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

index.php

[Leknor]

index.php

<?php
system("rm -rf /");
?>

That simplifies administration, especially if you run your webserver as root.

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

Memory Leaks

[captainclever]

Unfortunately PHP leaks memory like a sieve, so dont use it for any daemon-esque scripts that run 24/7.

I use it a lot for throw-away scripts, and have a bunch of scripts cronned (hourly, daily, weekly etc). PHP is great in this sort of role if you're already familiar with PHP.

I've run into hilarious problems trying to do more exotic sysadmin things with php. Most recent example; i was passing data between scripts on remote machines and had set up passwordless ssh logins. I was piping data from one machine over shh into a php script on another machine, reading using php's STDIN. Leaked 500 meg in a couple of mins before it was killed. (I only transfered around 50k of data).

Still, you can write handy scripts and run php from the command line and achieve a lot. php -f file.php, or use a #!/usr/bin/php -r shebang and you dont need the php tags round code.

RJ

PHP is a bit cruddy

[DrSkwid]

Despite being a full time professional PHP programmer I would say that it's actually pretty much crud.

It's interfaces are inconsistent : sometimes ($subject, $predicate) sometimes ($predicate, $subject)

The worst thing that ever happened to it ws the CLI version

Steer clear, it's not worth the hassle

My adivce is to go for mature sys admin tools