POSTER: Fingerprinting application dependencies

In this poster, we present a novel approach, called software fingerprinting, that captures application dependencies. Our Fingerprint tool enables the user to discover, track, display and save the dependencies of an application without modification to its source code. The tool can achieve this both through static and runtime dependency discovery and the result is stored in a separate file called a Swirl. A fingerprint swirl file can be used in a variety of modes including: determining if the local system has changed since the swirl was created; mapping of library dependencies to specific installed software packages; querying a foreign system to determine if it satisfies the application´s requirements; and creating (within some reasonable limitations) a compatible software environment on a foreign machine to simplify porting the user´s application to the new system.