crypix has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

This is more of an advice/feedback question. I would love to get advice for these tasks from the monks at the Monastery.
Enough with that , here is the problem at hand

Problem At Hand:

I need to deploy a linux client app to all of my Red Hat boxses (around 30 servers). All of the servers a running
OpenSSH and my workstations is a Windows XP box. I am writing a perl script that will push out all of the client applications, either in .tgz or rpm format.
I have been experiencing problems with the Net::SSH module (connecting to the servers) and and I sure after some more tickering I will get the problem solved.
My first question is, does anybody know of better way of approaching this task? Maybe a better module , or a way that would also monitor if the client install was sucessful.

Second idea:

I would also like to write a script that could do this with windows servers as well as linux server.

I am not asking for any fully scripted solutions, but just some feedback from some of the great perl minds in the monastery. Maybe suggested modules..etc... Any help or suggestion would be much appreciated

I guess you could call this a brainstorming request....

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Deploying Apps Remotely
by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Mar 07, 2005 at 03:19 UTC

    One way to distribute and install an rpm is this:

    1. Place the rpm file on a local http or ftp server, distserver, say.
    2. In whatever wrappings are convinient, iterate ssh -2 root@${server} rpm -U http://distserver/rpms/foo-3.14-1.i686.rpm over all the servers you want to install on.

    That can be done in perl or with shell scripting. Since you are on a windows box, perl would be much easier.

    It seems odd to me that you would administer all those lovely linux boxen from win32 ;-)

    After Compline,
    Zaxo

[reply]
[d/l]
      "It seems odd to me that you would administer all those lovely linux boxen from win32 ;-)"

      hahaha.. I am working on that problem now. I have to deal with
      with our layout as-is. But management has promised me a second machine for "linux managment" :}. Your idea works great for rpms and I actually use it right now for scripting RPM installs.
[reply]
Re: Deploying Apps Remotely
by eXile (Priest) on Mar 07, 2005 at 03:44 UTC
[reply]
      Perfect.... that was exactly the type of thing I was looking for. Thanks eXile

      ~crypix
[reply]
Re: Deploying Apps Remotely
by Anonymous Monk on Mar 07, 2005 at 11:43 UTC
    Wasn't this discussed only a few days ago? Anyway, my preference would go to installing your application once, and sharing it using NFS (or something similar, like Samba).
[reply]
      That is definetly something to look at. But I would have to make a good bit of tweaks. But what the hay,, I give it a shot. Thanks

      ~crypix
[reply]

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