Re: pkgsrc-dashboard - a cgi for reporting on many pkgsrc machines

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost>]

On Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:36:58 -0400
matthew sporleder <msporleder%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:

> Hey, guys.  I have a little project I whipped up for centralizing a
> place to get reports on the freshness and vulnerabilities of pkgsrc
> clients in a network.  Basically, each client can send in their list
> of packages and the server will record it, check if it's out of date
> (newer source or binary available), and check if it's vulnerable.  I
> haven't done a ton of testing, but it's functionally complete and
> working on NetBSD boxes with current-ish pkg_* tools.  Check it out
> and let me know what you think:
> 
> http://code.google.com/p/pkgsrc-dashboard/
> 
This sounds like a great idea!  From the description on that web site,
I'd make one important change: it should be possible to get the client
data either by server pull or by client push.  The reason is that some
client systems, especially laptops, are not accessible for server pull,
at least via ssh.  They may be at a customer site behind a firewall, in
a hotel or residence behind a NAT, or may simply have a dynamic IP
address.


                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb