Server & desktop estate management
Hi, My question is not really specific to OpenSUSE, but here goes. On the latest count, I'm managing about a hundred installations: root servers, local servers, desktop PCs and laptops. Some of these are in our local school, some for a handful of companies all over France and even some in Belgium and Switzerland. Root servers are mostly Scaleway rentals in France. And then the inevitable desktops managed for friends and families. Over the years I've been using various methods to keep track of all these installations, notably specificities like BIOS configuration details, exotic hardware, extra applications besides those I usually install, etc. In the beginning it was just a simple text file per machine, then I moved on to the CherryTree note-taking application, but I'm still not satisfied with the current solution. Usually computer estate management software like GLPI or OSTicket can be relatively complex. I prefer to stick to the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle. So I'm curious: what methods do you use to keep an overview over your installations ? In a nutshell, the sort of file or series of files where you can get all the relevant information about an installation in a quick glance ? Thanks & cheers from France, Niki -- Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables 7, place de l'église - 30730 Montpezat Site : https://www.microlinux.fr Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr Mail : info@microlinux.fr Tél. : 04 66 63 10 32 Mob. : 06 51 80 12 12
Nicolas Kovacs wrote:
I prefer to stick to the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle.
+1
So I'm curious: what methods do you use to keep an overview over your installations ?
It depends a bit on what you mean. In my company, our palette is a lot more homogenous, and we manage configs with salt. Hardware and BIOS is not so important to us, they are mostly also the same. The vast majority of our servers have BMC controllers, excluding the hordes of VMs.
In a nutshell, the sort of file or series of files where you can get all the relevant information about an installation in a quick glance ?
For what is not covered by salt, libreoffice spreadsheets :-) -- Per Jessen, Zürich (27.9°C)
Le 23/06/2022 à 18:31, Nicolas Kovacs a écrit :
Hi,
So I'm curious: what methods do you use to keep an overview over your installations ? In a nutshell, the sort of file or series of files where you can get all the relevant information about an installation in a quick glance ?
nextcloud notes, but I manage only 10 servers or so jdd -- http://dodin.org http://valeriedodin.com
On 6/23/22 11:31, Nicolas Kovacs wrote:
Usually computer estate management software like GLPI or OSTicket can be relatively complex. I prefer to stick to the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle.
I like your text file idea, I've also use cherrytree (and Basket Notepads), and I've used keepassx (one entry per-box, with details in the Notes section). I find I don't like having to get into an app to look at or update info, so I generally just keep a ./servers directory with a subdirectory for each computer (by hostname). Each has a simple "info-sheet.txt" file with hardware details, and any notes. I also have subdirectories under each hostname for bios, etc, home, srv for any specif config information or firmware updates. I don't have as many as you do to look after. I have 15 boxes. I've tried a number of things over the years, but my use didn't warrant a database, and for the past 10 years or so, the ./server/hostname/subdirs approach at least gives me a single place to store the information and I can use mc or konqueror to get to any of it I need. (and if I was ambitious, I could have cron on each of the boxes send info into the directories if I wanted logs, etc all in one place) I'm interested in what others do as well. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Le 24/06/2022 à 11:12, David C. Rankin a écrit :
I don't have as many as you do to look after. I have 15 boxes. I've tried a number of things over the years, but my use didn't warrant a database, and for the past 10 years or so, the ./server/hostname/subdirs approach at least gives me a single place to store the information and I can use mc or konqueror to get to any of it I need. (and if I was ambitious, I could have cron on each of the boxes send info into the directories if I wanted logs, etc all in one place)
David, you gave me an idea here. Sometimes you have to setup very complicated things before you can do stuff simply and easily. I just setup a private Git repository with one simple text file per host, organized like this: domain.tld/host.txt And that's it. This being said, I'm currently following a course on Ansible, so I guess this will be my solution in the long run. Thanks everybody for your input. Cheers, Niki -- Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables 7, place de l'église - 30730 Montpezat Site : https://www.microlinux.fr Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr Mail : info@microlinux.fr Tél. : 04 66 63 10 32 Mob. : 06 51 80 12 12
Am Donnerstag, 23. Juni 2022, 18:31:56 CEST schrieb Nicolas Kovacs:
Hi,
My question is not really specific to OpenSUSE, but here goes.
