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Questions tagged [automation]

the field of converting any manual process into one that can be run mostly, or entirely, "hands-free"

Automation is a wide-ranging term, covering topics from cron to "push-button provisioning and deployment" or system and application stacks. The ultimate goal of some automation projects is the so-called "Zero-Latency Data Center", while for others it may just be sending alerts based on certain events. More information can be found here.

638 questions
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How to set ulimits for a service starting at boot?

I need, for mysql to use large-pages, to set a ulimit - I've done this in limits.conf. However, limits.conf (pam_limits.so), doesn't get read in for init, only for "real" shells. I solved this before by adding a "ulimit -l" to the initscript start…
jayofdoom
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Method to integrate Powershell scripts with non-Windows workflow?

I love the smell of new machines in the morning. I'm automating a machine creation workflow that involves several separate systems across my infrastructure, some of which involve 15 year old perl scripts on Solaris hosts, PXE Booting Linux systems,…
Matt Simmons
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4 answers

Execute command when a file changes

I have a scenario where I am uploading .csv files to a specific folder, /tmp/data_upload, every day, and the old files are replaced by the new one. I need to run a Python script once the data is uploaded. For this, I have an idea to create a cron…
Alex
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2 answers

Limit SSH key to SCP only

Problem: I don't have root access to the server (i.e, I can't/don't want to change any system-wide server configuration), and I want to use scp with an alternative Identity File (e.g, .ssh/id_rsa_for_scp) to automate the download of some files from…
Michael Richard
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1 answer

Shared files/templates between cookbooks

We have multiple cookbooks which reference the same files and templates and were wondering if there is a reasonable way to ensure all of these are the same file to ensure that none go out of date. Is it possible to have a single file/template…
gdurham
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5 answers

How do I install a yum package group with puppet?

Does puppet have a way to install a yum package group (e.g. 'Development Tools'), besides exec?
joeforker
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3 answers

Automatic rollout of VLAN (and other) configs to Procurve switches

I've got a pile of switches connecting everything together at our DC, 50 racks or so worth of kit. It's starting to be a problem to login to every single one of them to make configuration changes -- mostly adding/removing VLANs to all the trunk…
womble
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3 answers

Remotely renaming a domained Win 7 computer

I'm having a hard time figuring out how to rename a Windows 7 computer remotely. This is for automating Win 7 builds in a vSphere 5 environment, and I'm trying to get it as hands-off as I can. So far I've managed to get everything but the machine…
sysadmin1138
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How can I automate clearing and resetting a Linux user's home directory to a default?

I'm helping to teach two Unix courses next week. Users will be granted an account on a RHEL 5 machine, during which time they'll add files to their /home folder, update their .bashrc and other dotfiles, and perform other general messiness that needs…
matthewsteele
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5 answers

Send message to IRC channel from bash

I have installed ircd-hybrid on my Ubuntu Server (192.168.1.2, example.com). We use #teamchannel to communicate inside the team. The question is: how can I send some short message from example.com to #teamchannel from the bash script? e.g.…
takeshin
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4 answers

Configuration management: Cross-machine dependencies

I've used tools like puppet to manage individual systems, with generally a high level of success. Where puppet falls down is that it isn't good at managing dependencies outside of an individual server. For example, on a MySQL server I configure…
Jon Topper
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1 answer

Entering local admin username and password in a script

I have alot of clients on my network and I want my script to do the following: [1] Open an elevated command prompt using the local admin details. Note: I do not want to have to enter a username and password for each user. [2] Uninstall java…
timboslice101
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Is it possible to create a generalized configuration file for installing Windows features using PowerShell?

I'm currently trying to automate the build of a VM running Windows Server 2012 R2. At the moment the challenge is automating the addition of roles and features. Within the roles and features wizard there is an option to export an XML configuration…
Cameron McAuley
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How can I modify an existing scheduled task using Powershell?

I am working on some release automation scripts that use Powershell to update existing scheduled tasks which execute various applications. In my script, I can set the Path and Working Directory of the application, but it doesn't seem to save the…
David Keaveny
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How can I disable a scheduled task using Powershell?

I have a web application that runs on Windows Server 2008 R2, which has a large number of scheduled tasks which take care of all the backend stuff. When I do a software deployment which touches the database, I need to disable all the scheduled…
David Keaveny
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