Automate Linux Administration Tasks Using Fabric<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Fabric<\/strong>\u00a0is a python library and a powerful command line tool for performing system administration tasks such as executing SSH commands on multiple machines and application deployment.<\/p>\n Read Also<\/strong>:\u00a0Use Shell Scripting to Automate Linux System Maintenance Tasks<\/a><\/p>\n Having a working knowledge of Python can be helpful when using\u00a0Fabric<\/strong>, but may certainly not be necessary.<\/p>\n Reasons why you should choose fabric over other alternatives:<\/p>\n An important characteristic about fabric is that the remote machines which you need to administer only need to have the standard OpenSSH server installed. You only need certain requirements installed on the server from which you are administering the remote servers before you can get started.<\/p>\n Fabric<\/strong>\u00a0is easily installed using\u00a0pip<\/strong>\u00a0(highly recommended), but you may also prefer to choose your default package manager\u00a0yum<\/a>,\u00a0dnf<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0apt-get<\/a>\u00a0to install fabric package, typically called\u00a0fabric<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0python-fabric<\/strong>.<\/p>\n For\u00a0RHEL<\/strong>\/CentOS<\/strong>\u00a0based distributions, you must have\u00a0EPEL repository<\/a>\u00a0installed and enabled on the system to install fabric package.<\/p>\n For\u00a0Debian<\/strong>\u00a0and it\u2019s derivatives such as\u00a0Ubuntu<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Mint<\/strong>\u00a0users can simply do\u00a0apt-get<\/strong>\u00a0to install the fabric package as shown:<\/p>\n If you want to install development version of fabric, you may use\u00a0pip<\/strong>\u00a0to grab the most recent master branch.<\/p>\n Once pip has been installed successfully, you may use pip to grab the latest version of fabric as shown:<\/p>\n So lets get started on how you can use Fabric. During the installation process, a Python script called\u00a0 By convention, you need to start by creating a Python file called\u00a0 Fabric uses\u00a0 Example 1:<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s create a basic\u00a0 Add these lines of code in the file.<\/p>\n Save the file and run the command below.<\/p>\n Fabric Tool Usage<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Let us now look at an example of a\u00a0fabfile.py<\/strong>\u00a0to execute the\u00a0uptime<\/strong>\u00a0command on the local machine.<\/p>\n Example 2:<\/strong>\u00a0Open a new\u00a0fabfile.py<\/strong>\u00a0file as follows:<\/p>\n And paste the following lines of code in the file.<\/p>\n Then save the file and run the following command:<\/p>\n Fabric: Check System Uptime<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The\u00a0Fabric API<\/strong>\u00a0uses a configuration dictionary which is Python\u2019s equivalent of an associative array known as\u00a0 The\u00a0 The above line of code only specify the hosts on which you will run Fabric tasks but do nothing more. Therefore you can define some tasks, Fabric provides a set of functions which you can use to interact with your remote machines.<\/p>\n Although there are many functions, the most commonly used are:<\/p>\n Example 3:<\/strong>\u00a0To echo a message on multiple machines create a\u00a0 To execute the tasks, run the following command:<\/p>\n Fabric: Automate Linux Tasks on Remote Linux<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Example 4:<\/strong>\u00a0You can improve the\u00a0 Save the file and run the following command:<\/p>\n Fabric: Automate Tasks on Multiple Linux Systems<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Example 4:<\/strong>\u00a0Let us look at an example to deploy\u00a0LAMP<\/strong>\u00a0(Linux, Apache, MySQL\/MariaDB and PHP) server on a remote Linux server.<\/p>\n We shall write a function that will allow LAMP to be installed remotely using root privileges.<\/p>\n Save the file and run the following command:<\/p>\n Note<\/strong>: Due to large output, it\u2019s not possible for us to create a screencast (animated gif) for this example.<\/p>\n Now you can able to\u00a0automate Linux server management tasks<\/a>\u00a0using Fabric and its features and examples given above\u2026<\/p>\n Fabric is a powerful tool and is well documented and provides easy usage for newbies. You can read the full documentation to get more understanding of it. If you have any information to add or incase of any errors you encounter during installation and usage, you can leave a comment and we shall find ways to fix them.<\/p>\n Reference:\u00a0Fabric documentation<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Automate](\"https:\/\/www.tecmint.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Automate-Linux-Administration-Tasks-Using-Fabric.png\")