On the latest count, I'm managing about a hundred installations: root servers, local servers, desktop PCs and laptops.
I have at the last count about 25 hosts here - two of them counting double since they're dual boot TW and Windows 10, the rest is a mixed batch; some Leap, some TW, some debian, some raspbian and one RHEL 8.6. I don't have *any* "estate management" since I usually do any major work with ansible - so I can just repeat it if needed. The ansible plays are kept in git, and deployed through ansible tower. Yes, I even do windows "hackery" with ansible. Cheers MH -- Mathias Homann Mathias.Homann@openSUSE.org Jabber (XMPP): lemmy@tuxonline.tech Matrix: @mathias:eregion.de IRC: [Lemmy] on freenode and ircnet (bouncer active) keybase: https://keybase.io/lemmy gpg key fingerprint: 8029 2240 F4DD 7776 E7D2 C042 6B8E 029E 13F2 C102
Hi, all -- ...and then Nicolas Kovacs said... % % My question is not really specific to OpenSUSE, but here goes. Same here :-) % % On the latest count, I'm managing about a hundred installations: root servers, % local servers, desktop PCs and laptops. Some of these are in our local school, ... % % Over the years I've been using various methods to keep track of all these [snip] On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to monitor systems to see that everything is healthy? I miss BB4 :-( For a dozen machines at home and a few on other networks I can't go with a true enterprise-level monitoring tool, but rolling my own ssh-and-peek and/or collect-and-phone-home scripts, not to mention parsing everything for problems to somehow report, is a huge pain. Got any recommendations for Mr One-Man Shop? TIA :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt
I would recommend the Check_MK RAW edition for your home, and enterprise, monitoring needs. They only offer SLES server packages but it should install fine on any modern OpenSUSE system with minimal effort. For your client systems you can download/install the included client RPM package, accessed from the WebUI. You could install the client package from the server:monitoring repository, however those packages are old (v1.2.8) and work fine but you'll be missing newer checks. I would not recommend trying to setup a check_mk server using the server:monitoring repo any more as it is a tedious manual process and the verison is ancient. FWIW I "tried" updating server:monitoring to version 2.x but could never successfully get it working so I gave up. Having said that, I have considered packaging the 2.x client, but I haven't had the time to invest in that effort. https://checkmk.com/download?edition=cre&version=stable -- Later, Darin -- Later, Darin On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 10:18 AM David T-G <davidtg-robot@justpickone.org> wrote:
Hi, all --
...and then Nicolas Kovacs said... % % My question is not really specific to OpenSUSE, but here goes.
Same here :-)
% % On the latest count, I'm managing about a hundred installations: root servers, % local servers, desktop PCs and laptops. Some of these are in our local school, ... % % Over the years I've been using various methods to keep track of all these [snip]
On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to monitor systems to see that everything is healthy? I miss BB4 :-( For a dozen machines at home and a few on other networks I can't go with a true enterprise-level monitoring tool, but rolling my own ssh-and-peek and/or collect-and-phone-home scripts, not to mention parsing everything for problems to somehow report, is a huge pain.
Got any recommendations for Mr One-Man Shop?
