[ale] Perl or Python for editing files...

[Doug Hall]

For the record, I agree with Brian. There's probably already a puppet
recipe which does what you want to do.
<http://projects.puppetlabs.com/projects/puppet/wiki/Puppet_Patterns>
Unless this is a trivial, one-time thing that will not need to be
modified, I'd look at Puppet, first. Puppet can be used not only up
front, for setting up "standard" systems, but it can be used for
maintenance tasks, as well. We install Puppet clients on all our
equipment.

Puppet has its own Domain Specific Language (DSL) for getting things
done. It executes ruby code behind the scenes, but you won't need to
know ruby.

Doug

On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 2:38 PM, Brian Mathis
<brian.mathis+ale at betteradmin.com> wrote:

> If you are looking to do this for system deployment, you might want to
> look into Puppet.  It has a bigger learning curve up front, but it
> will pay off in the long run with better automation.
>
> In general this kind of scripting can be error prone because you need
> to worry about cases where you run the script and only 1/2 of it works
> (maybe because a package config file changed).  The parts that did
> work have to be smart enough not to run again (not an easy task).
> Once you've got the logic in the script to avoid stuff like this,
> you're already on your way to writing a full-blown management system,
> so you might want to start there from the beginning.
>