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So we have a decent number for cloud servers that are on Rackspace (numerous) accounts. I'm looking for a solution to the - What's on that server? Where is that server? How do I get to that server?

I know I could whip out a nice spreadsheet of everything (IP's, passwords, what sites/apps are running, host provider, OS, etc) but I'm wondering if there is a SaaS or OSS tool out there that I can just plug in my user credentials and use that to audit/manage my systems.

Think RightScale or Zenoss I think. I'm testing out Rightscale and don't think it's the solution. Not sure about Zenoss though.

How do you all manage and audit your multiple systems/accounts/information?

Valien
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    Why does it matter that they're "cloud" servers? – Michael Hampton Jan 08 '14 at 21:17
  • This seems less about auditing and more about documenting. There are quite a few questions about documenting your network on here. Would provide links if I was at my PC. – Grant Jan 08 '14 at 21:32
  • Well, it can apply to a physical server as well. All the servers I'm interested in auditing/documenting are "cloud" servers. Either on Rackspace (OpenCloud) or Terremark (VMWare) – Valien Jan 08 '14 at 22:03

1 Answers1

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I would use configuration management tools for this. You need something that will enable you to keep tabs on your machines AND allow for greater automation (spend less time at the console, more time doing things you need to do).

Salt

Unless this is auditing servers that have be completely separated (separate accounts), for your use case I would use SaltStack. It lets you also perform remote execution across all your servers. This enables you to query to find out specific information about servers, install new software, and perform all sorts of management tasks remotely and in automation.

Once you get setup and you have a salt master connected to all the machines you're working with, it's easy to perform commands across your minions.

# List the authorized keys for root across all nodes
salt '*' ssh.auth_keys root

# Install vim on all qa nodes
salt '*qa*' pkg.install vim

# Get information about the network interfaces from each of the MySQL nodes
salt '*mysql*' network.interfaces
Kyle Kelley
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