vector-utils

vector-utils is a collection of scripts for managing large numbers of similar machines over an ssh connection. It includes the following:

• scatter - copy a list of files to every machine.
• gather - copy a list of files from every machine. Local copies will be suffixed with ",$REMOTE_HOST".
• vector - pass a string of shell commands to every machine. The string can include shell metacharacters.

It has one configuration file, either /etc/vector.conf or /usr/local/etc/vector.conf, depending on whether it was installed from a package or a tarball. This currently has one parameter, a list of hostnames that the tools should operate on. It is recommended not to include the local machine in this list.

vector itself can be thought of as a lightweight, command-line alternative to clusterssh - but clusterssh does not include a scatter-gather function.

vector-utils.tar

Examples

/etc/vector.conf:

if [[ -z $MACHINES ]];
  MACHINES=myhost1 myhost2 otherhost1.otherdomain
fi

It is recommended to use the -z construction, so that the list of machines can be overridden on the command line.

$ scatter file1 file2
$ gather file1 file2 
# local directory now contains: file1,host1 file2,host1 file1,host2 file2,host2 ...
$ vector "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade"
$ MACHINES="othermachine.example.com" vector hostname