DPythOS 0.0 released
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
when Python 2.0 was in beta :) ]
Title:
DPythOS - Data, or Distributed, Python OS.
Version:
0.0
Description:
DPythOS provides the means to monitor and manage
network hosts and services.
Unlike most monitoring packages, DPythOS provides
administrators with a way to _correct_ problems
if they occur, and to notify them if that also
fails.
Download:
http://sf.net/projects/dpythos
Details:
DPythOS scripts are run in restricted and minimally
extended python environment. Scripts can be run or
scheduled from the command-line, and also scheduled
from a [very basic!] HTML interface.
Scheduled scripts are run priority-based on a per-host
basis, with the maximum number of simultaneous scripts
being run by the monitor daemon (monitord.py) limited
in a config file option.
DPythOS runs [at present] a telnet, or ssh, or HTTP
connection to a remote host. Data can be sent
down the connection, and the results received and
acted on.
Implementation Fun And Games:
people really interested in what kind of weird uhh...
stuff... can be done with Python will be intrigued to
know that DPythOS does the following:
- uses the newly introduced BaseServer in SocketServer.py
to create a SQL database server "thing".
basically, it locks, polls entries in the script
scheduler table, reads the entry (which includes
the script name, host name and priority),
actions the script, removes the entry, unlocks.
this was the whole reason why i submitted the
BaseServer patches, but couldn't release the code
that _used_ it, at the time.
- overloads ihooks such that "import" first checks
whether the script being imported is in the SQL
database (!!! :) and provides the functions from
the scripts table instead of off of the filesystem.
[cool :)]
in this way, common libraries can be developed
and managed from the central database. for example,
the "loginlib" SQL script loads the login username
and password for the target host, and actions the
default login method (telnet or ssh) in order to
provide a command-prompt by which the host may be
managed.
all this is done under database control. cool, huh?
- overloads rlcompleter such that in script interactive
mode (suitable for use as a superuser login shell,
amongst other things) host names, script names and
DPythOS functions have readline tab completion
available.
teehee.
- uses a TelnetBase class (which wasn't suitable for
release in Python2) to provide Popen3Telnet (via
which ssh is then accessed), HTTPTelnet, and anything
else you fancy to add.
basically, the write and the read_until, read_some
functionality of Telnet was _way_ too good to miss
up on for ssh, http and popen3 wrapping.
so i didn't [miss it, that is].
- Database abstraction. i wrote a SQL database
abstraction system that constructs SQL statements
in sections. if you hate views, or if your
SQL server doesn't support it, the abstraction
layer is a good way to construct complex SQL rules
and joins without duplicating loads of text.
also, bundled with the distro is pyxsqmsll2000,
which is a stupid name for a Microsoft SQL 2000
XML access client. SQL 2000 has an XML interface
which you can enable: pyxsqmsll2000 can send SQL
statements via HTTP and actually understands the
results that come back.
yippee.
BUGS:
- all versions of ssh are non-interactive with respect to
password input. i had to patch open-ssh to accept
passwords on the command-line (ssh password:user@host).
- last time i checked, there were locking issues with the
version of MySQL i was using (2001). the same table
in one of the databases is opened _three_ times under
different names, one with write access and the other two
aliases with read access.