PHP Automated Administrivia?

wikinerd asks: "I am sure all of you know what PHP is and many of you may even use it on your websites, like me. Some of you may have read a this article from Linux.com article that gives some examples on how to use PHP to automate your server administration tasks (or to say it with one word: administrivia). I wonder whether there are any Slashdot users that have already used PHP in their administrivia, and what the results are. Is PHP appropriate for this task? If you have written useful PHP scripts, would you consider to publish their source code here? I am sure that posting your scripts can be beneficial to many new (and old) admins, so let's share our work!"

Comments

Lots of things

[Nos.]

I've used PHP to handle a lot of things to automate things. I've written a few different backup and restore type utilities - one for a webhosting company that allowed customers to restore directories and/or files on the fly from a 5 day rotating backup. I've used it for fairly simple tasks as well, such as monitoring databases for new and/or strange entries. I'm currently using it to pull information from the gameport (well, actually a binary polls the gameport) that is hooked up to some sensors around the house. Its on its way to becoming a home security system.

PHP is not a bad scripting language, though it is mostly used for web backends. I think a lot of admins are still more comfortable using something like PERL for these kinds of tasks

I use it...

[saintp]

...quite a bit. I used to be a web programmer before I started sysadminning, so I'm still more comfortable in PHP than in Perl. Consequently, I use it especially for automating database management tasks; I just find those easier to write in PHP than in Perl. For most simple administrivia, I'll just bang out a quick Perl script, but for those areas where I think PHP is stronger -- such as DBA tasks -- I'll switch into it.