Re: Run Once

[Luke A. Kanies]

On Fri, 28 Feb 2003, Nathan Hubbard wrote:

> So, does anyone know of the easiest way to guarantee a task will run once?
> I'm looking to make sure every  machine runs a command one time...it
> doesn't matter when, just that it does it once.  Any ideas?

I've integrated ISconf with cfengine, which gives me this functionality.

ISconf basically sets up a sequence of commands to run, and then uses make
to ensure that those commands are only ever run once.  It doesn't use
convergence, and you're responsible (with some exceptions) for writing all
of the commands you want run, but it provides a simple way to set up
exactly what you want to run and where.

I set up host types in ISconf, and then I use a cfengine module to load
those types into cfengine.  This allows me to, say, set up an email server
using ISconf, and then have cfengine continually verify that all email
servers are running the correct process.

It's not quite as flexible as I would like, but I think it's a lot easier
to batch commands using ISconf than it is using cfengine.

You can get ISconf from http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/isconf.

Luke

-- 
"Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important
stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it."
                --Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel