CS-MARS Package Checker (CMPC) v1.0.0.0 Upcoming Release

As promised... CS-MARS Package Checker (CMPC) will be released within the next 24 hours. I'm finalizing some code clean-up and the first release should be ready very soon. As a preview, here's the readme that will be included with the release (doesn't paste well into Blogger... sorry for formatting):

CS-MARS Package Checker (CMPC) v1.0.0.0 readme.txt
Updated June 11, 2007 by Mike

Send all feedback/comments/problems to ****** or let me know on my
blog at http://cs-mars.blogspot.com

WHAT IS CS-MARS PACKAGE CHECKER?
================================

CS-MARS Package Checker (more easily written as CMPC) is a tool to help the
growing user community of the Cisco MARS appliance keep it's rules up-to-date.

It's very basic by design, but wildly useful. It quite simply parses the
required information from an XML configuration file, uses the CCO credentials
to log into cisco.com to check for updated packages, and e-mails the results
to a specified e-mail.

CMPC is current developed as a command line executable. This was easier to port
nearly directly from the first implementation written in PERL under Linux.
Feedback is appreciated on the design, but it is already planned to migrate to
a standard executable.

INSTALLATION
============

The installation of CMPC is rather basic:
- Extract to program archive cmpc.zip. This archive should contain:
- cmpc.exe
- config.xml
- readme.txt

- You may place these files wherever you see fit. The only requirement is that
the cmpc.exe and config.xml are within the same directory. The easiest
location may be something such as C:\CMPC\

CONFIGURING CMPC TO RUN
=======================

Configuration of CMPC for runtime is handled through the included config.xml
configuration file. Open the file in your favorite text editor and fill in all
fields like so:




someuser@company.com
Securepassword123
smtp.company.com
myemail@company.com


Please keep in mind that all fields are required. Certain validity checks are
run while CMPC processing, but a majority of issues running this program are
sourced from an incorrect config.xml. Support is always available on my blog
or by e-mailing me at ******.

REMOVAL
=======
Simply remove the directory in which you installed CMPC.

PROBLEMS USING CMPC
===================

CMPC has been developed to catch most exceptions and give informative errors
when issues occur. That being said, errors do occur that I may not catch. If
you are running the cmpc.exe executable from Windows XP, the error output may be hard to catch as the dialog will close after erroring. To solve this, open up
the Windows XP command prompt and run the cmpc.exe executable from there. This should allow you to see the error output. If you receive a cryptic error
message, let me know and I'll debug the code on my side.


CMPC HISTORY
============

Apr 27, 2005 v1.0.0.0

- Initial release.