(R)?ex

(R)?ex is an open source and free command-line utility that has been designed from the offset to act as a simple framework for simplifying data center automation and overall system administration of GNU/Linux platforms.

Integrates seamlessly in your running environment

The (R)?ex program integrates seamlessly in your running environment, it's easy to use and extend, easy to learn, and it's written in plain Perl. You can use (R)?ex if you have to do a task more than once, and you need to automate it, reducing the risk of failure and letting you do your real work.

Uses Secure Shell

(R)?ex uses SSH (Secure Shell), so no agent is required. Comprehensive documentation for its API (Application Programming Interface) is provided on the project's homepage, where you can also find explicit examples on how to use the program when running it under sudo, how to install the Apache web server on five machines and keep the configuration in sync, or how to write your own (R)?ex tasks.

Supports scalars, arrays and conditional statements

The software supports scalar variables, which can contains numbers, strings, hash variables, references and objects, array variables containing numerous scalars, conditional statements, loops, regular expressions, as well as various useful functions and helpers. You will be able to split a string to an array, merge an array to a string, iterate arrays and hashes.

Supported distributions of Linux and BSD

Officially supported Linux distributions include all the currently maintained Ubuntu OSes, Debian Squeeze, Lenny and Wheezy, Gentoo, CentOS 5, 6 and 7, openSUSE, Mageia and Fedora. In addition, the application has been successfully tested under the FreeBSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems, running on 32-bit and 64-bit hardware platforms. You can download it as binary packages, as well as a universal source archive.

What is new in this release:

• Base:
• on_change hook for update_system
• update_system
• on_change => sub {
• my (@modified_packates) = @_;
• for my $pkg (@modified_packages) {
• say "Name: $pkg->{name}";
• say "Version: $pkg->{version}";
• say "Action: $pkg->{action}"; # some of updated, installed or removed
• Added support for end_if_matched option to run command - nathanIL
• run "my_command",
• end_if_matched => qr/PATTERN/;
• Tie server.ini to specified -E environment (server.$environment.ini). - ehu
• Added before_task_start and after_task_finished hooks
• The before_task_start hook will be executed before the fork for the task is made. The after_task_finished hook will be executed after all servers has finished the task.
• before_task_start mytask => sub {
• # do some things
• after_task_finished mytask => sub {
• # do some things
• Added fallback authentication support.
• Sometimes you have different authentications on different hosts and you don't know beforehand which one you have to use. For these cases you can now define multiple authentication options. Rex will try all of them.
• auth fallback => {
• user => "fallback_user1",
• password => "fallback_pw1",
• public_key => "",
• private_key => "",
• }, {
• user => "fallback_user2",
• password => "fallback_pw2",
• public_key => "keys/public.key",
• private_key => "keys/private.key",
• sudo => TRUE,
• Cloud:
• Add floating ip support to openstack provider - exzz
• Auto upload ssh key to openstack cloud provider - exzz
• Bugfixes:
• #381 - file NAME, ensure => 'absent' for a directory
• #392 - run conditional options with exec_autodir
• #399 - Rex::Output to persist across different processes - nathanIL
• #416 - fixed pkg with ensure => 'ver.si.on'

What is new in version 0.44.5:

• This release fixes crashes that occured with shells when using special PS1 characters.

What is new in version 0.44.4:

• This version adds ksh as a supported shell and fixes bugs for the sed and rexify commands.
• It also fixes a bug where the OpenSSH client crashed.

What is new in version 0.44.2:

• This version fixes sudo handling with no shell and fixes usage of inline templates.

What is new in version 0.44.1:

• This version fixes a bug in SuSE detection and adds another CLI parameter to suppress information logging.

What is new in version 0.44.0:

• This version adds support for external hooks in various functions and experimental support for Docker.
• There are also many enhancements and bugfixes.

What is new in version 0.43.7:

• This version fixes some bugs in the reporting and in the cmdb module.

What is new in version 0.42.3:

• This version fixes a bug in the crontab module and a bug regarding ownerships of edited files in sudo mode.

What is new in version 0.42.2:

• This is a bugfix release fixing bugs within the OpenSSH connection method, the hostname evaluation in ini files, and the additional server parameters.

Requirements:

• Perl