How to determine which distribution sets were installed

[Allan Bowhill]

On  0, Paul van Berlo <pvanberlo at fastmail.fm> wrote:
:Hello,
:
:is there an easy way to determine which distribution sets were installed
:during the FreeBSD installation and after that? I inherited a server and
:want to make sure what is and is not installed. Of course I can do all of
:this manually, but I was hoping FreeBSD keeps a log or something
:somewhere.

I am not %100 sure, but I think you might have to do it manually. I
don't think FreeBSD keeps records of what was originally chosen
in /stand/sysinstall for distribution sets on a first-time installation.

If you are just talking about software installed using the
ports/packages collection just do "pkg_info -a". Generally, this
reflects what exists on the system at the current moment. But there
are no guarantees, since things can be erased manually.

But really finding out what was installed would be a pretty involved
thing, becuase you can't guarantee the person who owned it last had not
added, removed or modified anything outside the record-keeping mechanisms
since he/she first installed the OS.

--Allan