Deploying Red Hat Workstations

[Christopher Ness]

On Wed, 2004-03-17 at 08:54, Chris Purcell wrote:
> > Why not create a local "up2date" server on your LAN that will only hold
> > the packages you want your machines to have.  I'm assuming you want them
> > all to be the same, correct.  Then set up2date to update automatically
> > from the 'up2date' local server.  Very little outgoing network traffic
> > and you control the packages/versions.  Seems good to me.
> >
> > I'm not sure how to set up an "up2date/yum/apt-get" server but maybe
> > someone else has some experience.
> 
> 
> I was thinking about creating a central apt-get server.  You don't think
> it will be too messy to install RPMs for every change I want to make?  For
> example, lets say that I simply wanted to add a single Perl script to
> /usr/bin, for example.  I would have to create an RPM package for that
> single Perl script.  Do this even matter?

That's a fair question.  Do you use DHCP or static IP's.  In static IP
land you are laughing because you can keep a text file of all the
machines you monitor.  

Use the IP information to write a simple shell script that will `scp`
the file to the boxes (yes this means setting up a system account [don't
use root!] and keeping logins the same on all the boxes.  GUARD THIS
PASSWORD WITH YOUR LIFE).   Be sure to change the system box passwords
regularly and use a STRONG PASSWORD.  There may be a better way, but
this is all I can come up with right now.

If they are all on the same subnet you could try broadcasting to the
subnet your commands.  Other machines without the correct user account
will not answer and will not be pushed the file's.

There is no silver bullet!  But with enough money and experience you can
get a bronze one.  ;)

You could also look into red-carpet from Ximian.  I think they can
connect to remote machines as well and may serve your purpose.

HTH,
Chris
-- 
Software Engineering IV,
McMaster University
PGP Public Key: http://nesser.org/pgp-key/

11:06:35 up 29 min, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05 

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