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What tools you use to manage multiple servers without being lost
Hi,
Please share how you manage multiple servers you may have to access regularly over SSH. What tools you use and how you make it comfortable without getting lost. Is there something with some visual cues to manage servers, eg. servers with green bar belongs to particular datacenter, with Green+brown belongs to particular client but in that datacenter .
Do share both windows and linux tools.
Do your share views..
Comments
Just set a proper hostname? Like
prod.ny.us.aws.fat32.com,dev.sg.asia.ovh.fat32.cometcYa, that has been the strategy so far but may be some admin happen to be developer came up something nice and shiny for the purpose
For my personal servers I use puppet in masterless mode, pulling manifests out of a git repository. At work I use mostly Ansible, the idea is to minimize the need to SSH in to a server and change settings by hand.
When I need to SSH in, I usually have a bright red console background or another visual indicator for production servers.
For my Centmin Mod LEMP stack setups I have custom prompts and command alias to make it a bit easier for Centmin Mod users to visually see which server(s) you are working on
example of prompt and alias in action
That and my multi tab supported SecureCRT SSH client labels each server in the tabs clearly
I've got them all in RoyalTSX/TS and keep them organized there.
I have CentOS WLS on my Win 10 Laptop and just setup a conf file within the ssh folder. Then I just do ssh web001 and it automatically logs me in.
Having a server naming convention could help, and like Master Panda, I too configure my servers in .ssh/config and just connect to whichever servers when needed
On the other hand, you could also maintain your own CMDB for your servers if you think it's necessary.
+1 for proper hostnames and naming schema.
I am accessing my devices from MobaXterm (Screenshot) which has been the most comfortable solution for me in everyday life.
Session bookmarks with folders, icons and names make it easy to organize everything.
Names and icons remian in the tab title. Tabs can be re-ordered and switched quickly with Ctrl-Alt-Left/Right and you have all the neat PuTTY features.
Is that a coupon code?
I color code the Terminal Windows and use tabs within a window. I can name each window too, giving it the name of the server. Then I stack them. Then I save the Group with a name that includes the date. I open the whole Group even if I don't need to do anything on all of them just to keep the details fresh.
Ainsible is quite easy. Love used SaltStack, Puppet and Chef in the past but didn’t liked them a lost (SaltStack was more interesting that the 2 others, for me).
I’ve also used a not known tool named Rudder for personal stuffs. Honestly it was nice and easy even if there was some customization limitations that was requiring more work.
At my job we use cloud providers (OpenStack and AWS) and we use pipelines from GitLab to manage all. The idea is that we don’t care much about host names, we use tags. We also just kill servers and create new one when we need to deploy or fix something (loadbalancing etc). I really like this way of work but with VPS oriented providers it’s not really possible to set.
Excel spreadsheet for credentials
Remote Desktop Manager for sessions, folders per purpose
Dropbox to sync SSH keys
Uptime Robot for monitoring
Node Query for stats
Dumeter.net for net stats