Thanks. Your suggestion triggered an idea on how to do this. client-local.cfg supports backticks to run a program to generate a logfile name dynamically. So I'll try to make use of that and do something like this (haven't tested it yet):

Add to client-local.cfg

log:/path/to/the/program 2>&1 1>/path/to/the/logfile; echo /path/to/the/logfile

If this exact syntax won't work, it should be easy to use some similar concept. The built-in backtick processing of the log: directive being the key point.

Thanks!

From: Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 2:49 PM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

As far as I know there is no built-in functionality to dynamically execute remote scripts and get their output. Others may have better suggestions, but one way of doing it, is you could set the client-side script to be launched by the hobbit client every X minutes, (via clientlaunch.cfg). I'm not sure of the best way to get the script output back to the hobbit server though. I guess you could have the script output to a logfile , and then have the hobbit server monitor that log via the normal log monitoring mechanism . -Charles

Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote:

Is there a way to confgure a client, via client-local.cfg or

otherwise, to run some arbitrary command on the client and send it's stdout/stderr back to the hobbit server? I have a few simple shell scripts that exist on some clients that it would be nice to invoke and then read their results on the server end using the "$BBHOME/bin/bb localhost clientlog..." method. Similar to the way a "file:path_to_file" <file:path_to_file> directive will collect a file's metadata? I want something like "runprogram:path_to_program" I am doing this currently using a server-side script that ssh'es to the client machine and runs what it needs. I would rather have the normal Hobbit client collect the data output by the client-side program, upload that, and my server-side script would parse that resulting clientlog rather than going and collecting it's own data. If this is possible. Thanks!

Heh, I'm guessing Henrik included some sort of sanitizing of the log directive so that you couldn't do things like that.

Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote:

Hmmm... Didn't seem to like my first test attempt (see below).
Nothing showed up in my clientlog.

[skmsp01] file:/var/log/mail_statistics log:/var/adm/messages:10240 log:/tmp/dirMon.ksh 2>&1 >/tmp/dirMon.log; echo /tmp/dirMon.log

---

*From:* Haertig, David F (Dave) [mailto:haertig at avaya.com] *Sent:* Friday, June 08, 2007 3:13 PM *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk *Subject:* RE: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Thanks. Your suggestion triggered an idea on how to do this.
client-local.cfg supports backticks to run a program to generate a logfile name dynamically. So I'll try to make use of that and do something like this (haven't tested it yet):

Add to client-local.cfg

log:/path/to/the/program 2>&1 1>/path/to/the/logfile; echo /path/to/the/logfile

If this exact syntax won't work, it should be easy to use some similar concept. The built-in backtick processing of the log: directive being the key point.

Thanks!

---

*From:* Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] *Sent:* Friday, June 08, 2007 2:49 PM *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk *Subject:* Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

As far as I know there is no built-in functionality to dynamically execute remote scripts and get their output. Others may have better suggestions, but one way of doing it, is you could set the client-side script to be launched by the hobbit client every X minutes, (via clientlaunch.cfg). I'm not sure of the best way to get the script output back to the hobbit server though. I guess you could have the script output to a logfile , and then have the hobbit server monitor that log via the normal log monitoring mechanism . -Charles

Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote:

...

Is there a way to confgure a client, via client-local.cfg or otherwise, to run some arbitrary command on the client and send it's stdout/stderr back to the hobbit server? I have a few simple shell scripts that exist on some clients that it would be nice to invoke and then read their results on the server end using the "$BBHOME/bin/bb localhost clientlog..." method. Similar to the way a "file:path_to_file" directive will collect a file's metadata? I want something like "runprogram:path_to_program"

I am doing this currently using a server-side script that ssh'es to the client machine and runs what it needs. I would rather have the normal Hobbit client collect the data output by the client-side program, upload that, and my server-side script would parse that resulting clientlog rather than going and collecting it's own data.
If this is possible.

Thanks!