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How to Install Fabric Automation Tool in Linux<\/h3>\n
Requirements:<\/h4>\n
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# yum install fabric [On RedHat based systems] \r\n# dnf install fabric [On Fedora 22+ versions]\r\n<\/pre>\n
# apt-get install fabric\r\n<\/pre>\n
# yum install python-pip [On RedHat based systems] \r\n# dnf install python-pip [On Fedora 22+ versions]\r\n# apt-get install python-pip [On Debian based systems]\r\n<\/pre>\n
# pip install fabric\r\n<\/pre>\n
How to Use Fabric to Automate Linux Administration Tasks<\/h3>\n
fab<\/code>\u00a0was added to a directory in your path. The\u00a0fab<\/strong>\u00a0script does all the work when using fabric.<\/p>\nExecuting commands on the local Linux machine<\/h4>\n
fabfile.py<\/code>\u00a0using your favorite editor. Remember you can give this file a different name as you wish but you will need to specify the file path as follows:<\/p>\n# fabric --fabfile \/path\/to\/the\/file.py\r\n<\/pre>\n
fabfile.py<\/code>\u00a0to execute tasks. The fabfile should be in the same directory where you run the Fabric tool.<\/p>\nHello World<\/code>\u00a0first.<\/p>\n# vi fabfile.py\r\n<\/pre>\n
def hello():\r\n print('Hello world, Tecmint community')\r\n<\/pre>\n# fab hello\r\n<\/pre>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n# vi fabfile.py\r\n<\/pre>\n
#! \/usr\/bin\/env python\r\nfrom fabric.api import local\r\ndef uptime():\r\n local('uptime')\r\n<\/pre>\n# fab uptime\r\n<\/pre>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nExecuting commands on remote Linux machines to automate tasks<\/h4>\n
env<\/code>, which stores values that control what Fabric does.<\/p>\nenv.hosts<\/code>\u00a0is a list of servers on which you want run Fabric tasks. If your network is\u00a0192.168.0.0<\/strong>\u00a0and wish to manage host\u00a0192.168.0.2<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0192.168.0.6<\/strong>\u00a0with your\u00a0fabfile<\/strong>, you could configure the\u00a0env.hosts<\/strong>\u00a0as follows:<\/p>\n#!\/usr\/bin\/env python\r\nfrom fabric.api import env\r\nenv.hosts = [ '192.168.0.2', '192.168.0.6' ]\r\n<\/pre>\n
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fabfile.py<\/code>\u00a0such as the one below.<\/p>\n#!\/usr\/bin\/env python\r\nfrom fabric.api import env, run\r\nenv.hosts = ['192.168.0.2','192.168.0.6']\r\ndef echo():\r\n run(\"echo -n 'Hello, you are tuned to Tecmint ' \")\r\n<\/pre>\n
# fab echo\r\n<\/pre>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nfabfile.py<\/code>\u00a0which you created earlier on to execute the\u00a0uptime<\/strong>\u00a0command on the local machine, so that it runs the\u00a0uptime<\/strong>\u00a0command and also checks disk usage using the\u00a0df command<\/a>\u00a0on multiple machines as follows:<\/p>\n#!\/usr\/bin\/env python\r\nfrom fabric.api import env, run\r\nenv.hosts = ['192.168.0.2','192.168.0.6']\r\ndef uptime():\r\n run('uptime')\r\ndef disk_space():\r\n run('df -h')\r\n<\/pre>\n# fab uptime\r\n# fab disk_space\r\n<\/pre>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nAutomatically Deploy LAMP Stack on Remote Linux Server<\/h4>\n
For RHEL\/CentOS and Fedora<\/h5>\n
#!\/usr\/bin\/env python\r\nfrom fabric.api import env, run\r\nenv.hosts = ['192.168.0.2','192.168.0.6']\r\ndef deploy_lamp():\r\n run (\"yum install -y httpd mariadb-server php php-mysql\")\r\n<\/pre>\n
For Debian\/Ubuntu and Linux Mint<\/h5>\n
#!\/usr\/bin\/env python\r\nfrom fabric.api import env, run\r\nenv.hosts = ['192.168.0.2','192.168.0.6']\r\ndef deploy_lamp():\r\n sudo(\"apt-get install -q apache2 mysql-server libapache2-mod-php5 php5-mysql\")\r\n<\/pre>\n
# fab deploy_lamp\r\n<\/pre>\n
Some Useful Options to Use with Fabric<\/h4>\n
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Summary<\/h3>\n