You're right, cfengine copy is a simpler solution for collecting files
to a central location than scp, but it does require that cfservd be
running on all the clients, something we don't do now. And it requires
that the datafile to be collected be generated by a process not coupled
with the collection process. I'm not very clear about remote methods,
but my thought was that they might be a way to connect to a remote
server, run commands there, and return data, all within cfengine, not
even necessarily involving file transfers.
I don't know about Tod's purposes, but I think Tim's comment about
updating a central database is really the right direction for what I had
in mind, which is to have a single location for a variety of info(system
stats, hardware info, installed packages/versions...). Cfengine could
distribute and run the script to do this, or a module could provide even
tighter coupling, to take advantage of defined classes, or to define
other classes...
thanks,
Ed
On Fri, 2004-10-22 at 00:44, Mark Burgess wrote:
I do not understand the logic of using scp here. copy is still
a better solution in that case. I am not sure why you need a remote
method here at all. If you are collecting a file and simply wwant
to copy it to a hostname dependenent place, but put the hostname
in the destination file?
control:
rhost = ( a:b:c )
copy:
/from dest=$(rhost)-copy server=$(rhost)
M
On Thu, Oct 21, 2004 at 04:21:48PM -0700, Tod Oace wrote:
On Oct 21, 2004, at 16:12, Ed Brown wrote:
I assume you are talking about 'remote methods'?
Yep!
There's not much info in the documentation about it yet, but it sure
sounds complex, if not to say convoluted.
Possibly. I don't have any opinion on that yet.
For one, I'm guessing it requires that cfservd be running everywhere.
I don't think so. If I understand it correctly the method call contacts
a cfservd which then runs cfagent, runs the method and then returns
results back to the caller. I just want to collect information on my
cfengine servers which are already running cfservd. I don't think the
method call tries to contact a cfservd on the client system.
I haven't tried the remote stuff yet. I'm just doing local calls while
I develop my module. And right now I'm trying to figure out why this
isn't matching infotype = syslog (to prevent "../filename"):
classes:
valid_infotype = ( Regcmp("^[A-Za-z0-9]*$","${infotype}") )
"^.*$" works but anything I try with "^[...]*$" doesn't. But...this is
a separate issue.
When I've considered data gathering schemes, I always end up back at
the idea of scp-ing info back to the server, or somewhere, an idea
with its own limitations and problems. I'd be interested in hearing
if you are able to use cfengine for this.
Yeah, I'll probably have to do that if I can't make remote methods
work. It still looks to me like it will, although I'm noticing ReadFile
produced a bunch of nul padding. So I'll have to figure that out too.
But aside from that I was able to copy up a file. Locally anyway. -Tod
-Ed
On Thu, 2004-10-21 at 16:02, Tod Oace wrote:
(Dang, I don't understand lists that don't set the reply-to field to
go
to the list. To me, that's the whole point of a list, the
discussion,
not to get private answers to questions, unless appropriate for some
reason...)
Oh, and that case here's my reply to the list:
From: Ed Brown <ebrown@lanl.gov>
Date: October 21, 2004 14:56:55 PDT
To: Tod Oace <tod.r.oace@intel.com>
Subject: Re: ${clientip} ?
Where I get stuck right away when considering something like this is
the
question of how to get information from the client to the server.
It's
backwards to the normal flow of cfengine. Did you already have a
mechanism for this in mind?
Yeah... A Cfengine method call. There's even an example in the
reference manual passing the first part of /etc/passwd:
http://www.cfengine.org/docs/cfengine-Reference.html#methods
search for: ReadFile("/etc/passwd"
So I *think* that takes care of the communication mechanism. I'm
toying
with it now. But I'm also thinking about the step after that. -Tod
-Ed
On Thu, 2004-10-21 at 15:41, Tod Oace wrote:
I'm hoping to create a method to collect small bits of information
from
systems onto my cfengine servers. It seems like this will work fine
but
I'd also like to prevent systems from being able to clobber each
others' bits of information.
I think what I want is to stash information into files named
.../somedirectory/${clientip}/${infotype} where ${infotype} comes
from
the client and ${clientip} is defined on the server end. But I'm
unable
to find a variable like ${clientip}. I see forcereplyto but that's
defined by the client.
I would like this in order to collect and analyze files before I put
them under central cfengine control. I don't really need information
sandboxes for that kind of temporary information, but there is some
other system information I would like to protectection for. Stuff
defined on the systems that I want persistent across system builds.
Any
ideas?
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--
Tod Oace, Intel Corporation <tod@intel.com>
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