Automating System Administration With Perl by Blank-Edelman, David -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Automating System Administration with Perl

SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook with O’Reilly Preface

What’s New in This Edition? How This Book Is Structured Typographical Conventions Operating System Naming Conventions Coding Conventions Using Code Examples How to Contact Us Safari® Books Online Acknowledgments from the First Edition Acknowledgments for the Second Edition

1. Introduction

Automation Is a Must How Perl Can Help You This Book Will Show You How What You Need Some Notes About the Perl Versions Used for This Book

What About Perl 5.10? What About Strawberry Perl? What About Perl 6?

Some Notes About Using Vista with the Code in This Book Locating and Installing Modules

Installing Modules on Unix Installing Modules on Win32

It’s Not Easy Being Omnipotent

Don’t Do It Drop Your Privileges As Soon As Possible Be Careful When Reading Data Be Careful When Writing Data Avoid Race Conditions Enjoy

References for More Information

2. Filesystems

Perl to the Rescue Filesystem Differences

Unix Windows-Based Operating Systems Mac OS X Filesystem Differences Summary Dealing with Filesystem Differences from Perl

Walking or Traversing the Filesystem by Hand Walking the Filesystem Using the File::Find Module Walking the Filesystem Using the File::Find::Rule Module Manipulating Disk Quotas

Editing Quotas with edquota Trickery Editing Quotas Using the Quota Module

Editing NTFS Quotas Under Windows Querying Filesystem Usage Module Information for This Chapter References for More Information

3. User Accounts

Unix User Identities

The Classic Unix Password File Changes to the Password File in BSD 4.4 Systems

Extra fields in passwd files The binary database format

Shadow Passwords

Windows-Based Operating System User Identities

Windows User Identity Storage and Access Windows User ID Numbers Windows Passwords Don’t Play Nice with Unix Passwords Windows Groups Windows User Rights

Building an Account System to Manage Users

The Backend Database

Adding to the account queue

The Low-Level Component Library

Unix account creation and deletion routines Unix account creation and deletion routines—a variation Windows account creation and deletion routines

The Process Scripts Account System Wrap-Up

Module Information for This Chapter References for More Information

Unix Password Files Windows User Administration

4. User Activity

Process Management

Windows-Based Operating System Process Control

Using external binaries Using the Win32::Process::Info module Using the GUI control modules (Win32::Setupsup and Win32::GuiTest) Using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)

Unix Process Control

Calling an external program Examining the kernel process structures Using the /proc filesystem Using the Proc::ProcessTable module

File and Network Operations

Tracking File Operations on Windows Tracking Network Operations on Windows Tracking File and Network Operations in Unix

Module Information for This Chapter

Installing Win32::Setupsup

References for More Information

5. TCP/IP Name and Configuration Services

Host Files

Generating Host Files Error-Checking the Host File Generation Process Improving the Host File Output Incorporating a Source Code Control System

NIS, NIS+, and WINS

NIS+ Windows Internet Name Server (WINS)

Domain Name Service (DNS)

Generating DNS (BIND) Configuration Files

Creating the administrative header Generating multiple configuration files

DNS Checking: An Iterative Approach

Using nslookup Working with raw network sockets Using Net::DNS

DHCP

Active Probing for Rogue DHCP Servers Monitoring Legitimate DHCP Servers

Module Information for This Chapter References for More Information

6. Working with Configuration Files

Configuration File Formats

Binary Naked Delimited Data Key/Value Pairs Markup Languages

XML Writing XML from Perl Survey of best-practice tools to parse and manipulate XML from Perl Working with XML using XML::Simple Working with XML using XML::LibXML Working with XML using SAX2 via XML::SAX Working with XML using a hybrid approach (XML::Twig) YAML

All-in-One Modules Advanced Configuration Storage Mechanisms Module Information for This Chapter References for More Information

XML and YAML

7. SQL Database Administration

Interacting with a SQL Server from Perl Using the DBI Framework Using ODBC from Within DBI Server Documentation

MySQL Server via DBI Oracle Server via DBI Microsoft SQL Server via ODBC

Database Logins Monitoring Space Usage on a Database Server Module Information for This Chapter References for More Information

DBI Microsoft SQL Server ODBC Oracle

8. Email

Sending Mail

Getting sendmail (or a Similar Mail Transport Agent) Using the OS-Specific IPC Framework to Drive a Mail Client Speaking the Mail Protocols Directly

Sending vanilla mail messages with Email::Send Sending mail messages with attachments using Email::Send Sending HTML mail messages using Email::Send

Common Mistakes in Sending Email

Overzealous Message Sending

Controlling the frequency of mail Controlling the amount of mail

Subject Line Waste Insufficient Information in the Message Body

Fetching Mail

Talking POP3 to Fetch Mail Talking IMAP4rev1 to Fetch Mail

Processing Mail

Dissecting a Single Message Dissecting a Whole Mailbox Dealing with Spam

SpamAssassin Feedback loops

Support Mail Augmentation

Module Information for This Chapter References for More Information

9. Directory Services

What’s a Directory? Finger: A Simple Directory Service The WHOIS Directory Service LDAP: A Sophisticated Directory Service

