Ubuntu Manpage: kanif - a TakTuk wrapper for cluster management

NAME

       kanif - a TakTuk wrapper for cluster management

SYNOPSIS

       kash|kaget|kaput [-aFHhimqsV] [-f conf-file] [-l login] [-M machines-list] [-n|-w nodes] [-o options] [-p
       level] [-r command] [-T options] [-t timeout] [-u timeout] [-x nodes] [machines specifications] [command
       body]

DESCRIPTION

       kanif is a tool for cluster management and administration. It combines main features of well known
       cluster management tools such as c3, pdsh and dsh and mimics their syntax. For the effective cluster
       management it relies on TakTuk, a tool for large scale remote execution deployment.

       For simple parallel tasks that have to be executed on regular machines such as clusters, TakTuk syntax is
       too complicated.  The goal of kanif is to provide an easier and familiar syntax to cluster administrators
       while still taking advantage of TakTuk characteristics and features (adaptivity, scalability,
       portability, autopropagation and information redirection).

       To work, kanif needs to find the "taktuk" command (version 3.3 and above) in the user path. The other
       requirements are the same as TakTuk: it requires, on all the nodes of the cluster, a working Perl
       interpreter (version 5.8 and above) and a command to log without password (such as "ssh" with proper rsa
       keys installed).

       kanif provides three simple commands for clusters administration and management:

       kash: runs the same command on multiple nodes
       kaput: broadcasts the copy of files or directories to several nodes
       kaget: gathers several remote files or directories

       kanif  combines  the advantages of several cluster management tools.  Its main features can be summarized
       as follows:

       •   C3-style configuration file for static clusters setups

       •   pdsh-like options such as nodes ranges and timeouts

       •   dshbak-like gathering, sorting and merging of output

       As with "pdsh", kanif deployment can be monitored and controlled  by  signals.   When  kanif  receives  a
       SIGINT  (usually sent by typing Ctrl-C), it displays a brief summary of its deployment state and commands
       execution progress. After this first SIGINT, if kanif receives a second signal within one second:

       •   it terminates its execution (cancelling any ongoing task) if this is a SIGINT

       •   it cancels any ongoing connections and start executions on the already deployed nodes if  this  is  a
           SIGTSTP (usually sent by typing Ctrl-Z)

       At  the  end  of  executions,  kanif  also  reports a quick summary of failures: connections and commands
       execution.

OPTIONS

To help administrators in their task, kanif options syntax is as close as possible to C3/pdsh/dsh well
known tools.

-a
--all
Deploys on all nodes of all configured clusters.

-f conf-file
--file conf-file
Uses "conf-file" as configuration file instead of default. Several possibilities are examined for
default configuration file, in order: "$HOME/.kanif.conf", "/etc/kanif.conf", "/etc/c3.conf".

-F
--flat-deployment
Deploys all remote execution from the root node (which executes kanif). Useful when remote nodes
cannot log on each other.

-H
--head
Deploys only on clusters "head" node (using local interface) for all specified clusters.

-h
--help
Prints a short help text and exits.

-i
--interactive
Asks confirmation before any action. An action is either the execution of one command on all the
hosts (default) or the execution of one command on one host (sequential mode, see -s switch).

-l login
--login login
Uses the given "login" to connect to remote hosts.

-M machines-list
--list machines-list
Adds to the remote hosts the names contained in the file named "machines-list". kanif accepts as many
-M options as you wish.

-m
--monitoring
Makes kanif more verbose about whats happening during deployment commands execution.

-n nodes
--nodes nodes
Adds the given "nodes" to the deployment. See section "HOSTNAMES SPECIFICATION" for more information
about "nodes" syntax. kanif accepts as many -n options as you wish.

-o options
--remote-opts options
Sets additional options to be passed to the remote shell command.

