MCollective is a tool distributed with Puppet, which allows for administration of multiple servers from a central location. In this tutorial, we will go through the steps to install MCollective on a Pop!_OS system.
Before installing MCollective, we recommend following the steps below to ensure your system is up-to-date.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
The MCollective server is required to run on at least one machine. Run the following command to install the server:
sudo apt install mcollective-server
After installation, the server will start automatically.
The MCollective client is required on all servers that you want to manage using MCollective. Run the following command to install the client:
sudo apt install mcollective-client
The MCollective configuration file can be found at /etc/mcollective/server.cfg for the server, and /etc/mcollective/client.cfg for the client.
Update the configuration files as needed. Here are some examples of configurations that you can use to get started:
plugin.activemq.pool.size = 1
plugin.activemq.pool.1.host = localhost
plugin.activemq.pool.1.port = 61613
This configuration specifies that we will be using ActiveMQ to communicate between the server and clients.
After configuring MCollective, you can start the service by running the following command:
sudo systemctl start mcollective
With MCollective running, we can now test that everything is working as expected.
To do this, run the following command:
sudo mco ping
This command should return a list of hosts that are currently available on the network.
In this tutorial, we have gone through the steps to install MCollective on Pop!_OS. With MCollective installed and configured, you now have a powerful tool for managing multiple servers from a central location.
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