From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Jan 19 11:58:17 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mxzilla2.xs4all.nl (mxzilla2.xs4all.nl [194.109.6.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7796137B402 for ; Sat, 19 Jan 2002 11:58:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from xs4.xs4all.nl (rene@xs4.xs4all.nl [194.109.6.45]) by mxzilla2.xs4all.nl (8.12.0/8.12.0) with ESMTP id g0JJwB97046516 for ; Sat, 19 Jan 2002 20:58:11 +0100 (CET) Received: (from rene@localhost) by xs4.xs4all.nl (8.9.0/8.9.0) id UAA04347 for questions@freebsd.org; Sat, 19 Jan 2002 20:58:11 +0100 (CET) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 20:58:11 +0100 From: rene@xs4all.nl To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: what is a good language for system administration? Message-ID: <20020119205810.B17795@xs4all.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG So I've learned how to do basic scripting in /bin/sh. But boy-oh-boy is that language arcane. ;-) What other language do you guys advise for system administration tasks such as * checking if a remote host is up * pumping files & RAM data through external tools * calling scripts written in the same language on a remote machine, to 'pickup' data that was pumped to that machine by a local script. My wishlist for the language, prioritized with most important first: * portability! to other UNIXes, and even Windoze. * low system demands - it needs to run on lowend boxes aswell * clear organization of any 'plugins' (which need to be replicated on other machines aswell) * a nice errorhandling & logging system I could really use some clues here. PHP comes into mind, but maybe there are other better options? Friendly greets, Rene Veerman To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message