Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin

> I currently administer 3 unix boxes.  We've recently merged and I find I
> now have 10-12 boxes plus other network devices to
> administer/monitor/manage.  I'm curious to know what other administrators
> do to easily manage large numbers of boxes?

> For example:
> How do you distribute patches between boxes

This really is something that I'm not comfortable doing automatically. I will push the patche clusters out using ssh or rdist, but I always run the installs directly (preferrably from console).

> Monitor logs

Centralized logging to a secured server that is only accessible via console and accepts it's logs via SSH tunnels (or better yet line printer).

> Monitor resource usage (RAM, CPU, Disk space etc.)

Big Brother and MRTG

> Audit the actions of assistant administrators and support staff

Sudo is probably the best way to handle this, though you need to get very paranoid about the sudoers file and you will need to get creative about the logging.

Fredrich P. Maney