Compare ClearOS with Zentyal
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Let me give an extreme management example. Of course, this like never comes up, but it's an example.
Today @guyinpv discovered that he is out of INODES on one box. Crap, he thinks, what if I'm almost out of INODES on every box!
So he goes to check. He pours through GUIs trying to find this info. Likely, no GUI anywhere for any system shows it. Certainly no normal one.
What do we do on the CLI? The same thing that we do for normal file system checks except with the addition of the "-i" flag.
for i in $(cat serverlsit); do ssh $i "df -i" ; doneBoom, we have a list and we can see if anything is getting dangerously high.
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@scottalanmiller said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
Let me give an extreme management example. Of course, this like never comes up, but it's an example.
Today @guyinpv discovered that he is out of INODES on one box. Crap, he thinks, what if I'm almost out of INODES on every box!
So he goes to check. He pours through GUIs trying to find this info. Likely, no GUI anywhere for any system shows it. Certainly no normal one.
What do we do on the CLI? The same thing that we do for normal file system checks except with the addition of the "-i" flag.
for i in $(cat serverlsit); do ssh $i "df -i" ; doneBoom, we have a list and we can see if anything is getting dangerously high.
In my theoretical world, I would never have to "wonder" if inodes are running out. There would be some sort of server management tool on all my servers, which report back to me any kind of system level problems. Something like Spiceworks for example. Reports when drive space is low, printer is out of ink, CPU usage is high, RAM is running out, too many connections, failed log in attempts, log errors, root level log in attempts, etc etc.
So I'm sitting at my workstation and I want to check inode and drive space, I would simply open "that part" of my GUI management interface, go to drive space, and sort by inode or free space or whatever to see where I'm at.
The command you typed is little more than "show me inode usage on all my systems", which could easily just be a function somewhere in the GUI of some server management interface.
I can't believe stuff like this doesn't exist!
In your scenario, if you had not had the intuition to type that command and look, how would you know any server was running low in the first place? Wouldn't you want something like that to be monitored and reported back to a central interface?
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@guyinpv said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
In my theoretical world, I would never have to "wonder" if inodes are running out. There would be some sort of server management tool on all my servers, which report back to me any kind of system level problems. Something like Spiceworks for example. Reports when drive space is low, printer is out of ink, CPU usage is high, RAM is running out, too many connections, failed log in attempts, log errors, root level log in attempts, etc etc.
I appreciate the value of the theoretical world and all of the information that could potentially be collected. Such tools can exist, but are often extensive and intrusive if used all the time, there is just so much data. If you turn all ad hoc monitoring into full time monitoring you could, in theory, do this. But it is hard.
There are no products that do this or try to do this, probably for a reason. If you did, the GUI would be so impossible to deal with that no one could handle it. There is just so much potential data.
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@scottalanmiller
There is a lot of "potential" data, and a ton of arbitrary data. But only so many critical error conditions relating to that data.
Testing drive space would be one of those daily or weekly checks. Testing inode space could be monthly or whatever. It's not like you need a constant stream of reporting. Only if it's critical levels would anything get reported.What is the alternative then? To avoid monitoring too many variables, we just sit around and wait for problems then scramble trying to figure out what happened?
Don't you even monitor basic stuff like CPU/RAM/HDD? Don't you get alerts on successful root logins? Do you monitor anything at all?
Just to be random, would you stick even something like Newrelic on servers? How do you even know if a server goes down without some kind of monitoring/management tools? I assume maybe you use Nagios or something. Those can certainly record a ton of data!
In any case, the GUIs I'm talking about are not on the servers themselves. I'm talking only about having a GUI to manage them. Most likely from your own workstation or even a web interface.
In my case, ClearOS is just like Windows, where the GUI and services are pretty much intertwined. For Zentyal, it's installed as software on top of the server. But for managing 60 servers, ya there is no way I'd want 60 logins to Zentyal! In that scenario, I would only have some type of management/control software on each server which lets me do everything remotely from some other central interface. Not unlike what XO does, but those types of tools don't have features to let me run things across multiple servers.
I really am surprised there are not good options here.
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@guyinpv said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
@scottalanmiller
There is a lot of "potential" data, and a ton of arbitrary data. But only so many critical error conditions relating to that data.
Testing drive space would be one of those daily or weekly checks. Testing inode space could be monthly or whatever. It's not like you need a constant stream of reporting. Only if it's critical levels would anything get reported.You can do that easily today with a CLI tool
For you it might be a monthly thing, but for a lot of companies this is a daily thing. A one size fits all GUI would be tough.
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@guyinpv said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
I really am surprised there are not good options here.
