I've been using FreeBSD on two isolated servers for some time and intend to increase the numbers up to 7-8 physical servers and multiple VM (Windows, Linux) for various tasks (regular and on demand).
I'm rather fine with the system administration on each computer, connecting with SSH for doing some maintenance but would like to get the systems more integrated with each others and increasing automation.
What I gathered after some search for my needs:
I'd like to keep it simple and lower my maintenance cost and care, but still feeling in control of what is happening and being able to see at a glance that all is fine on my servers so that's why I ask people here that likely have more experience if my conclusions are fine.
Example of scenarios that I'd like to check at a glance or receive notifications:
I'm a programmer with rather correct knowledge of Unix so I'm not afraid of more complex solutions if they are better in the long run. Thanks!
I'm rather fine with the system administration on each computer, connecting with SSH for doing some maintenance but would like to get the systems more integrated with each others and increasing automation.
What I gathered after some search for my needs:
- Monitoring : Monit
- Centralized Authentication : LDAP
- Remote administration tool like Puppet for giving orders (is there a better tool?)
- Using a master computer that I set up properly and upgrade then replicate on all my FreeBSD machines (likely using ZFS replication)
- Using jails (bastille) on a central development computer and then copying them on the production servers
I'd like to keep it simple and lower my maintenance cost and care, but still feeling in control of what is happening and being able to see at a glance that all is fine on my servers so that's why I ask people here that likely have more experience if my conclusions are fine.
Example of scenarios that I'd like to check at a glance or receive notifications:
- That all the servers/VM are running properly
- That a program in use/installed has a security vulnerability found and needs action
- List of services are running fine
- That disk health/space is fine
- Backup is up to date
- Warning/Error from logs of all the machines
I'm a programmer with rather correct knowledge of Unix so I'm not afraid of more complex solutions if they are better in the long run. Thanks!