How to set up sitesummary

Keeping track of a lot of machines isn't easy. It is hard to know when a machine disappears, and when new machines arrives. It can become a bit easier if the machines themselves assist. To make that possible, the sitesummary system is created. It consist of a server part collecting information, and a client part submitting it. The server can then based on the submitted information make reports helping the sysadmin keeping track of the site.

On the server

To use sitesummary, the server part need to be configured first. It need to run on a machine accessable from all the clients using HTTP.

Install the 'sitesummary' package, and configure apache to find the CGI file in /usr/lib/cgi-bin/.

A trivial report example is now available from [http://maintainer.skolelinux.no/sitesummary/ the debian-edu servers].

Munin integration

The server will by default generate a munin server configuration in /var/lib/sitesummary/munin.conf. The location of this file can be modified by adding for example MUNINDIR=/etc/munin in /etc/sitesummary/collector.cfg.

This way all hosts reporting to sitesummary will also be monitored using munin. This is done on the [http://maintainer.skolelinux.no/munin/ the debian-edu servers].

On the client

Install the sitesummary-client package, and use dpkg-reconfigure sitesummary-client to specify the URL to use when submitting reports. Also specify key information on the host to make the reports more useful.

The packages are available from http://developer.skolelinux.no/~pere/debian/packages/