Server Commander

12 Jul 2017 04:46

Here's a problem I'd like was already solved:

Be able to manage and run "tasks" on a Linux server. More specifically:

• There should be a WEB interface where:
  • I could define commands or tasks that the server is capable of doing
  • I could schedule tasks to run at specific times (like cron)
• The tasks/commands should be (optionally) parametrized
• The tasks/commands should be (optionally) stored in GitHub and/or a database
• The task runs should not overlap with each other (i.e. when the previous run is still in progress don't start the new one) — configurable
• The task configuration should include:
  • the command to run
  • task timeout — the task should be killed after the specified time
  • environment variables to set for the task
  • max CPU/memory/disk to use (optional)
  • number of times to retry on failure
  • what to do on success and failure — e-mail, webhook and trigger another task
  • directory to run the command in: I can specify one, or a temporary one is created for each run and cleared after the run
  • user to run the command as: I can specify one, or a temporary user is created for each run and cleared after the run
• The task run view should include
  • colored command output
  • command exit code: OK/FAIL
  • resources used by the task (optional)
  • time the task took, time the task started and ended
  • environment variables
  • link to next/previous run and a button to re-run
• The code should be free and open and extremely easy to install
• There should be an error log in the UI to track all the jobs failures
• Misconfigured tasks should not take the machine down — there should be some level of monitoring — don't start new jobs when load is high or disk is almost full, etc
• One should be able to have a nice dashboard with selected tasks for easy launching

What I describe here is to some extent already covered by some of the following:

• Jenkins https://jenkins.io/
• Travis-CI https://travis-ci.com/
• Rundeck http://rundeck.org/
• Minicron https://github.com/jamesrwhite/minicron/

Here's what's wrong with them:

• Jenkins' UI is to complicated for simple tasks, also it feel very heavy
• in Travis-CI you specify the tasks in your code, not in Travis, also it's not software you run locally
• My experience with Rundeck is it doesn't work out of the box, I could debug it, but I didn't want to, also UI is a bit too complex
• Minicron is way too simple and (currently) only allows you to run jobs through ssh (not locally)

To reiterate I'd like:

• A web UI for cron, that's also
• a bit like Jenkins in a way you can see the output of each of the command runs
• and have ability to sandbox the processes it runs
• looks nice and is easy to install and doesn't require maintenance

Comments: 3