Re: [seul-edu] Introduction and question

["Chris Shaw" <chrisjshaw@compuserve.com>]

I know very little about this issue but did come across some school related
project work at http://www.st-johns.org.uk/ to allow bulk admin of user
accounts.

Chris Shaw

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen C. Daukas" <stephen@daukas.com>
To: <seul-edu@seul.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 12:51 PM
Subject: Re: [seul-edu] Introduction and question


>
> At 11:35 PM 6/10/2002, Dave wrote:
> [snip]
> >One thing I haven't seen discussed is the
> >availability of management tools. Is there something
> >along the lines of Novell's zenworks to manage Linux
> >workstations. I use zenworks to install application
> >software, apply patches, change system settings etc on
> [snip]
>
> There are several answers to your question, depending on what linux
> distribution you are using.
> Of course, the real answer is that you need to understand what is going on
> under the hood because that is the only way you will be able to take on
> whatever comes your way.
>
> The search for a grand unified sysadmin tool for UNIX has been going on
for
> years (at least 20 that I'm familiar with).  None of the ones that have
> been put forth have obviated the need for knowing what config file does
> what and how.  HP, Sun, IBM, and with the latest UNIX variants known as
> Linux, RedHat, SuSE, etc., etc., have all introduced sysadmin tools for
the
> OS as well as some of the GNU tools out there.  Some of these tools are
> more perverse than others and some did a great job for some of the tasks,
> but there has never been one that did it all in a completely reliable
> way.  I'm most familiar with Red Hat and SuSE linux.  Redhat had
deprecated
> their admin tool known as linuxconf.  SuSE should probably do the same
with
> YAST.  (Neither of these tools will work with the other distro.)  The
> underlying issue here is that the way in which the config files are
> organized and named is different from distribution to distribution!  You
> have to know how each distribution organized the files system and whether
> it messed with the (de facto) UNIX conventions (e.g., the RC file
> structure) or not.
>
> As part of each distribution trying to differentiate themselves and gain
> market share, they have managed to perpetuate the same issues that plagued
> UNIX back in the 80's...  Each is different, each presents its own set of
> admin tools, and each has their following that will claim one is better
> than the other.  Short answer:  you will not find one tool that will allow
> you to completely manage a heterogeneous linux environment, at least not
> yet.  ;-)
>
> Having said all that, there are tools available that will help, but they
> may require you to run a service you had no plans to otherwise run.  Take
> for example, WebMin - a reasonably nice graphical admin tool that requires
> you to run a web server.  This handles many things reasonably well, but
> isn't perfect.   Then again, it may be "good enough" for what your
> situation requires on the Linux side of things.  There is also the option
> of running something like VNC that would give you a desktop for each
> machine you want to manage, including Windows.  This approach is similar
to
> an old-style way admins used to manage multiple UNIX workstations using
> telnet, but this adds an interesting level of complexity and requires
> constant care and feeding by a human.  Using any of these tools, however,
> will not help you when your systems gets tied-up in knots and the tool
> itself, can't seem to write a locked file, or claims it fixed the problem
> when it didn't, or stops working altogether for some unknown reason!
>
> Anyway, enough said. Good luck in your search.
>
> Steve
>