ZipApp

DBCollect is a Python ZipApp, a special ZIP file containing all Python and SQL scripts that can be executed from a single file. It works similar to a self-extracting ZIP file (the zip file itself is executable).

What is ZipApp

A ZipApp package is a special ZIP file that can be executed by Python (2.6+). The OS detects that it is a Python package because the ZipApp file starts with a shebang: #!/usr/bin/env python

head dbcollect
#!/usr/bin/env python
PK�VJ\
...

In order for this to work, /usr/bin/env python has to be setup so that it starts the correct Python interpreter:

/usr/bin/env python
Python 3.6.8 (default, Feb  5 2026, 20:19:29) 
[GCC 8.5.0 20210514 (Red Hat 8.5.0-28)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> 

On recent RHEL linux versions, you have to specify if python start Python 2 or Python 3. Python 3 is recommended:

# set python to run Python 3 - requires root
alternatives --set python /usr/bin/python3

If that does not work then you cannot run dbcollect directly. However, the fallback is to simply run dbcollect with python:

python3 /usr/local/bin/dbcollect

References

• ZipApp 1
• ZipApp 2

Source code

The dbcollect ZipApp package is a specially prepared ZIP file. You can unzip it with a normal unzip tool. The files in the package are regular Python and SQL scripts. There are no pre-compiled binaries - making dbcollect completely transparent.

For example, listing the files in the package:

unzip -l /usr/local/bin/dbcollect

Archive:  dbcollect
  Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
     7040  02-10-2026 10:52   dbcollect.py
        0  02-10-2026 10:52   lib/
        0  10-31-2023 19:14   lib/__init__.py
     2598  12-10-2025 13:02   lib/archive.py
      268  02-10-2026 10:53   lib/buildinfo.py
     5920  12-11-2025 19:21   lib/compat.py
     1732  02-10-2026 10:52   lib/complete.bash
     6535  02-10-2026 10:52   lib/config.py
     8272  11-18-2025 18:00   lib/detect.py
...