After even more testing, it only works SOMETIMES. :-(

The "logfile" section in the clientlog always shows the file with correct timestamps. But the "msgs" section only occassionally shows the contents of the file. Usually it doesn't. I verified the file is being created and has content (all ASCII text, about 300 bytes). I was logged into the server looking manually when the Hobbit client ran. The file was recreated with a new timestamp (the actual contents typically don't change - which is normal for what I'm monitoring here). Even though I see the file with new timestamps and valid contents, those contents don't always make it up to the Hobbit server, but the file's metadata always does.

Here's the entry from client-local.cfg that runs the script:

######################

[skmsp01] file:/var/log/mail_statistics log:/var/adm/messages:10240 log:`/home/a/prems/hobbit/helper_scripts/dirMon.ksh 2>&1

/tmp/dirMon.out; echo /tmp/dirMon.out`:1000

######################

And here's what shows up in the relevent sections of clientlog (the msgs section being blank):

###################### [msgs:/tmp/dirMon.out]

[logfile:/tmp/dirMon.out] type:100000 (file) mode:640 (-rw-r-----) linkcount:1 owner:14171 (prems) group:14171 (prems) size:302 clock:1181419858 (2007/06/09-14:10:58) atime:1181419858 (2007/06/09-14:10:58) ctime:1181419856 (2007/06/09-14:10:56) mtime:1181419856 (2007/06/09-14:10:56) ######################

Here's details on a typical /tmp/dirMon.out file:

######################

skmsp01 /tmp > ls -l /tmp/dirMon.out -rw-r----- 1 prems prems 302 Jun 9 14:20 /tmp/dirMon.out skmsp01 /tmp > cat /tmp/dirMon.out ReplicaDn Consumer Supplier Delay o=domain.com skmsp02.eng.domain.com:389 skmsp01.eng.domain.com:389 0 ReplicaDn Consumer Supplier Delay o=domain.com skmsp01.eng.domain.com:389 skmsp02.eng.domain.com:389 0 skmsp01 /tmp >

######################

The hobbit client runs as userid 'prems', so everything looks to have adequate permissions.

Any ideas on how to make this work reliably? I tried adding a 2 second sleep right before the echo in the log: entry in client-local.cfg. I didn't really expect that to help, and it didn't.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

From: Haertig, David F (Dave) [mailto:haertig at avaya.com] Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 6:36 PM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: RE: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Actually, on furhter testing, it DID work!

It just takes quite a while to show up. I run the client scripts on the standard 5 minute interval, so I gave it two cycles plus (about 12 minutes) during my testing - and nothing showed up in that interval. I walked away and about 25 minutes later came back and found my data in the clientlog. Yeah!

From: Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 3:45 PM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Heh, I'm guessing Henrik included some sort of sanitizing of the log directive so that you couldn't do things like that.

Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote:

Hmmm...  Didn't seem to like my first test attempt (see below).

Nothing showed up in my clientlog. [skmsp01] file:/var/log/mail_statistics log:/var/adm/messages:10240 log:/tmp/dirMon.ksh 2>&1 >/tmp/dirMon.log; echo /tmp/dirMon.log

From: Haertig, David F (Dave) [mailto:haertig at avaya.com] 
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 3:13 PM
To: hobbit at hswn.dk
Subject: RE: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the

client end?

Thanks.  Your suggestion triggered an idea on how to do this.

client-local.cfg supports backticks to run a program to generate a logfile name dynamically. So I'll try to make use of that and do something like this (haven't tested it yet): Add to client-local.cfg ================ log:/path/to/the/program 2>&1 1>/path/to/the/logfile; echo /path/to/the/logfile If this exact syntax won't work, it should be easy to use some similar concept. The built-in backtick processing of the log: directive being the key point. Thanks!

From: Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] 
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 2:49 PM
To: hobbit at hswn.dk
Subject: Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the

client end?

