[Wolves] Software management on networks

[David Goodwin]

Stuart Langridge wrote:
>>I'm not claiming to know all issues that ZENworks addresses, however
>>from a software distribution aspect, you just need a number of Debian
>>repositories; customised /etc/apt/sources.list on individual PCs (this
>>assumes PCs can be grouped together in classes) and the ability to login
>>remotely via ssh in an automated manner.

<snip>

> Step 3 is clearly the hard one. How do you allow "the ability to login
> remotely via ssh in an automated manner" without giving all the
> machines the same root password or recording all the root passwords in
> the Master Machine r00table List?

ssh public key authentication.

Secure (!) central server which can log into the remote machines using 
public key encryption (hence scriptable etc). Works very well. See also 
clusterssh.


 > Moreover, how do you know a machine
> is turned on?

How would you ever? Try and reach it to do something, and if you can't.. 
try again in X minutes. If it's turned off then it can't be causing 
much(!!) trouble.


David.
-- 
David Goodwin
w: http://www.clocksoft.co.uk
e: david.goodwin at clocksoft.com
t: 0121 313 3850