-p level
--postprocess level
Sets the level of output formating made in kanif. The general idea is: the higher the level, the more
sorted, merged and human readable the output. Default is 4, differents levels are:

0 No processing at all: raw commands output is printed to stdout and raw commands error is printed
to stderr. Connections and executions errors are not reported.

1 Same as 0 except that the name of the host which produced the output is prepended before each
line.

2 Same as 1 except that the output is sorted by command (one complete command execution is outputed
entirely before another one). Connections and executions errors are summarized at the end to
stderr.

3 Same as 2 except that the hostname is printed once, formatted as a title, before its output.

4 Same as 3 except that identical output produced by multiple nodes is printed once with all the
hosts summarized in the title.

-q
--dry-run
When this option is given, kanif does nothing and prints its configuration, the remote nodes it would
have tried to contact and the TakTuk command that would have been executed.

-r command
--remote-cmd command
Sets the name of the "command" used to contact remote hosts (default is "ssh -o
StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o BatchMode=yes").

-s
--sequential
Each command is executed sequentially on remote hosts (using the order given on the command line as
hosts order).

-T options
--taktuk-options options
Allows power users to pass some options to the TakTuk command executed (caution: always include -s
which is the default unless you really know what you are doing).

-t timeout
--timeout timeout
Gives a timeout value for connection attempts. At expiration, connection is canceled and deployment
on the remote host is aborted.

-u timeout
--upper-limit timeout
Gives a timeout value for commands execution. At expiration the command is killed with a TERM signal.

-V
--version
Prints kanif version and exits.

-w
-wcoll
Synonym to -n.

-x nodes
--exclude nodes
Excludes some nodes from the ones given using -n or -w. Applies to all hosts sets that do not already
contain an exclusion part. Does not apply to host given with -M option.

ENVIRONMENT

       Usually  all  kanif  options  can be set by environment variables.  The rationale is that boolean options
       have 0/1 value and environment settings are overridden by command line switches.

       The name of an environment variable used by kanif is made of the long option name capitalized with dashes
       replaced by underscores and "KANIF_" prepended (for instance "KANIF_ALL", "KANIF_HEAD", and so on).  This
       rule admits the following exceptions (that have been chosen to mimic C3/dsh behavior):

       KANIF_CONF
           Instead of KANIF_FILE for configuration file.

       KANIF_USER
           Instead of KANIF_LOGIN for login name.

       Notice also that the variable KANIF_WCOLL has no meaning to kanif.

HOSTNAMES SPECIFICATION

       Hostnames given to kanif might be simple machine name or  complex  hosts  lists  specifications.  In  its
       general  form,  an  hostname  is  made of an host set and an optional exclusion set separated by a slash.
       Each of those sets is a comma separated list of host templates.  Each  of  these  templates  is  made  of
       constant  parts (characters outside brackets) and optional range parts (characters inside brackets). Each
       range part is a comma separated list of intervals or single values. Each interval is made of  two  single
       values  separated  by  a  dash.  This  is  true  for  all hostnames given to kanif (both with -M or -n/-w
       options).

       In other words, the following expressions are valid host specifications:
           node1
           node[19]
           node[1-3]
           node[1-3],otherhost/node2
           node[1-3,5]part[a-b]/node[3-5]parta,node1partb

       they respectively expand to:
           node1
           node19
           node1 node2 node3
           node1 node3 otherhost
           node1parta node2parta node2partb node3partb node5partb

       Notice that these list of values are not regular expressions ("node[19]"  is  "node19"  and  not  "node1,
       node2,  ....,  node9"). Intervals are implemented using the perl magical auto increment feature, thus you
       can use alphanumeric values as interval bounds (see perl documentation, operator ++  for  limitations  of
       this auto increment).

MACHINES SPECIFICATIONS

       With  kanif,  you  can specify the remote nodes on which you want to do some stuff using the command line
       switches (-n and -x, pdsh/dsh style), using machines specifications (C3 style) or both. Thus,  this  part
       of the documentation might be ignored if you do not want to use C3 style nodes management.

