On Nov 17, 4:31 pm, Irmen de Jong <ir...@-nospam-razorvine.net> wrote: > On 17-11-2011 5:17, snorble wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > I'm writing a tool for monitoring the workstations and servers in our > > office. I plan to have a server and a client service that runs on each > > workstation and reports back to the server (heartbeat, disk free > > space, etc). > > > So far I am considering XMLRPC, or a client service that just > > downloads a Python file and runs it. > > > With XMLRPC I don't know how to easily add features without having to > > update every client. Also while playing with XMLRPC I learned that > > when you run a registered function, it runs it on the server. I was > > hoping it would run on the client, so that when I get the machine's > > computer name (or disk space, etc) it will return the client's info. > > It seems with XMLRPC I would have to hard code the functionality into > > the client (i.e. client gets it's computer name, then calls the XMLRPC > > function to pass it to the server)? I was hoping it would work more > > like, "pass some code to the client to be run on the client, and > > report it to the server". Almost XMLRPC in the reverse direction. > > > With the download-and-run approach, it seems trivially easy to add new > > functionality to the clients. Just save the updated Python file to the > > server, and clients download it and run it. > > > Are there any standard approaches to problems like this that can be > > recommended? Thank you. > > The security implications are HUGE when you are thinking about > transferring and executing arbitrary code over the network. Avoid this > if at all possible. But if you can be 100% sure it's only trusted stuff, > things are not so grim. > > Have a look at Pyro, or even Pyro Flame: > > http://packages.python.org/Pyro4/http://packages.python.org/Pyro4/flame.html > > Flame allows for very easy remote module execution and a limited way of > transferring code to the 'other side'. > > Also what is wrong with running an XMLrpc server, or Pyro daemon, on > your client machines? This way your central computer can call registered > methods (or remote objects in case of Pyro) on the client and execute > code there (that reports all sorts of stuff you want to know). Or have > each client call into a central server, where it reports that stuff > itself. Many ways to skin a cat. > > Regards, > Irmen de Jong
I'm thinking maybe the client service will have a small number of generic features, such as reading WMI and SNMP values. That way the server still dictates the work to be done (i.e. XMLRPC returns which WMI/SNMP values to query), and the client remains relatively focused and straightforward. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
