UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers

Hi folks.

I've been a developer for far too many years, but know very little of unix. I have setup a very inexpensive cluster of 6 raspberry pi nodes so I can play around with multi node programming. This is only for fun, but I want to learn properly, else what's the point?!

Setup can be a bit of a ball ache with proliferating code and commands.

Could you please suggest software that will allow me to send commands to node 1 and have that proliferated to the other 5? I have searched for this and found a few possibilities, most do a lot more than I need and the one that looks perfect (fabric) doesn't install in Raspbian, no idea why.

I'm sure I could write a bash with ssh and accomplish the basics, but I like the idea of asynchronous replies which I think is going to be a depth to far.

Any suggestions welcome, and if you have an opinion of one thing over another please let me know why.

Many thanks.

Perhaps you can be more clear?

Do you want to execute remote commands in sequence from one remote host to another, initiating the initial command from your desktop or server to a remote host?

What exactly do you want to accomplish?

We have pssh for parallel ssh on multiple remote hosts
We have Ansible that it uses ssh as well.
We have Salt which can make use of ssh for ad-hoc but it is designed to be configured with an agent.
We have Chef which has a bit of a learning curve but it is very powerful. It requires an agent in the remote hosts.

Thank for this reply Aia.

I looked at each of the options you posted and was not familiar with a few of the website apps you posted.

Thanks again.

I'll agree on everything said. Those and many other devops tools are available. I will also say that out of those tools Ansible is my favorite by far. Look up 'Ansible for Hackers' if you want a good online tutorial.