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Top Ten Linux Configuration Tools?
jman251 asks: "I am presenting at a conference in September on a couple of Linux-centric topics. One of these is a collection of tips, tricks, and tools for configuring, securing, and maintaining a Linux-based server. I have a short list of tools I use, but would like some community input on the subject. What tools do you use that make your admin responsibilities easier or more automated on the Linux platform?"
su
df
du
ls
rm
passwd
chown
vi
more
bash
Hey, you asked for it - No clicky links to read.
man and vi
Seriously.
Only as root... and then you created them, so hush! :)
That's all ya need ;p
What is music when you despise all sound?
CVS or your favorite equivalent is vital in any multi-sysadmin environment. Operating without your configurations in CVS is like juggling priceless eggs in variable gravity.
What good are all your commands with no shell? ? ?
Llywelyn Fawr
I like using XConfigurator
You're right about not needing it lately. However it's been useful for notebook displays of uncommon resolution. (my 14" 1400x1050) Xconfigurator is the only way I know how to get it working properly.
there is nothing wrong with that question.
The real problem is when someone asks:"What is the best text editor?"
Silly question, cause the answer is edlin.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
... the most important tool is the brain :) As an admin, whatever you do, if you don't think enough on it you deserve what could happen.
As "admin suite", i.e. a single program to do a lot of administrative tasks, maybe YaST could be a good start. I'm not use webmin, tried it some years ago and don't liked the idea, but could be useful for a lot of people too.
And about individual tools, well, bash, vi, perl, mc, awk, the gnu text/file/shell utilities (cat, grep, ls, cut, chmod, etc) are essential.
Last but not least, a "tool" is also something that help you to use what you have available already. Man pages, the HOWTO collection, a lot of O'Reilly books, and Google are examples of that kind of tools.
...when you have portaged the very latest version and compiled it from source for your processor and architecture... it still isn't configured.
...which I believe is what this poll is about. Top Ten Configuration Tools.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
vi for editing perl.
vi for adding perl scripts into crontab.
theres not much else to do
how boring it gets wading through all the posters trying to be clever..?
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
It's all about subversion . Quite mature - can import former CVS collections, too.
I would say that you're missing that fact you don't run X on a production server (at least...i don't)...
Seriously, you need to have a drive to constantly learn more. That's more valuable than any pre-written config tool out there.
I know that's not what you wanted; but it's really true. A desire to constantly increase your own knowledge is paramount.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Amen to that. Being responsible for the administration of about 10 linux boxes that each provide a unique variety of services, Webmin has been invaluable. If I didn't have Webmin, all of my tasks performed through the shell would take about 10 times longer than they currently do from a browser that can lay out my options much more nicely. The key is to know/learn how to do what you want to do from the shell first, so that you have the understanding (and for emergencies), but to then use Webmin to boost your efficiency and help remind you of things that a blank console doesn't.
Sorry, not trying to troll here, but X for what? I asume accessing the web interface can be done with [e]links/w3m/lynx. No, never tried, but the web pages don't look THAT advanced.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
> CVS + ssh keys = godlike.
Until someone steals your ssh key. Then they will be godlike too.
Sure, ssh keys are convenient, but they don't always replace passwords.
I'm Trappped at Berkeley.
1) Yast (I know it's SuSE centric, but it's being open sourced!)
2) OpenSSH... Oh yeah baby!
3) GCC and make... DUH!
4) FTP...I know I know SFTP if you prefer
5) Perl...YUM and even better with perl expect
6) Bash...we all need a CLI
7) Jumpstart...If you manage a lot of solaris boxes, this is your friend
8) Sendmail or postfix...pick your poison
9) nmap...oh yeah, let the Windows guys drool
10) Nagios...monitor that network in style!
GeneralKael -- Slacker Extraordinaire
Ask for the Top Ten tools, and most of your time spent reading the responses will be wasted, because of the overlap of the answers. If people list what they *genuinely* think are the Top Ten, there will be very few answers which are unusual or surprising (and still useful).
I think it would more useful to ask for the Top Ten MOST OVERLOOKED tools, or the most under-used, the most mis-used, or the ones whose full power is forgotten, unrecognized, or unused.
-
Task: Add this printer to 200 machines. You have 5 different un*xes (and different versions of each of those around).
- We need to change the sudo file on 200 servers.
