machine documentation

[pbd]

Hi,

in which form do you keep documentation about machines you administer (network configuration, running services, software versions, network topology, ...)? Is there any tool made for keeping this informations about 50 - 100 machines?

 

[SirDice]

It's called asset and configuration management (ITIL).

And it could be as simple as a database with a nice little web front-end. I'm sure there's something already build but I couldn't find anything quickly in the ports tree.

 

[Ruler2112]

I use a series of rudimentary electronic drawings of each area of the building to ID each station, then a spreadsheet to detail each station.

 

[rbelk]

Documantation:
Rule #1 - Always keep it simple! The easiest and quickest for me is either a text file or a wiki. I perfer a Wiki nowadays because you can attach files.
Rule #2 - Always keep the data current, if you don't it's useless to document!
Rule #3 - Remember, the more sophisticated the product is, the harder it will be to use and it will not be used much!

Version Management:
For version management I use devel/rvi. I have the following alias for root.

vi rvi "!:1" vim

So anytime you "su -" or even "sudo vi" the file will be under version control. This little trick has saved me at least 50 times! If you have a lot of servers you might want to consider centralized version management with bazaar or subversion. There are tons of web links describing how to do this. Just Google it.