punishment, you can set the variable $BIT_BUCKET to be a file (or use the -b flag), to see all the error messages and such. Some of the programs in cops print out an error message if a file isn't found (for instance, if you put a file to be checked in the is_able.lst configuration file, and it doesn't exist, it will not complain to the final report, only here; by default, this is our friend /dev/null.