Monitoring/inventory client-server app

[Alec Taylor]

Maybe take a look outside python:

- Puppet

On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 3:49 PM, snorble <snorble at hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 17, 4:31 pm, Irmen de Jong <ir... at -NOSPAM-razorvine.net> wrote:
>> On 17-11-2011 5:17, snorble wrote:
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>> > I'm writing a tool for monitoring the workstations and servers in our
>> > office. I plan to have a server and a client service that runs on each
>> > workstation and reports back to the server (heartbeat, disk free
>> > space, etc).
>>
>> > So far I am considering XMLRPC, or a client service that just
>> > downloads a Python file and runs it.
>>
>> > With XMLRPC I don't know how to easily add features without having to
>> > update every client. Also while playing with XMLRPC I learned that
>> > when you run a registered function, it runs it on the server. I was
>> > hoping it would run on the client, so that when I get the machine's
>> > computer name (or disk space, etc) it will return the client's info.
>> > It seems with XMLRPC I would have to hard code the functionality into
>> > the client (i.e. client gets it's computer name, then calls the XMLRPC
>> > function to pass it to the server)? I was hoping it would work more
>> > like, "pass some code to the client to be run on the client, and
>> > report it to the server". Almost XMLRPC in the reverse direction.
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>> > With the download-and-run approach, it seems trivially easy to add new
>> > functionality to the clients. Just save the updated Python file to the
>> > server, and clients download it and run it.
>>
>> > Are there any standard approaches to problems like this that can be
>> > recommended? Thank you.
>>
>> The security implications are HUGE when you are thinking about
>> transferring and executing arbitrary code over the network. Avoid this
>> if at all possible. But if you can be 100% sure it's only trusted stuff,
>> things are not so grim.
>>
>> Have a look at Pyro, or even Pyro Flame:
>>
>> http://packages.python.org/Pyro4/http://packages.python.org/Pyro4/flame.html
>>
>> Flame allows for very easy remote module execution and a limited way of
>> transferring code to the 'other side'.
>>
>> Also what is wrong with running an XMLrpc server, or Pyro daemon, on
>> your client machines? This way your central computer can call registered
>> methods (or remote objects in case of Pyro) on the client and execute
>> code there (that reports all sorts of stuff you want to know). Or have
>> each client call into a central server, where it reports that stuff
>> itself. Many ways to skin a cat.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Irmen de Jong
>
> I'm thinking maybe the client service will have a small number of
> generic features, such as reading WMI and SNMP values. That way the
> server still dictates the work to be done (i.e. XMLRPC returns which
> WMI/SNMP values to query), and the client remains relatively focused
> and straightforward.
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