server administration

[harry <Rik.Bobbaers () cc kuleuven ac be>]

hi all,

i know this is not really a security thing, so if someone could tell me 
where the correct place to ask is... i would really appreciate it...

but for the question now (this could be interesting for a lot of people 
i think):

we have some 100+ servers here, and we would like to make an inventory 
of all the servers. each server has a service tag etc... all servers 
have one or more services running on it.

the idea is: we would like everything (config, static information, 
dynamic info,...) on a central server in a secure intranet.
the first problem:
how do you collect the data, how do you store it,what software do you 
use to get info out of a server (static info as wel as dynamic info).
                                 ^^^^^^                ^^^^^^^
                                 a script?               snmp
second problem:
what soft can you use for pushing the config to the servers and 
restarting servers, without having to log in to each one individually 
(something like rdist?) sshkeys?

all has to be as easy as possible off course ;)

at first i was thinking of a wiki and rdist, but wiki is not the best 
way to go for documentation i think, and rdist is ... well... old 
(latest news: 23/10/2001)

anyone some ideas?

ps. for operational status checks, we use nagios, for graphs: cacti
and sorry for the off-topicness, i really don't know where else to ask
--
harry
aka Rik Bobbaers

K.U.Leuven - LUDIT             -=- Tel: +32 485 52 71 50
Rik.Bobbaers () cc kuleuven ac be -=- http://harry.ulyssis.org

"\x4e\x65\x76\x65\x72\x20\x74\x72\x75\x73\x74\x20\x61\x6e\x20\x6f"
"\x70\x65\x72\x61\x74\x69\x6e\x67\x20\x73\x79\x73\x74\x65\x6d\x20"
"\x79\x6f\x75\x20\x64\x6f\x6e\x27\x74\x20\x68\x61\x76\x65\x20\x73"
"\x6f\x75\x72\x63\x65\x73\x20\x66\x6f\x72\x2e\x0a\x00"

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