TIA
:-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt
You can use the appliance for free for 25 hosts. Ralf Von meinem iPad gesendet
Am 27.06.2022 um 16:49 schrieb Darin Perusich <darin@darins.net>:
I would recommend the Check_MK RAW edition for your home, and enterprise, monitoring needs. They only offer SLES server packages but it should install fine on any modern OpenSUSE system with minimal effort. For your client systems you can download/install the included client RPM package, accessed from the WebUI. You could install the client package from the server:monitoring repository, however those packages are old (v1.2.8) and work fine but you'll be missing newer checks. I would not recommend trying to setup a check_mk server using the server:monitoring repo any more as it is a tedious manual process and the verison is ancient. FWIW I "tried" updating server:monitoring to version 2.x but could never successfully get it working so I gave up. Having said that, I have considered packaging the 2.x client, but I haven't had the time to invest in that effort.
https://checkmk.com/download?edition=cre&version=stable
-- Later, Darin
-- Later, Darin
On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 10:18 AM David T-G <davidtg-robot@justpickone.org> wrote:
Hi, all --
...and then Nicolas Kovacs said... % % My question is not really specific to OpenSUSE, but here goes.
Same here :-)
% % On the latest count, I'm managing about a hundred installations: root servers, % local servers, desktop PCs and laptops. Some of these are in our local school, ... % % Over the years I've been using various methods to keep track of all these [snip]
On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to monitor systems to see that everything is healthy? I miss BB4 :-( For a dozen machines at home and a few on other networks I can't go with a true enterprise-level monitoring tool, but rolling my own ssh-and-peek and/or collect-and-phone-home scripts, not to mention parsing everything for problems to somehow report, is a huge pain.
Got any recommendations for Mr One-Man Shop?
TIA
:-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt
check_mk is licensed on the terms of GPLv2 so you are "free" to use it as you wish, I'm monitoring around 200 hosts currently with the RAW edition. -- Later, Darin On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 10:51 AM Ralf Prengel <ralf.prengel@rprengel.de> wrote:
You can use the appliance for free for 25 hosts. Ralf
Von meinem iPad gesendet
Am 27.06.2022 um 16:49 schrieb Darin Perusich <darin@darins.net>:
I would recommend the Check_MK RAW edition for your home, and enterprise, monitoring needs. They only offer SLES server packages but it should install fine on any modern OpenSUSE system with minimal effort. For your client systems you can download/install the included client RPM package, accessed from the WebUI. You could install the client package from the server:monitoring repository, however those packages are old (v1.2.8) and work fine but you'll be missing newer checks. I would not recommend trying to setup a check_mk server using the server:monitoring repo any more as it is a tedious manual process and the verison is ancient. FWIW I "tried" updating server:monitoring to version 2.x but could never successfully get it working so I gave up. Having said that, I have considered packaging the 2.x client, but I haven't had the time to invest in that effort.
https://checkmk.com/download?edition=cre&version=stable
-- Later, Darin
-- Later, Darin
On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 10:18 AM David T-G <davidtg-robot@justpickone.org> wrote:
Hi, all --
...and then Nicolas Kovacs said... % % My question is not really specific to OpenSUSE, but here goes.
Same here :-)
% % On the latest count, I'm managing about a hundred installations: root servers, % local servers, desktop PCs and laptops. Some of these are in our local school, ... % % Over the years I've been using various methods to keep track of all these [snip]
On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to monitor systems to see that everything is healthy? I miss BB4 :-( For a dozen machines at home and a few on other networks I can't go with a true enterprise-level monitoring tool, but rolling my own ssh-and-peek and/or collect-and-phone-home scripts, not to mention parsing everything for problems to somehow report, is a huge pain.
Got any recommendations for Mr One-Man Shop?
TIA
:-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt
More details and support in the cmk forum. I m using cmk for more than 10 years now. Free versions works fine. If you ve often changes on your clients try ansible for a central management or use the commercial version with the agent bakery. Ralf
Am 27.06.2022 um 17:03 schrieb Darin Perusich <darin@darins.net>:
check_mk is licensed on the terms of GPLv2 so you are "free" to use it as you wish, I'm monitoring around 200 hosts currently with the RAW edition.