As far as I know there is no built-in functionality to

dynamically execute remote scripts and get their output. Others may have better suggestions, but one way of doing it, is you could set the client-side script to be launched by the hobbit client every X minutes, (via clientlaunch.cfg). I'm not sure of the best way to get the script output back to the hobbit server though. I guess you could have the script output to a logfile , and then have the hobbit server monitor that log via the normal log monitoring mechanism . -Charles

Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote: 

	Is there a way to confgure a client, via

client-local.cfg or otherwise, to run some arbitrary command on the client and send it's stdout/stderr back to the hobbit server? I have a few simple shell scripts that exist on some clients that it would be nice to invoke and then read their results on the server end using the "$BBHOME/bin/bb localhost clientlog..." method. Similar to the way a "file:path_to_file" <file:path_to_file> directive will collect a file's metadata? I want something like "runprogram:path_to_program" I am doing this currently using a server-side script that ssh'es to the client machine and runs what it needs. I would rather have the normal Hobbit client collect the data output by the client-side program, upload that, and my server-side script would parse that resulting clientlog rather than going and collecting it's own data. If this is possible. Thanks!

Thanks for that info. I'll try sticking the date in the logfile to give it unique contents, and see it that works.

log:date >/tmp/dirMon.out; /tmp/dirMon.ksh 2>&1 >>/tmp/dirMon.out; echo /tmp/dirMon.out:1000

p.s. - It looks like I'm trying to win "The best abuse of an unintended 'feature' award" with this hack. Wish me luck! ;-)

-----Original Message----- From: Rolf Schrittenlocher [mailto:Schrittenlocher at rz.uni-frankfurt.de] Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 12:06 AM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Hi Dave,

the problem is some kind of optimization in the LOG mechanism. It will only show changes (and present the output from your script only in such case). If there are no changes for - I think - 30 minutes, then nothing is presented. So either you have to modify your script in a way that the contents is identified as new by the LOG mechanism or you have to use it as external script. I took the second choice.

greetings Rolf

After even more testing, it only works SOMETIMES. :-(

The "logfile" section in the clientlog always shows the file with correct timestamps. But the "msgs" section only occassionally shows the contents of the file. Usually it doesn't. I verified the file is

being created and has content (all ASCII text, about 300 bytes). I was logged into the server looking manually when the Hobbit client ran. The file was recreated with a new timestamp (the actual contents

typically don't change - which is normal for what I'm monitoring here). Even though I see the file with new timestamps and valid contents, those contents don't always make it up to the Hobbit server,

but the file's metadata always does.

Here's the entry from client-local.cfg that runs the script:

######################

[skmsp01] file:/var/log/mail_statistics log:/var/adm/messages:10240 log:`/home/a/prems/hobbit/helper_scripts/dirMon.ksh 2>&1

...

/tmp/dirMon.out; echo /tmp/dirMon.out`:1000

######################

And here's what shows up in the relevent sections of clientlog (the msgs section being blank):

###################### [msgs:/tmp/dirMon.out]

[logfile:/tmp/dirMon.out] type:100000 (file) mode:640 (-rw-r-----) linkcount:1 owner:14171 (prems) group:14171 (prems) size:302 clock:1181419858 (2007/06/09-14:10:58) atime:1181419858 (2007/06/09-14:10:58) ctime:1181419856 (2007/06/09-14:10:56) mtime:1181419856 (2007/06/09-14:10:56) ######################

Here's details on a typical /tmp/dirMon.out file:

######################

skmsp01 /tmp > ls -l /tmp/dirMon.out -rw-r----- 1 prems prems 302 Jun 9 14:20 /tmp/dirMon.out skmsp01 /tmp > cat /tmp/dirMon.out ReplicaDn Consumer Supplier Delay o=domain.com skmsp02.eng.domain.com:389 skmsp01.eng.domain.com:389 0 ReplicaDn Consumer Supplier Delay o=domain.com skmsp01.eng.domain.com:389 skmsp02.eng.domain.com:389 0 skmsp01 /tmp >

######################

The hobbit client runs as userid 'prems', so everything looks to have adequate permissions.