LDAP Programming with Perl The Initial LDAP Connection Performing LDAP Searches Entry Representation in Perl Adding Entries with LDIF Adding Entries with Standard LDAP Operations Deleting Entries Modifying Entry Names Modifying Entry Attributes Deeper LDAP Topics

Referrals and references Controls and extensions The root DSE DSML

Putting It All Together

Active Directory Service Interfaces

ADSI Basics Using ADSI from Perl Dealing with Container/Collection Objects Identifying a Container Object So How Do You Know Anything About an Object? Searching Performing Common Tasks Using the WinNT and LDAP Namespaces Working with Users via ADSI Working with Groups via ADSI Working with File Shares via ADSI Working with Print Queues and Print Jobs via ADSI Working with Windows-Based Operating System Services via ADSI

Module Information for This Chapter References for More Information

LDAP ADSI

10. Log Files

Reading Text Logs Reading Binary Log Files

Using unpack() Calling an OS (or Someone Else’s) Binary Using the OS’s Logging API

Structure of Log File Data Dealing with Log File Information

Space Management of Logging Information

Log rotation Circular buffering

Input blocking in log-processing programs Security in log-processing programs

Log Parsing and Analysis

Stream read-count A simple stream read-count variation Read-remember-process Black boxes Using databases

Using Perl-only databases Using Perl-cliented SQL databases

Writing Your Own Log Files

Logging Shortcuts and Formatting Help Basic/Intermediate Logging Frameworks Advanced Logging Framework

Module Information for This Chapter References for More Information

11. Security

Noticing Unexpected or Unauthorized Changes

Local Filesystem Changes Changes in Data Served Over the Network

Noticing Suspicious Activities

Local Signs of Peril Finding Problematic Patterns

Danger on the Wire, or “Perl Saves the Day” Preventing Suspicious Activities

Suggest Better Passwords Reject Bad Passwords

Module Information for This Chapter References for More Information

12. SNMP

Using SNMP from Perl

Sending and Receiving SNMP Traps, Notifications, and Informs Alternative SNMP Programming Interfaces

Module Information for This Chapter References for More Information

13. Network Mapping and Monitoring

Network Mapping

Discovering Hosts Discovering Network Services Physical Location

Observation 1: Proximity can help Observation 2: Conventions can help

Presenting the Information

Textual Presentation Tools Graphical Presentation Tools

Using the GD::Graph module family Using GraphViz Using RRDtool

Monitoring Frameworks

Extending Existing Monitoring Packages

Xymon Mon Nagios

What’s Left? Module Information for This Chapter References for More Information

14. Experiential Learning

Playing with Timelines

Task One: Parsing crontab Files Task Two: Displaying the Timeline Task Three: Writing Out the Correct XML File Putting It All Together Summary: What Can We Learn from This?

Playing with Geocoding

Geocoding from Postal Addresses Geocoding from IP Addresses Summary: What Can We Learn from This?

Playing with an MP3 Collection

Summary: What Can We Learn from This?

One Final Exploration

Part One: Retrieving the Wiki Page with WWW::Mechanize Part Two: Extracting the Data Part Three: Geocoding and Mapping the Data Summary: What Can We Learn from This?

Remember to Play Module Information for This Chapter Source Material for This Chapter

A. The Eight-Minute XML Tutorial

XML Is a Markup Language XML Is Picky Two Key XML Terms Leftovers References for More Information

B. The 10-Minute XPath Tutorial

XPath Basic Concepts

Basic Location Paths Predicates Abbreviations and Axes Further Exploration

References for More Information

C. The 10-Minute LDAP Tutorial

LDAP Data Organization

D. The 15-Minute SQL Tutorial

Creating/Deleting Databases and Tables Inserting Data into a Table Querying Information

Retrieving All of the Rows in a Table Retrieving a Subset of the Rows in a Table Simple Manipulation of Data Returned by Queries Adding the Query Results to Another Table

Changing Table Information Relating Tables to Each Other SQL Stragglers

Views Cursors Stored Procedures

E. The Five-Minute RCS Tutorial

References for More Information

F. The Two-Minute VBScript-to-Perl Tutorial

Translation Tactics

Tactic 1: Loading Your Modules Tactic 2: Referencing an Object Tactic 3: Accessing Object Properties Using the Hash Dereference Syntax Tactic 4: Dealing with Container Objects Tactic 5: Converting Method Invocations Tactic 6: Dealing with Constants

References for More Information

G. The 20-Minute SNMP Tutorial

SNMP in Practice

Index About the Author Colophon SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook with O’Reilly

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