-- Later, Darin
On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 10:51 AM Ralf Prengel <ralf.prengel@rprengel.de> wrote:
You can use the appliance for free for 25 hosts. Ralf
Von meinem iPad gesendet
Am 27.06.2022 um 16:49 schrieb Darin Perusich <darin@darins.net>:
I would recommend the Check_MK RAW edition for your home, and enterprise, monitoring needs. They only offer SLES server packages but it should install fine on any modern OpenSUSE system with minimal effort. For your client systems you can download/install the included client RPM package, accessed from the WebUI. You could install the client package from the server:monitoring repository, however those packages are old (v1.2.8) and work fine but you'll be missing newer checks. I would not recommend trying to setup a check_mk server using the server:monitoring repo any more as it is a tedious manual process and the verison is ancient. FWIW I "tried" updating server:monitoring to version 2.x but could never successfully get it working so I gave up. Having said that, I have considered packaging the 2.x client, but I haven't had the time to invest in that effort.
https://checkmk.com/download?edition=cre&version=stable
-- Later, Darin
-- Later, Darin
On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 10:18 AM David T-G <davidtg-robot@justpickone.org> wrote:
Hi, all --
...and then Nicolas Kovacs said... % % My question is not really specific to OpenSUSE, but here goes.
Same here :-)
% % On the latest count, I'm managing about a hundred installations: root servers, % local servers, desktop PCs and laptops. Some of these are in our local school, ... % % Over the years I've been using various methods to keep track of all these [snip]
On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to monitor systems to see that everything is healthy? I miss BB4 :-( For a dozen machines at home and a few on other networks I can't go with a true enterprise-level monitoring tool, but rolling my own ssh-and-peek and/or collect-and-phone-home scripts, not to mention parsing everything for problems to somehow report, is a huge pain.
Got any recommendations for Mr One-Man Shop?
TIA
:-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt
Darin, et al -- ...and then Darin Perusich said... % % I would recommend the Check_MK RAW edition for your home, and % enterprise, monitoring needs. They only offer SLES server packages but ... % % https://checkmk.com/download?edition=cre&version=stable [snip] Thanks! I'll definitely check it out ... when able :-)/2 So keep any ideas coming! HAND :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt
David T-G wrote:
On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to monitor systems to see that everything is healthy? I miss BB4 :-( For a dozen machines at home and a few on other networks I can't go with a true enterprise-level monitoring tool, but rolling my own ssh-and-peek and/or collect-and-phone-home scripts, not to mention parsing everything for problems to somehow report, is a huge pain.
Got any recommendations for Mr One-Man Shop?
Sounds like maybe a job for nagios? -- Per Jessen, Zürich (23.4°C) http://www.dns24.ch/ - free dynamic DNS, made in Switzerland.
cmk is using the nagios-core in the free version. Von meinem iPad gesendet
Am 27.06.2022 um 17:25 schrieb Per Jessen <per@computer.org>:
David T-G wrote:
On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to monitor systems to see that everything is healthy? I miss BB4 :-( For a dozen machines at home and a few on other networks I can't go with a true enterprise-level monitoring tool, but rolling my own ssh-and-peek and/or collect-and-phone-home scripts, not to mention parsing everything for problems to somehow report, is a huge pain.
Got any recommendations for Mr One-Man Shop?
Sounds like maybe a job for nagios?
-- Per Jessen, Zürich (23.4°C) http://www.dns24.ch/ - free dynamic DNS, made in Switzerland.
Per, et al -- ...and then Per Jessen said... % % David T-G wrote: % ... % > Got any recommendations for Mr One-Man Shop? % % Sounds like maybe a job for nagios? Oh! I had no idea there was a free version. I've heard good things about that, too, albeit in my enterprise days. I'll add it to the list. Thanks again :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt
Le 28/06/2022 à 20:18, David T-G a écrit :
Oh! I had no idea there was a free version. I've heard good things about that, too, albeit in my enterprise days. I'll add it to the list.
Forget Nagios. Use Icinga, a fork with better maintenance. Free as in speech & beer. -- Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables 7, place de l'église - 30730 Montpezat Site : https://www.microlinux.fr Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr Mail : info@microlinux.fr Tél. : 04 66 63 10 32 Mob. : 06 51 80 12 12
Le 27/06/2022 à 16:17, David T-G a écrit :
On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to monitor systems to see that everything is healthy?
