[hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?

Haertig, David F (Dave) haertig at avaya.com
Sat Jun 9 22:37:49 CEST 2007


After even more testing, it only works SOMETIMES.  :-(
 
The "logfile" section in the clientlog always shows the file with
correct timestamps.  But the "msgs" section only occassionally shows the
contents of the file.  Usually it doesn't.  I verified the file is being
created and has content (all ASCII text, about 300 bytes).  I was logged
into the server looking manually when the Hobbit client ran.  The file
was recreated with a new timestamp (the actual contents typically don't
change - which is normal for what I'm monitoring here).  Even though I
see the file with new timestamps and valid contents, those contents
don't always make it up to the Hobbit server, but the file's metadata
always does.
 
Here's the entry from client-local.cfg that runs the script:
 
######################
 
[skmsp01]
file:/var/log/mail_statistics
log:/var/adm/messages:10240
log:`/home/a/prems/hobbit/helper_scripts/dirMon.ksh 2>&1
>/tmp/dirMon.out; echo /tmp/dirMon.out`:1000
 
######################

And here's what shows up in the relevent sections of clientlog (the msgs
section being blank):
 
######################
[msgs:/tmp/dirMon.out]

[logfile:/tmp/dirMon.out]
type:100000 (file)
mode:640 (-rw-r-----)
linkcount:1
owner:14171 (prems)
group:14171 (prems)
size:302
clock:1181419858 (2007/06/09-14:10:58)
atime:1181419858 (2007/06/09-14:10:58)
ctime:1181419856 (2007/06/09-14:10:56)
mtime:1181419856 (2007/06/09-14:10:56)
######################
 
Here's details on a typical /tmp/dirMon.out file:
 
######################
 
skmsp01 /tmp > ls -l /tmp/dirMon.out
-rw-r-----   1 prems    prems        302 Jun  9 14:20 /tmp/dirMon.out
skmsp01 /tmp > cat /tmp/dirMon.out
ReplicaDn   Consumer                  Supplier                  Delay
o=domain.com skmsp02.eng.domain.com:389 skmsp01.eng.domain.com:389 0
ReplicaDn   Consumer                  Supplier                  Delay
o=domain.com skmsp01.eng.domain.com:389 skmsp02.eng.domain.com:389 0
skmsp01 /tmp >
 
######################
 
The hobbit client runs as userid 'prems', so everything looks to have
adequate permissions.
 
Any ideas on how to make this work reliably?  I tried adding a 2 second
sleep right before the echo in the log: entry in client-local.cfg.  I
didn't really expect that to help, and it didn't.
 
Thanks in advance for any ideas!

________________________________

From: Haertig, David F (Dave) [mailto:haertig at avaya.com] 
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 6:36 PM
To: hobbit at hswn.dk
Subject: RE: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?


Actually, on furhter testing, it DID work!
 
It just takes quite a while to show up.  I run the client scripts on the
standard 5 minute interval, so I gave it two cycles plus (about 12
minutes) during my testing - and nothing showed up in that interval.  I
walked away and about 25 minutes later came back and found my data in
the clientlog.  Yeah!

________________________________

From: Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] 
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 3:45 PM
To: hobbit at hswn.dk
Subject: Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the client end?


Heh, I'm guessing Henrik included some sort of sanitizing of the log
directive so that you couldn't do things like that.

Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote: 

	Hmmm...  Didn't seem to like my first test attempt (see below).
Nothing showed up in my clientlog.
	 
	[skmsp01]
	file:/var/log/mail_statistics
	log:/var/adm/messages:10240
	log:`/tmp/dirMon.ksh 2>&1 >/tmp/dirMon.log; echo
/tmp/dirMon.log`
	

________________________________

	From: Haertig, David F (Dave) [mailto:haertig at avaya.com] 
	Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 3:13 PM
	To: hobbit at hswn.dk
	Subject: RE: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the
client end?
	
	
	Thanks.  Your suggestion triggered an idea on how to do this.
client-local.cfg supports backticks to run a program to generate a
logfile name dynamically.  So I'll try to make use of that and do
something like this (haven't tested it yet):
	 
	Add to client-local.cfg
	================
	 
	log:`/path/to/the/program 2>&1 1>/path/to/the/logfile; echo
/path/to/the/logfile`
	 
	If this exact syntax won't work, it should be easy to use some
similar concept.  The built-in backtick processing of the log: directive
being the key point.
	 
	Thanks!

________________________________

	From: Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] 
	Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 2:49 PM
	To: hobbit at hswn.dk
	Subject: Re: [hobbit] How to run an arbitary script on the
client end?
	
	
	As far as I know there is no built-in functionality to
dynamically execute remote scripts and get their output. Others may have
better suggestions, but one way of doing it, is you could set the
client-side script to be launched by the hobbit client every X minutes,
(via clientlaunch.cfg). I'm not sure of the best way to get the script
output back to the hobbit server though. I guess you could have the
script output to a logfile , and then have the hobbit server monitor
that log via the normal log monitoring mechanism
	. 
	-Charles
	
	Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote: 

		Is there a way to confgure a client, via
client-local.cfg or otherwise, to run some arbitrary command on the
client and send it's stdout/stderr back to the hobbit server?  I have a
few simple shell scripts that exist on some clients that it would be
nice to invoke and then read their results on the server end using the
"$BBHOME/bin/bb localhost clientlog..." method.  Similar to the way a
"file:path_to_file" <file:path_to_file>  directive will collect a file's
metadata?  I want something like "runprogram:path_to_program"
		 
		I am doing this currently using a server-side script
that ssh'es to the client machine and runs what it needs.  I would
rather have the normal Hobbit client collect the data output by the
client-side program, upload that, and my server-side script would parse
that resulting clientlog rather than going and collecting it's own data.
If this is possible.
		 
		Thanks!



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