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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! :)
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
... 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.
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.
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.