       To  use  machines specification you must describe your cluster in a configuration file (see -f option and
       kanif.conf(5)).  Machines specifications are nodes intervals taken from clusters defined in this file.

       A machine specification is an optional cluster name followed by  a  colon  and  an  optional  range.  The
       default cluster is taken if no cluster name is given.  All the nodes of the cluster are taken if no range
       is  given.  Notice  that  if none of -n/-w, -M or machine specification is given on the command line, the
       remote hosts are assumed to be all the nodes of the default cluster.

COMMAND BODY

       Depending on the name used to invoke it (kash, kaput or kaget), kanif does not  perform  the  same  task.
       Here are its various behavior:

       kash [options] [command line]
           Executes  the  last  part  of  the  command line on all the remote hosts. If this last part is empty,
           enters interactive mode in which kanif waits for command (one per  line)  on  stdin.  In  interactive
           mode, just send an EOF character (Ctrl-D) to exit kash.

       kaput [options] src1 [src2 ...] dest
           Copies  one  ore  more files or directories to all the remote hosts. The last argument is the path to
           the destination file or directory on the remote machine.  The other  arguments  are  local  files  or
           directories to copy. Behavior and limitations are similar to the command cp(1).

       kaget [options] src1 [src2 ...] dest
           Download  one  ore more files or directories from all the remote hosts. The last argument is the path
           to the destination directory on the  local  machine.  The  other  arguments  are  path  to  files  or
           directories  on remote hosts. Each source must be present on all the remote hosts. Sources are copied
           to the destination directory having the originating host appended to their name.

       Notice that when using kaget or kaput each file or directory is completely copied  before  proceeding  to
       the next one.

EXAMPLES

       When  a  configuration  file exists on the system or is given on the command line (see option -f), remote
       machines can be specified via clusters names. For instance, the simple execution of the command  "ls  -l"
       on all the nodes of the cluster named "megacluster" can be written:

           kash megacluster: ls -l

       Intervals can also be given. The following command copies the local .cshrc file to the login directory of
       a subset of the default cluster and another subset of the "megacluster":

           kaput :3-6 megacluster:2-5 $HOME/.cshrc .

       Finally,  one  can  take advantage of the default behavior to gather a file named "results.txt" placed in
       the "/tmp" directory on all the nodes of the default cluster to the local directory "results":

           kaget /tmp/results.txt results

       When a user does not want to write a configuration file or just wants to deploy on some other  nodes,  it
       is possible to give remote hosts on the command line:

           kash -n localhost,supernode uptime

       This  last  command  will  just  execute  "uptime"  on "localhost" and "supernode".  Giving intervals and
       exclusion  lists  is  also  possible  on  the  command  line.  The  following  command  copie  the   file
       "/tmp/temporary.txt" to the remote "/tmp" directories of node1 and node5:

           kaput -n node[1-6] -x node[2-4],node6 /tmp/temporary.txt /tmp

       Finally,  without  entering into the details of each option, the final command illustrates the -u option.
       It executes during 5 seconds a "ping" to "gateway" from 5 nodes:

           kash -n node[1-2],node[4-6] -u 5 ping gateway

BUGS

       Missing features:

       •   indirect clusters not supported (see C3 documentation about such clusters)

       •   when there are no machine to deploy and kanif runs in interactive  mode,  kanif  still  waits  for  a
           command (or eof) before exiting

       Performance issues:

       •   the  algorithm used by kaput is not very efficient for transferring large files. Although the precise
           limit depends on the machine, it should not scale well above a few hundreds of megabytes.

AUTHOR

       The author of kanif and current maintainer of the package is Guillaume Huard. Acknowledgements  to  Lucas
       Nussbaum for the idea of the name "kanif".

COPYRIGHT

       kanif is provided under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 or later.

perl v5.20.1                                       2014-10-24                                           KANIF(1)