Any ideas on how to make this work reliably? I tried adding a 2 second sleep right before the echo in the log: entry in client-local.cfg. I didn't really expect that to help, and it didn't.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

---

-- *From:* Haertig, David F (Dave) [mailto:haertig at avaya.com] *Sent:* Friday, June 08, 2007 6:36 PM *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk *Subject:* RE: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Actually, on furhter testing, it DID work!

It just takes quite a while to show up. I run the client scripts on the standard 5 minute interval, so I gave it two cycles plus (about 12 minutes) during my testing - and nothing showed up in that interval.
I walked away and about 25 minutes later came back and found my data in the clientlog. Yeah!

---

-- *From:* Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] *Sent:* Friday, June 08, 2007 3:45 PM *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk *Subject:* Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Heh, I'm guessing Henrik included some sort of sanitizing of the log directive so that you couldn't do things like that.

Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote:

...

Hmmm... Didn't seem to like my first test attempt (see below).
Nothing showed up in my clientlog.

[skmsp01] file:/var/log/mail_statistics log:/var/adm/messages:10240 log:/tmp/dirMon.ksh 2>&1 >/tmp/dirMon.log; echo /tmp/dirMon.log

---

---

*From:* Haertig, David F (Dave) [mailto:haertig at avaya.com] *Sent:* Friday, June 08, 2007 3:13 PM *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk *Subject:* RE: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Thanks. Your suggestion triggered an idea on how to do this.
client-local.cfg supports backticks to run a program to generate a logfile name dynamically. So I'll try to make use of that and do something like this (haven't tested it yet):

Add to client-local.cfg

log:/path/to/the/program 2>&1 1>/path/to/the/logfile; echo /path/to/the/logfile

If this exact syntax won't work, it should be easy to use some similar concept. The built-in backtick processing of the log: directive being the key point.

Thanks!

---

---

*From:* Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] *Sent:* Friday, June 08, 2007 2:49 PM *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk *Subject:* Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

As far as I know there is no built-in functionality to dynamically execute remote scripts and get their output. Others may have better suggestions, but one way of doing it, is you could set the client-side script to be launched by the hobbit client every X minutes, (via clientlaunch.cfg). I'm not sure of the best way to get the script output back to the hobbit server though. I guess you could

...

have the script output to a logfile , and then have the hobbit server

...

monitor that log via the normal log monitoring mechanism . -Charles

Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote:

...

Is there a way to confgure a client, via client-local.cfg or otherwise, to run some arbitrary command on the client and send it's

...

...

stdout/stderr back to the hobbit server? I have a few simple shell scripts that exist on some clients that it would be nice to invoke and then read their results on the server end using the "$BBHOME/bin/bb localhost clientlog..." method. Similar to the way a "file:path_to_file" directive will collect a file's metadata? I want something like "runprogram:path_to_program"

I am doing this currently using a server-side script that ssh'es to the client machine and runs what it needs. I would rather have the normal Hobbit client collect the data output by the client-side program, upload that, and my server-side script would parse that resulting clientlog rather than going and collecting it's own data. If this is possible.

Thanks!

-- Mit freundlichen Gruessen Rolf Schrittenlocher

HRZ/BDV, Senckenberganlage 31, 60054 Frankfurt Tel: (49) 69 - 798 28908 Fax: (49) 69 798 28817 LBS: lbs-f at mlist.uni-frankfurt.de Persoenlich: schritte at rz.uni-frankfurt.de

To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk

OK. I see the issue now. I perused through the source file logfetch.c and see that it seeks forward in the logfile based on saved positions from previous runs. So for a logfile that is static in size, after a few runs the client will always be seeking to the end of the logfile before reading. Therefore finding nothing. logfetch.c is not looking for the files contents to have changed, but for its length to have increased. That's my problem ... my logfiles length does not increase. Its contents are simply overwritten, usually with the exact same contents as before, so its length is fixed.

