Ask HN: What programming language do you use for system administration?

#1

Post by yr » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 9:31 AM UTC

What programming language do you use for system administration, infrastructure and deployments ?

Re: Ask HN: What programming language do you use for system administration?

#2

Post by digamber_kamat » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 9:47 AM UTC

For my sysadmin work involves 1. Backups 2. Installation 3. Performance monitoring 4. Configuration management

And the only thing I use for this is Shell scripts. In fact I am not sure if there is any other option. But then I am not a system administrator, its my part time duty.

Re: Ask HN: What programming language do you use for system administration?

#3

Post by madhouse » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 9:52 AM UTC

shell, perl & python, whichever fits the particular task best.

Cron jobs & similar are usually shell, various helper scripts are perl, and my deployment system is written in python.

Re: Ask HN: What programming language do you use for system administration?

#4

Post by hnfwerr » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 1:57 PM UTC

For Linux/Unix systems, definetely shell scripts (or perl for more complicates tasks).

Those are everywhere by default.

Re: Ask HN: What programming language do you use for system administration?

#5

Post by shortlived » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 2:09 PM UTC

hnfwerr wrote: post #4

For Linux/Unix systems, definetely shell scripts (or perl for more complicates tasks). Those are everywhere by default.

I prefer ruby for scripting but if you are working on multiple *nix systems then you really do need to stick with "the basics".

Re: Ask HN: What programming language do you use for system administration?

#6

Post by mryan » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 2:12 PM UTC

Sysadmin: Python, Perl and bash. Infra: Python and bash Deployments: Fabric (so, more Python)

Re: Ask HN: What programming language do you use for system administration?

#7

Post by wladimir » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 3:36 PM UTC

Only Python, these days.

In very rare cases (when it's simply a sequential list of commands) I still use shell scripts, but I try to replace them with Python programs as soon as any logic, text/data processing or sane error handling is needed.

Re: Ask HN: What programming language do you use for system administration?

#8

Post by runjake » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 7:28 PM UTC

Shell & Perl, in that order. I'd like to use Python & Ruby, I've just been through the motions with Perl so many times over the years, I end up using it. Unless it requires a CPAN download, then Python/Ruby.

Re: Ask HN: What programming language do you use for system administration?

#9

Post by davewongillies » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 11:27 PM UTC

bash & ruby for general scripts

puppet for infrastructure configuration

bash, ruby and/or capistrano for deployments

Re: Ask HN: What programming language do you use for system administration?

#10

Post by palguay » Sat, Feb 26, 2011, 4:14 AM UTC

perl + CPAN and bash .