Ah, sorry, I forgot to mention that this tool is Debian-specific... I'm pretty sure there is no (free) tool which can acomplish what you want over several different distributions.
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Browse All TopicsHello we are a web-hosting company with about 300 debian linux servers and we would like to have some tools that ease our job regrading patch management.
We'd like to have two areas covered:
1st: keeping an eye on those servers that are missing security updates (establish a software / security baseline)
2nd: finding a way to automatize patch management like some kind of distribution system, so we don't have to logon on each server applying these patches but just getting a list of the results.
What are your ways / tools to make certain that your Linux servers are all fully patched.
Thank you,
Tolomir
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Sounds to me like you're looking for puppet ...
http://reductivelabs.com/p
http://reductivelabs.com/t
http://reductivelabs.com/t
With 300 servers I'd also recommend an apt proxy of some sort ... apt-proxy, apt-cacher or approx, seem to be the most popular choices, although I haven't used any of these in some time, so I hesitate to make a recommendation.
http://lists.netisland.net
I've also heard tales of using squid for this purpose with some success, as well.
Good luck!
If you want to create your own custom debian installer, that automatically includes the puppet client package, dependencies , and configuration -- you can use the instructions here ...
http://wiki.debian.org/Sim
As the name implies, it really is pretty simple.
Good Luck!
Have a look at systemimager. Its nice it handles things a little differently. You can have a golden client that you patch and test on. Then you can push out the image to as many servers as you want. It uses rsync with a buch of custom scripts. It can use bittorrent for massive installs.
http://wiki.systemimager.o
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by: OliverRahnerPosted on 2009-07-09 at 01:40:07ID: 24811665
Have a look at FAI (Fully Automated Installer):
koeln.de/f ai/
http://www.informatik.uni-
Although it's name suggests use for installation, it can also fulfill your requirements:
"FAI can also be used for configuration management of a running system."