-----Original Message----- From: Haertig, David F (Dave) [mailto:haertig at avaya.com] Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 12:01 PM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: RE: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Unfortunately, this didn't work either. The logfile's contents are now changing on every invokation because I'm adding the date/time to the file, but it's still not being uploaded.

-----Original Message----- From: Haertig, David F (Dave) [mailto:haertig at avaya.com] Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 7:28 AM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: RE: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Thanks for that info. I'll try sticking the date in the logfile to give it unique contents, and see it that works.

log:date >/tmp/dirMon.out; /tmp/dirMon.ksh 2>&1 >>/tmp/dirMon.out; echo /tmp/dirMon.out:1000

p.s. - It looks like I'm trying to win "The best abuse of an unintended 'feature' award" with this hack. Wish me luck! ;-)

-----Original Message----- From: Rolf Schrittenlocher [mailto:Schrittenlocher at rz.uni-frankfurt.de] Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 12:06 AM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Hi Dave,

the problem is some kind of optimization in the LOG mechanism. It will only show changes (and present the output from your script only in such case). If there are no changes for - I think - 30 minutes, then nothing is presented. So either you have to modify your script in a way that the contents is identified as new by the LOG mechanism or you have to use it as external script. I took the second choice.

greetings Rolf

After even more testing, it only works SOMETIMES. :-(

The "logfile" section in the clientlog always shows the file with correct timestamps. But the "msgs" section only occassionally shows the contents of the file. Usually it doesn't. I verified the file is

being created and has content (all ASCII text, about 300 bytes). I was logged into the server looking manually when the Hobbit client ran. The file was recreated with a new timestamp (the actual contents

typically don't change - which is normal for what I'm monitoring here). Even though I see the file with new timestamps and valid contents, those contents don't always make it up to the Hobbit server,

but the file's metadata always does.

Here's the entry from client-local.cfg that runs the script:

######################

[skmsp01] file:/var/log/mail_statistics log:/var/adm/messages:10240 log:`/home/a/prems/hobbit/helper_scripts/dirMon.ksh 2>&1

...

/tmp/dirMon.out; echo /tmp/dirMon.out`:1000

######################

And here's what shows up in the relevent sections of clientlog (the msgs section being blank):

###################### [msgs:/tmp/dirMon.out]

[logfile:/tmp/dirMon.out] type:100000 (file) mode:640 (-rw-r-----) linkcount:1 owner:14171 (prems) group:14171 (prems) size:302 clock:1181419858 (2007/06/09-14:10:58) atime:1181419858 (2007/06/09-14:10:58) ctime:1181419856 (2007/06/09-14:10:56) mtime:1181419856 (2007/06/09-14:10:56) ######################

Here's details on a typical /tmp/dirMon.out file:

######################

skmsp01 /tmp > ls -l /tmp/dirMon.out -rw-r----- 1 prems prems 302 Jun 9 14:20 /tmp/dirMon.out skmsp01 /tmp > cat /tmp/dirMon.out ReplicaDn Consumer Supplier Delay o=domain.com skmsp02.eng.domain.com:389 skmsp01.eng.domain.com:389 0 ReplicaDn Consumer Supplier Delay o=domain.com skmsp01.eng.domain.com:389 skmsp02.eng.domain.com:389 0 skmsp01 /tmp >

######################

The hobbit client runs as userid 'prems', so everything looks to have adequate permissions.

Any ideas on how to make this work reliably? I tried adding a 2 second sleep right before the echo in the log: entry in client-local.cfg. I didn't really expect that to help, and it didn't.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

---

-- *From:* Haertig, David F (Dave) [mailto:haertig at avaya.com] *Sent:* Friday, June 08, 2007 6:36 PM *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk *Subject:* RE: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Actually, on furhter testing, it DID work!

It just takes quite a while to show up. I run the client scripts on the standard 5 minute interval, so I gave it two cycles plus (about 12 minutes) during my testing - and nothing showed up in that interval.
I walked away and about 25 minutes later came back and found my data in the clientlog. Yeah!

