[ale] Q and REsolved(?): Perl 'Expect' timeout question

[Mills John M-NPHW64]

Jerald -

I would say the answer to (1) is 'No'. Nightly I am exercising a newly built firmware version to see if it "acts like" its predecessor.

For (2): maybe. I have a small number of hosts with minor differences between them. My script "tweaks" the test unit, then looks for particular text in a remote syslog the test unit sends to another host. This has proven simple but each new target requires a bit of hand-work to add ('doesn't scale well'). A general, structured test tool would make sense.

Give me a bit more information and I'll look into alternatives.

Thanks.

 - Mills

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org on behalf of Jerald Sheets
Sent: Mon 10/4/2010 3:30 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
Subject: Re: [ale] Q and REsolved(?):  Perl 'Expect' timeout question
 

On Oct 4, 2010, at 2:29 PM, Mills John M-NPHW64 wrote:

> 
> Typically my scripts do a simple sequence of (1) execute process on remote, and (2) pick through the response looking for specific text.


I think I'd like to change the question first before I answer.

1.  Are you performing repetitive tasks for the purposes of monitoring?  If so, have you considered, instead, to use something that might be more akin to a monitoring project than trying to reinvent the wheel?
2.  If you're executing repetitive scripts on a series o destination hosts, would a puppet or a cfengine be more appropriate to your needs?

Each of the above would be easy to use (and OSS!) and might also lend more features you don't currently have.
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