Well on one side you are recognizing an opportunity. That's good. But from the system admin side, I don't see a problem to solve. Already everyone in an environment of any scale has a system that works incredibly well, the command line. There isn't a problem to solve. So while you might have a solution, it's a solution in search of a problem.
not that the idea is bad, but attempt to implement it, even on paper. How man of these ad hoc things do you want to include? Any one you leave out might be your "inode" to someone else. What does this GUI based system really look like? how do you make an interface for "everything"? And then make it easy to use.
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@guyinpv said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
Don't you even monitor basic stuff like CPU/RAM/HDD? Don't you get alerts on successful root logins? Do you monitor anything at all?
Monitor, sure. but that doesn't replace the CLI or the GUI. That's just read only data. And it isn't on the servers, it's on the log server or whatever. We are talking about management here. How do you "manage everything" from the GUI?
I have all this power today and do it, but I use the CLI. Everything that you feel that I am missing, I have. It's just all CLI based and works fine.
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@guyinpv said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
In my case, ClearOS is just like Windows, where the GUI and services are pretty much intertwined.
I think it just feels that way. Like Windows, the GUI is a secondary tool. MS has been very clear that since 2003, the GUI is not intertwined at all or needed in any way. PowerShell is the primary management tool.
ClearOS is just standard components that they layer their own interface on top of. Even more removed than Windows GUI.
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@DustinB3403 said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
You clearly have a need for it if it's being discussed, you just don't know how to quantify the need.
This seems like an insane statement. By that logic you'd assume that 90% of SMB's need SAN since they are feeling the need to discuss it.
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@Dashrender said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
@DustinB3403 said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
You clearly have a need for it if it's being discussed, you just don't know how to quantify the need.
This seems like an insane statement. By that logic you'd assume that 90% of SMB's need SAN since they are feeling the need to discuss it.
That's a good point.
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@Dashrender said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
@DustinB3403 said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
You clearly have a need for it if it's being discussed, you just don't know how to quantify the need.
This seems like an insane statement. By that logic you'd assume that 90% of SMB's need SAN since they are feeling the need to discuss it.
I could agree with that, except that he has a need to learn, not a need to implement. He's asking about these because he wants to learn free alternatives to AD.
If you were to google free ad alternatives, these two would be at or near the top of the list.
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My feeling is that there is a good "need" for good GUI tools for the one by one shops out there that just don't use servers very often. But for those that do it at scale, I don't even see an advantage to having a GUI. Sure, we might be able to make a great one, but what's the upside? I've never seen a GUI that is as efficient as the command line, even a remote web one with a light API for it.
I might be wrong, maybe it is just the lack of a good one to try. But so far, I've seen no product that does this for servers at scale and can't picture what the experience would be like.
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@DustinB3403 said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
@Dashrender said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
@DustinB3403 said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
You clearly have a need for it if it's being discussed, you just don't know how to quantify the need.
This seems like an insane statement. By that logic you'd assume that 90% of SMB's need SAN since they are feeling the need to discuss it.
I could agree with that, except that he has a need to learn, not a need to implement. He's asking about these because he wants to learn free alternatives to AD.
If you were to google free ad alternatives, these two would be at or near the top of the list.
If you Google solutions to most SMB problems you'd get SAN too. Popular and good don't often go together.
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@scottalanmiller said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
@guyinpv said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
I really am surprised there are not good options here.
Well on one side you are recognizing an opportunity. That's good. But from the system admin side, I don't see a problem to solve. Already everyone in an environment of any scale has a system that works incredibly well, the command line. There isn't a problem to solve. So while you might have a solution, it's a solution in search of a problem.
not that the idea is bad, but attempt to implement it, even on paper. How man of these ad hoc things do you want to include? Any one you leave out might be your "inode" to someone else. What does this GUI based system really look like? how do you make an interface for "everything"? And then make it easy to use.
Buddy, those are the questions us GUI people are made to answer
It could reduce the learning curve on performing hundreds of common tasks.
Training level 1 support would be easier. Less need for high level super techs at level 3.
Based on a permissions system, certain parts of the GUI could be exposed to low level tech support or even staff.
Customized dashboards could be setup for any given area of control for any given tech.Just like Webmin, any given service or part of the system would have a module to help manage it. If the system doesn't run BIND, no part of the GUI would have to be designated for it. It's only as complex as the complexity of the server farm and roles.
Just dreaming
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@scottalanmiller said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
@DustinB3403 said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
@Dashrender said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
@DustinB3403 said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
You clearly have a need for it if it's being discussed, you just don't know how to quantify the need.
This seems like an insane statement. By that logic you'd assume that 90% of SMB's need SAN since they are feeling the need to discuss it.
I could agree with that, except that he has a need to learn, not a need to implement. He's asking about these because he wants to learn free alternatives to AD.