---

-- *From:* Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] *Sent:* Friday, June 08, 2007 3:45 PM *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk *Subject:* Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Heh, I'm guessing Henrik included some sort of sanitizing of the log directive so that you couldn't do things like that.

Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote:

...

Hmmm... Didn't seem to like my first test attempt (see below).
Nothing showed up in my clientlog.

[skmsp01] file:/var/log/mail_statistics log:/var/adm/messages:10240 log:/tmp/dirMon.ksh 2>&1 >/tmp/dirMon.log; echo /tmp/dirMon.log

---

---

*From:* Haertig, David F (Dave) [mailto:haertig at avaya.com] *Sent:* Friday, June 08, 2007 3:13 PM *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk *Subject:* RE: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Thanks. Your suggestion triggered an idea on how to do this.
client-local.cfg supports backticks to run a program to generate a logfile name dynamically. So I'll try to make use of that and do something like this (haven't tested it yet):

Add to client-local.cfg

log:/path/to/the/program 2>&1 1>/path/to/the/logfile; echo /path/to/the/logfile

If this exact syntax won't work, it should be easy to use some similar concept. The built-in backtick processing of the log: directive being the key point.

Thanks!

---

---

*From:* Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] *Sent:* Friday, June 08, 2007 2:49 PM *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk *Subject:* Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

As far as I know there is no built-in functionality to dynamically execute remote scripts and get their output. Others may have better suggestions, but one way of doing it, is you could set the client-side script to be launched by the hobbit client every X minutes, (via clientlaunch.cfg). I'm not sure of the best way to get the script output back to the hobbit server though. I guess you could

...

have the script output to a logfile , and then have the hobbit server

...

monitor that log via the normal log monitoring mechanism . -Charles

Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote:

...

Is there a way to confgure a client, via client-local.cfg or otherwise, to run some arbitrary command on the client and send it's

...

...

stdout/stderr back to the hobbit server? I have a few simple shell scripts that exist on some clients that it would be nice to invoke and then read their results on the server end using the "$BBHOME/bin/bb localhost clientlog..." method. Similar to the way a "file:path_to_file" directive will collect a file's metadata? I want something like "runprogram:path_to_program"

I am doing this currently using a server-side script that ssh'es to the client machine and runs what it needs. I would rather have the normal Hobbit client collect the data output by the client-side program, upload that, and my server-side script would parse that resulting clientlog rather than going and collecting it's own data. If this is possible.

Thanks!

-- Mit freundlichen Gruessen Rolf Schrittenlocher

HRZ/BDV, Senckenberganlage 31, 60054 Frankfurt Tel: (49) 69 - 798 28908 Fax: (49) 69 798 28817 LBS: lbs-f at mlist.uni-frankfurt.de Persoenlich: schritte at rz.uni-frankfurt.de

To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk

To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk

To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk

Would this new ADDON feature be configured at the server side or on each client?

I have a gut reaction against some other server being able to arbitrarily execute commands on my systems, but I know who runs our hobbit server. I am also against having to modify each hobbit client that I run if I come up with a new nifty ADDON. I have not looked into the update/upgrade mechanism since I know the hobbit-server admin, but is there some authentication of the updates/upgrades/new_ADDONs that can be done so that they only come from a trusted source?

/Thomas Kern /301-903-2211

-----Original Message----- From: henrik at hswn.dk [mailto:henrik at hswn.dk] Subject: Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

You're obviously doing your best to get that award. If you persist, I might even make it official :-)

The problem you're having is that Hobbit's log monitoring tries very hard to send only the new log entries across to the Hobbit server. So it stores the size that the logfile has from one client cycle to the next, and only the data that is appended is actually transferred.

So if you were continuously appending data to the logfile, it would probably work the way you wanted it to. I.e. you should have

log:`date >>/tmp/dirMon.out; ...

where you append data instead of truncating the dirMon.out file with each run of the client.

