Installation (computer programs)

Installation (or setup) of a computer program (including device drivers and plugins), is the act of making the program ready for execution. Installation refers to the particular configuration of software or hardware with a view to making it usable with the computer. A soft or digital copy of the piece of software (program) is needed to install it. There are different processes of installing a piece of software (program). Because the process varies for each program and each computer, programs (including operating systems) often come with an installer, a specialised program responsible for doing whatever is needed (see below) for the installation. Installation may be part of a larger software deployment process. Installation typically involves code (program) being copied/generated from the installation files to new files on the local computer for easier access by the operating system, creating necessary directories, registering environment variables, providing a separate program for un-installation etc. Because code is generally copied/generated in multiple locations, uninstallation usually involves more than just erasing the program folder. For example, registry files and other system code may need to be modified or deleted for a complete uninstallation. Some computer programs can be executed by simply copying them into a folder stored on a computer and executing them. Other programs are supplied in a form unsuitable for immediate execution and therefore need an installation procedure. Once installed, the program can be executed again and again, without the need to reinstall before each execution. Common operations performed during software installations include: Making sure that necessary system requirements are met Checking for existing versions of the software Creating or updating program s and folders Adding configuration data such as s, Windows registry entries or environment variables Making the software accessible to the user, for instance by creating links, shortcuts or bookmarks Configuring components that run automatically, such as daemons or Windows services Performing product activation Updating the software versions These operations may require some charges or be free of charge.

AntispamLab - A Tool for Realistic Evaluation of Email Spam Filters

Jean-Yves Le Boudec, Slavisa Sarafijanovic, Raphaël Naefen, Luis Hernández

The existing tools for testing spam filters evaluate a filter instance by simply feeding it with a stream of emails, possibly also providing a feedback to the filter about the correctness of the detection. In such a scenario the evaluated filter is disconnected from the network of email servers, filters, and users, which makes the approach inappropriate for testing many of the filters that exploit some of the information about spam bulkiness, users' actions and social relations among the users. Corresponding evaluation results might be wrong, because the information that is normally used by the filter is missing, incomplete or inappropriate. In this paper we present a tool for testing spam filters in a very realistic scenario. Our tool consists of a set of Python scripts for unix/linux environment. The tool takes as inputs the filter to be tested and an affordable set of interconnected machines (e.g., PlanetLab machines, or locally created virtual machines). When started from a central place, the tool uses the provided machines to build a network of real email servers, installs instances of the filter, deploys and runs simulated email users and spammers, and computes the detection results statistic. Email servers are implemented using Postfix, a standard linux email server. Only per-email-server filters are currently supported, whereas per-email-client filters testing would require additional tool development. The size of the created emailing network is constrained only by the number of available PlanetLab or virtual machines. The run time is much shorter then the simulated system time, due to a time scaling mechanism. Testing a new filter is as simple as installing one copy of it in a real emailing network, which unifies the jobs of a new filter development, testing and prototyping. As a usage example, we test the SpamAssassin filter.

2007

AntispamLab - A Tool for Realistic Evaluation of Email Spam Filters

Jean-Yves Le Boudec, Slavisa Sarafijanovic, Raphaël Naefen, Luis Hernández

2007