From what I can see, there is no "one right answer" to this problem...

Using cfengine/NFS/AFS are all good methods to deploy updates to remote clients. In these environments you also monitor cfengine/NFS/AFS since they are also critical in your infrastructure. Probably as critical as keeping DNS working.

Some sites do not allow NFS to be used though. Some sites do not have AFS/cfengine installed either.

Using ssh/scripting does work, but quickly becomes non-trivial to maintain.

Building SNMP support into core hobbit would be a good idea, it is also non trivial. Take a look at OpenNMS. From what I have seen it does the discovery and auto config very well. I have never looked at it's code though. It may be possible to rip a large chunk and put into hobbit, since they are both GPL.

Nagios does SNMP in a different fashion. It makes you test using the OID string. It seems to work well for nagios users.

Instead of writing a hobbit client from scratch, it may be worth looking at modifying the Nagios client. The unix version has been ported to run on windows. It would be "very cool" if hobbit accepted clients from both BB and Nagios... (Can you say "scope creep"?)

Nagios clients sit on the local client, but do not do anything until contacted by the server and asked for information. A variation on both BB and bb-central.

bb-xsnmp.pl is a good tool. It does have some problems, but it certainly has potential.

As for next development effort, my vote is also for a Hobbit client (that in some way sits locally on each client).

Craig Cook

Systems Monitoring Consulting and Support Services http://www.cookitservices.com