If you were to google free ad alternatives, these two would be at or near the top of the list.
If you Google solutions to most SMB problems you'd get SAN too. Popular and good don't often go together.
Exactly - Google is only the first step, and one that is so minor that it barely counts. Google also so easily leans you in the wrong direction because 90% don't know what they are doing. They are installing bad things all the time.
Why does he NEED a GUI? If you wrote the instructions out, wouldn't that be good enough? Also a GUI doesn't make every task intuitive, so you'd still need/want instructions. So if you're starting from scratch, why not start with good, open source, free tools?
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@guyinpv said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
Based on a permissions system, certain parts of the GUI could be exposed to low level tech support or even staff.
Very true, and I've seen that done. But you can do that with CLI, too. Does a GUI really reduce training in that scenario? Maybe, but as someone who taught CLI to Solaris end users who are not even computer savvy, it wasn't hard. Anything takes training, CLI isn't that hard if you are being trained on a repetitive job.
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@scottalanmiller said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
@guyinpv said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
Don't you even monitor basic stuff like CPU/RAM/HDD? Don't you get alerts on successful root logins? Do you monitor anything at all?
I have all this power today and do it, but I use the CLI. Everything that you feel that I am missing, I have. It's just all CLI based and works fine.
My argument is that for any given task that can be performed either by CLI or GUI, the GUI version will be nicer, visually intuitive, and easier to use.
I can type
dirin Windows, but I'll almost always choose Explorer with "Details" view, for example.I can't think of anything that I can do equally well in CLI or GUI where I prefer CLI. If the GUI does the same thing, it's always nicer.
CLI simply has more power in every case where the GUI is built with limits. I would give the example of cPanel here. If you've ever used WHM, it has a ton of options, but one of the odd things is that you can add IPs to the firewall, but you can't review them or remove them back out. You'd have to go to CLI to micro-manage the firewall rules.
There is also abstraction of multiple commands into one. When I create a new web hosting account, it does a ton of stuff behind the scenes creating the user, setting permissions, creating folder structure, editing Apache virtual hosts, editing DNS entries, creating FTP and email accounts, and any file limitations. Doing all that manually with CLI is prone to mistakes, missing a step, etc.
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@guyinpv said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
My argument is that for any given task that can be performed either by CLI or GUI, the GUI version will be nicer, visually intuitive, and easier to use.
And mine is the opposite
Not always, but mostly especially for management, I always find the CLI faster, simpler and once you know what you are doing, easier to use. Sure, you have to learn, but you should probably know before managing a server. -
@scottalanmiller said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
@guyinpv said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
Based on a permissions system, certain parts of the GUI could be exposed to low level tech support or even staff.
Very true, and I've seen that done. But you can do that with CLI, too. Does a GUI really reduce training in that scenario? Maybe, but as someone who taught CLI to Solaris end users who are not even computer savvy, it wasn't hard. Anything takes training, CLI isn't that hard if you are being trained on a repetitive job.
Call me argumentative, but I haven't found any good training on Linux yet. Part of what frustrates me is that for any given thing I want to do, I have to like separate every different variation. Is this the Bash thing or the GNU? Is it the apt-get or the yum? Which commands are missing? Or crap it didn't have nano and now I have to use the train wreck that is vi.
I'm always on the lookout for decent ebooks to download, in fact I just grabbed 5 Linux ebooks a week ago. But then saw that they were about 8 years old! I don't know if that's good or bad, maybe they are still up to date? Maybe it's teaching something outdated?
I have this monstrous 2000 page book on the shelf in front of me, an old one, "Linux The Complete Reference". But its copyright is 1997! I don't know if it's even worth trying to look anything up in there to be honest.
I just wish I had a complete training book that isn't esoteric or so specific to a particular distro that it misses a lot of basics. I need training that makes things make sense.
I don't want to study Linux only to find out when I try to take the knowledge to my CentOS web servers that half of it doesn't apply!Training is everything, but I find that most people who teach Linux just assume everybody are cyborgs like them and dream in green Matrix code. They call the CLI "intuitive" when what they really mean is they are used to it and understand it.
Anyway, good training is important!
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@guyinpv said in Compare ClearOS with Zentyal:
Call me argumentative, but I haven't found any good training on Linux yet. Part of what frustrates me is that for any given thing I want to do, I have to like separate every different variation. Is this the Bash thing or the GNU? Is it the apt-get or the yum? Which commands are missing? Or crap it didn't have nano and now I have to use the train wreck that is vi.
Well trying to cover multiple operating systems makes it harder. That's like complaining that it is hard to remember the Windows from the Netware interface. If you are managing multiple ones, that makes it harder.