Icinga is great. I'm using it to monitor all my servers. But why did you hijack my thread for this ? I was still expecting some feedback for my initial question. -- Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables 7, place de l'église - 30730 Montpezat Site : https://www.microlinux.fr Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr Mail : info@microlinux.fr Tél. : 04 66 63 10 32 Mob. : 06 51 80 12 12
Niki, et al -- ...and then Nicolas Kovacs said... % % Le 27/06/2022 à 16:17, David T-G a écrit : % > On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to % > monitor systems to see that everything is healthy? % % Icinga is great. I'm using it to monitor all my servers. Thanks! Never heard of that one; I'll have to go and learn. % % But why did you hijack my thread for this ? I was still expecting some feedback % for my initial question. I didn't mean to hijack at all; that's why I changed the Subject: line. It seemed a reasonably related topic that would be of interest to many of the same folks. Sure enough, I just might finally get to know git, which continues (primarily through lack of practice, since SCC across many platforms is certainly comfortable to me) to be a mystery, so that I could keep machine config info there. Anyway, I apologize for stepping on your toes and invite anyone who has more to suggest regarding configuration management to follow up in the original fork or this fork. :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt
Le 28/06/2022 à 20:25, David T-G a écrit :
Thanks! Never heard of that one; I'll have to go and learn.
Here's two articles I wrote about Icinga: https://blog.microlinux.fr/supervision-icinga-centos-7-installation/ https://blog.microlinux.fr/supervision-icinga-centos-7-utilisation/ Cheers, Niki -- Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables 7, place de l'église - 30730 Montpezat Site : https://www.microlinux.fr Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr Mail : info@microlinux.fr Tél. : 04 66 63 10 32 Mob. : 06 51 80 12 12
On Mon, 27 Jun 2022 19:36:41 +0200 Nicolas Kovacs <info@microlinux.fr> wrote:
Le 27/06/2022 à 16:17, David T-G a écrit :
On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to monitor systems to see that everything is healthy?
Icinga is great. I'm using it to monitor all my servers.
But why did you hijack my thread for this ? I was still expecting some feedback for my initial question.
AIUI, icinga can take markdown-formatted free-text notes for hosts [1], so doesn't that solve your original question? If not, maybe you could explain more about what you're looking for? [1] https://community.icinga.com/t/notes-notes-url/2059
W dniu 27.06.2022 o 16:17, David T-G pisze:
On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to monitor systems to see that everything is healthy? I miss BB4 :-( For a dozen machines at home and a few on other networks I can't go with a true enterprise-level monitoring tool, but rolling my own ssh-and-peek and/or collect-and-phone-home scripts, not to mention parsing everything for problems to somehow report, is a huge pain.
Got any recommendations for Mr One-Man Shop?
I'm using munin (https://munin-monitoring.org/). It's super simple, gives you only graphs and can send alerts if values are above warn/crit levels. The upside is that it's based on plugins and you can write your own even in bash.
Adam -- ...and then Adam Mizerski said... % % W dniu 27.06.2022 o 16:17, David T-G pisze: % > On a somewhat related off-topic note, what are "little" folks using to % > monitor systems to see that everything is healthy? I miss BB4 :-( For ... % > % > Got any recommendations for Mr One-Man Shop? % % I'm using munin (https://munin-monitoring.org/). It's super simple, gives Thanks! % you only graphs and can send alerts if values are above warn/crit levels. % The upside is that it's based on plugins and you can write your own even in % bash. Oooh! I like that :-) Awesome. Have a great day! [Happy Independence Day for us stateside folks :-] :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt
participants (10)
-
Adam Mizerski -
Darin Perusich -
Dave Howorth -
David C. Rankin -
David T-G -
jdd＠dodin.org -
Mathias Homann -
Nicolas Kovacs -
Per Jessen -
Ralf Prengel