- Update
/etc/mail/access on 6 machines in 4 locations (and 3 continents). Oh, we forgot this, do it again.
- Make sure $THIS is in the sybase's crontab on all the sybase server.
- Patch all the Solaris 7 machines with this new patch cluster. It's urgent. (and we have 50 of those machines scattered around the world).
- Change the (locally stored) root password on all the machines we take care of because X just got fired, but we couldn't tell you till now).
- Rebuild the 2 HA database servers (one at a time) and make sure they have the current patches and access to the new partitions on the SAN
vi! webmin. heh.no, nfs is not used
My partner took the Solaris Advanced Certification tests (someone else was paying and what the hell). She screwed up the parts about AdminTool. Someone who'd been using Unix since the 80s. She came home raging: AdminTool!! If I ever hired a senior admin and they kicked up admin tool, I'd fire them before the windows finished opening.
I find these single machine solutions quite quaint.
No, I'm delighted to have my cfengine scripts that go through /etc/ and make sure that inetd.conf is stripped, and that rpcbind and nfs aren't running on standalone servers and that the Right Stuff is in the Right Config files and that permissions are correct.
Best part is that I can run it again anytime later to redo that (or with '-n' to just show me what's changed).
And if it uses CVS to pull down $Today's configs, then so be it.
Seriously, that's the number one configuration tool you could possibly own. It always baffles me how many "Technology Coordinators" or other official IT guys know jack (or less!) about systems administration. These are the type of people you'd never consider giving root to on a server you administer. These are the type of people that don't understand why a server that's a month old would need to have patches and other updates done on any of the hundreds of packages that run on it. (I ran into this comment again just the other day by an "admin") Hands down the best tool available on the market today for Linux system configuration is a half-assed decent administrator. That's one area where you can't afford to be a cheapskate.
> A is for awk, which runs like a snail ;-)
Yeah, these days we use Perl for that stuff.
> B is for biff, which reads all your mail
Emacs/Gnus takes care of this, thanks. (Yeah, I know that's not really
what biff does, but hey, it's what the poem says.)
> C is for cc, as hackers recall
C is for nursing along old legacy code that hasn't had the good graces to be
rewritten in a real language yet; for new stuff we use high-level languages.
> D is for dd, the command that does all
I must admit that this one is still handy from time to time...
> E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys
Can't live without that...
> F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees
One word: journaling.
> G is for grep, a clever detective
I admit I still occasionally use this, but Perl's regexen are more powerful.
> H is for halt, which may seem defective
I usually use shutdown or init when I need to do hardware maintenance.
> I is for indent, which rarely amuses
Emacs does this automatically, of course. Has for years.
> J is for join, which nobody uses
Indeed, what does it even do? From a quick look at the man page, it looks
at first glance like a Perl one-liner, give or take a dozen strokes.
> K is for kill, which makes you the boss
I do still use this sometimes.
> L is for lex, which is missing from DOS
Isn't that one of those C things? Its days are numbered.
> M is for more, from which less was begot
With eshell (the Emacs shell), there's no need for a pager any longer.
This letter should now go to man, IMO.
> N is for nice, which really is not
Here's another one I must admit to using occasionally. Also renice.
> O is for od, which prints out things nice
I had to use man to even find out what this does, and then it turns out
to be something I'd almost never use, but if I did need that functionality,
I could do it in a Perl one-liner faster than look up the od manpage again.
> P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice
> Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable
Okay, those might still be relevant.
> R is for ranlib, for sorting a table
Definitely a Perl job, that.
> S is for spell, which attempts to belittle
Emacs has ispell/aspell integration these days.
> T is for true, which does very little
Indeed.
> U is for uniq, which is used after sort
Another thing we use Perl for in the modern era.
> V is for vi, which is hard to abort
If you really want vi (*WHY*?), Emacs has a version of it built in.
> W is for whoami, which tells you your name
If you need a program for that, commands aren't going to solve your problems.
> X is, well, X, of dubious fame
Emacs has better colors if you use X. 24-bit. Without it, 16 colors.
> Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and
I suppose...
> Z is for zcat, which handles compression
Most of us use either zip (or Archive::Zip) or gzip (or Zlib) for that now.
We'll say zip, because it starts with z and so won't screw up the poem any
worse than I already have
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.