It's OK to truncate the file once in a while, as long as Hobbit can see that the new file is smaller than the old one it should work. My guess is that the file doesn't change in size from one cycle to the next, and then Hobbit considers it to be unchanged and doesn't send any data.

I suppose it might be an idea to have the possibility of having "add-on" modules to the Hobbit client, which you can control through the client-local.cfg file. So a new feature for the Hobbit client would be to support something like addon:/usr/local/bin/myHobbitAddon.sh:foo which would run the myHobbitAddon.sh script and put the output into a [foo] section in the client data. Does that sound ok ?

It doesn't matter to me if you add this new feature or not. It might be nice, but it's not a deal-breaker.

However, the ability to run arbitrary commands on the client as directed from the server end is already there. Via the backticks in the log directive. A new "addon" directive might make this easier to access an dgive it more visibility, but the ability to do remote damage already exists.

-----Original Message----- From: Henrik Stoerner [mailto:henrik at hswn.dk] Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 2:48 PM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

On Mon, Jun 11, 2007 at 04:22:08PM -0400, Kern, Thomas wrote:

Would this new ADDON feature be configured at the server side or on each client?

Server-side, in the client-local.cfg file.

I have a gut reaction against some other server being able to arbitrarily execute commands on my systems

I agree. When I wrote the client, I actually did think about doing something like this, but decided against it for that very reason.

And if you're the only one who wants it, then I'll probably NOT implement it.

but I know who runs our hobbit server. I am also against having to modify each hobbit client that I run if I come up with a new nifty ADDON. I have not looked into

the update/upgrade mechanism since I know the hobbit-server admin, but

is there some authentication of the updates/upgrades/new_ADDONs that can be done so that they only come from a trusted source?

Updates are only downloaded from the Hobbit server. But apart from that, there's no authentication of the new client code.

Regards, Henrik

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Thanks for the reply. Looks like my previous post and yours just crossed. as you were emaling, I was looking at logfetch.c and finding out for myself exactly what you it is you were saying.

"... addon ... Does that sound ok ?"

You don't have to add a new feature just for me! You do enough work on this fantastic product! (Do you ever sleep???!!!)

It might not be a terribly involved addition, I'd just hack into that existing logfetch.c code and dummy up the call that tells it to process the file from the beginning if the logfiles size has shrunk.

Thanks!

-----Original Message----- From: Henrik Stoerner [mailto:henrik at hswn.dk] Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 2:14 PM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

On Mon, Jun 11, 2007 at 07:28:21AM -0600, Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote:

Thanks for that info. I'll try sticking the date in the logfile to give it unique contents, and see it that works.

log:date >/tmp/dirMon.out; /tmp/dirMon.ksh 2>&1 >>/tmp/dirMon.out; echo /tmp/dirMon.out:1000

p.s. - It looks like I'm trying to win "The best abuse of an unintended 'feature' award" with this hack. Wish me luck! ;-)

You're obviously doing your best to get that award. If you persist, I might even make it official :-)

The problem you're having is that Hobbit's log monitoring tries very hard to send only the new log entries across to the Hobbit server. So it stores the size that the logfile has from one client cycle to the next, and only the data that is appended is actually transferred.

So if you were continuously appending data to the logfile, it would probably work the way you wanted it to. I.e. you should have

log:`date >>/tmp/dirMon.out; ...

where you append data instead of truncating the dirMon.out file with each run of the client.

It's OK to truncate the file once in a while, as long as Hobbit can see that the new file is smaller than the old one it should work. My guess is that the file doesn't change in size from one cycle to the next, and then Hobbit considers it to be unchanged and doesn't send any data.

I suppose it might be an idea to have the possibility of having "add-on" modules to the Hobbit client, which you can control through the client-local.cfg file. So a new feature for the Hobbit client would be to support something like addon:/usr/local/bin/myHobbitAddon.sh:foo which would run the myHobbitAddon.sh script and put the output into a [foo] section in the client data. Does that sound ok ?

Regards, Henrik

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