mctl, the MiMa Control Script, is a python3 script for fine-tuned start, stop and status operations on an number of target hosts. This includes disconnecting a host from electricity by a power distribution unit that speaks SNMP.
mctl was written to control the interactive exhibits at the MiMa, the Museum for Minerals and Mathematics in Oberwolfach, Germany. It is meant to run on Linux.
Make sure python3 is installed.
Copy the repository into a user's home directory and link
/home/USER/mctl/bin/mctl to /usr/bin/mctl.
In the etc directory copy config.sample.ini to config.ini
and hosts.sample.ini to hosts.ini.
Run mctl --help and mctl show all and edit the configuration
files as needed.
Configure a public key ssh login to each target host and endow the user on the target host with permissions to execute the given shutdown command.
Further adaptions are possible and may be necessary by editing the source code.
Use OliveTin as a simple webinterface https://www.olivetin.app
Copy the OliveTin folder to /etc/OliveTin and adapt the configuration
to your needs. Servers should be added to entities/servers.yaml.
Configuration of the WebGui is done in config.yaml
This is a straightforward solution, which is configurable and
extensible. The hosts are handled simultaneously, while the
output always uses their order from hosts.ini.
A thorough solution for controlling hosts would consist of
- a data backend
- a service
- a web interface (see OliveTin Webinterface option above)
- a command line interface
The command line session is assumed to be open until the command
has finished, use something like nohup mctl shutdown all &
otherwise.
The output does not appear until the action has finished on the respective host.
The actions may take long due to several timeouts.
There is a twist of lines in the status output, which looks
ugly anyway.
GNU GPLv3