1 Introduction
The Distributed Systems Administration Utilities provide several tools for simplifying the management of groups of systems and of Serviceguard clusters.
There are three utilities:
•Configuration Synchronization: - with this utility, based on the open source tool cfengine or “configuration engine,” the administrator can centrally define management actions to be applied to a set of managed systems. cfengine is a client/server based tool. The central configuration master system hosts the configuration description file that defines the management actions to be performed on each managed client. The configuration master also hosts the “golden image” files, which are master copies of files that are distributed to the clients. The administrator can use cfengine to perform tasks such as:
—Ensure that client systems are using a correct set of configuration files
—Disable inappropriately configured files on the client
—Check file permissions, ownership, and track checksum changes
—Perform edits to files
—Execute arbitrary shell commands on each client
—Check for processes, signal processes
A Configuration Synchronization Wizard is available to help the administrator quickly configure cfengine for managing a set of distributed systems or configuring it as a highly available service in a Serviceguard cluster. This wizard is described in Chapter 2:
“Configuration Synchronization” (page 13). For additional information, see the cfengine and csync_wizard manpages.
•Consolidated Logging: standard UNIX syslogd offers
The Configuration Synchronization Wizard helps to configure
—Easier log file analysis
A centralized log provides a single location for the administrator to perform log file analysis. It offers a single view of events that impact multiple systems.
The DSAU utilities are specifically designed to optimize this method for managing a Serviceguard cluster. Member syslogs and package logs can be centralized for simpler log file access and analysis. DSAU utilities also allow the cluster to offer a highly available consolidated logging service.
—Increased security
A security breach might compromise the local logs but not the centralized copy.
—Simplified archiving of logs
It is usually simpler to archive a set of centralized logs rather than
This wizard is described in Chapter 3: “Consolidated Logging” (page 41). For additional information, refer to the clog_wizard and
•Command fanout is based on the open source tool Parallel Distributed Shell (pdsh). pdsh enables the administrator to execute shell commands in parallel across a set of systems. It can use remsh or ssh as the network transports. The csshsetup tool is provided to simplify the distribution of ssh keys. The companion utility Parallel Distributed Copy (pdcp) enables
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