After looking around for a tool that would allow me to manage my Rackspace Cloud Servers from the terminal and not finding anything I decided to write my own. My primary goal for this was to have a tool that could be used from the shell or used in scripts to manage and automate the Rackspace Cloud Servers. I have used Amazon’s EC2 API Tools in the past to manage hosts on their service and found it frustrating that they were written in Java, requiring anything that used them to have Java running on it. Because of this I made it a secondary goal to use tools that are commonly available to systems that have bash. Currently that has allowed me to use the script on Apple OS X, Red Hat based systems (CentOS), and Debian based systems (Ubuntu) without any modifications or special permissions on the systems.

rscurl allows you to list your servers, server images available to you ( including the images you make from your servers ), and server flavors ( the memory and disk combinations ). In addition to that you can create, delete, resize and reimage servers as well as create and delete images. All of the options except for the ones that specifically list data have a quiet option so that they can be used in automation scripts. To use rscurl you will need your Rackspace username and api key. The username is the same one you use to log into the web interface and the api key can be found in the Rackspace web interface under Your Account, API Access.

rscurl -u username -a apiKey -c command [ -s serverID ] [ -n name ] [ -i imageID ] [ -f flavorID ] [ -q -h ]
v 0.1
rscurl is a command line tool for managing Rackspace Cloud Servers. It uses curl, awk, sed,
and tr to accomplish this in the hopes that it will work on most systems that use bash.

-u Your rackspace username.
-a Your rackspace api key, found on your rackspace cloud dashboard under Your Account, API Access.
This cannot be your password.
-c command, possible commands are:
list-servers - Lists all the servers you have on your account.
list-flavors - Lists all the types of server that are available to you.
list-images - Lists all the server images that are available to you.
create-server - Creates a new server
requires an imageID (-i) and flavorID (-f)
optional name (-n)
delete-server - Deletes a server, requires serverID (-s).
DANGER: Server deleted without prompt, be sure.
rebuild - Rebuilds a server with the new image, all data will be lost.
requires an imageID (-i) and serverID (-s)
resize - Resizes a server, requires flavorID (-f)
confirm-resize - Confirms a recently resized server, after 24 hours it is done automatically.
requires serverID (-s)
revert-resize - Reverts a recently resized server to the previous size.
requires serverID (-s)
reboot - Reboots a server, requires serverID (-s)
force-reboot - Forces a server to reboot, equivalent to pulling the power.
Requires serverID (-s)
create-image - Creates a new image based on an existing server.
Requires serverID (-s), optional name (-n)
delete-image - Deletes a server image that you own.
Requires imageID (-i)
-s Server ID, required for some commands. To see the servers run list-servers.
-i Image ID, required for some commands. To see the images run list-images.
-f Flavor ID, required for some commands. To see the flavors run list-flavors.
-n Name of server(required) or image(optional) when creating them.
-q Quiet mode, all commands except list-* will exit quietly
-h show this menu

This is my first attempt at writing something like this and there are most defiantly bugs but I think that it’s ready for other people to look at. I have licensed it under the GPL and stored it on github in the hopes that others will find it useful and possibly contribute. If this is a tool you can use or would like to contribute to please check it out at https://github.com/jsquared/rscurl.

As a systems administrator in many mixed Windows and linux environments I have seen and made many of my own attempts at integrating the linux servers into the Windows Active Directory structure with mixed results. Linux registration and authentication inside of a Windows domain is akin to the bigfoot: some have claimed to see one, many have worked long hours to find them, no one can produce consistent results. Until now.

At the suggestion by a coworker I decided to give Likewise a try on my most recent attempt at bringing our linux servers into the windows domain. Skeptically I built a new CentOS 5.3 server and proceeded to follow the instructions for installing Likewise. The seemed too simple and with each step I waited for the fatal issue that would bring the test to it’s demise. Software installed, no issues. As I reviewed the instructions for adding the system to the domain and found that it only required one command and no further configuration of files I thought, “This is so going to fall on it’s face.” Command executed and I’m waiting, then it comes up on the screen: Success. Success? Really? I don’t believe it, I log onto the domain controller and there it is, right where new computers are supposed to go in the domain. I quickly flip over to the manual and look up how to authenticate for ssh, simple DOMAIN\\username@host, and give it the final test. Success. In the span of 15 minutes I was able to install the app, add my computer to the domain and authenticate against the domain. 15 more minutes and I was able to limit who could log in and give them sudo access. This is a huge win for any admin who deals with linux servers in a domain.

I’m still testing the limits of Likewise and I will say that it hasn’t been without it’s speed bumps but I plan on paying for a little support and getting the answers I need. Like may open source products, Likewise is making it’s money on support and by selling upgraded functionality. I applaud this model, allowing the flexibility of open source while still finding a way to pay for all that hard work. I will be continuing to test the limits of Likewise but as of now I am thoroughly impressed and will continue to use it.