Howto start using (R)?ex

This is a small howto showing the first steps with (R)?ex.

Preparation

• Download and install rex >= 0.6.0 (See the get page)

Creating a Rexfile

At first create a file named Rexfile in your $HOME directory (or anywhere else).

user "my-user";
password "my-password";
pass_auth;

group myserver => "mywebserver", "mymailserver", "myfileserver";

desc "Get the uptime of all server";
task "uptime", group => "myserver", sub {

   say run "uptime";

};
            

This Example will login as my-user with the password my-password on all the servers in the group myserver and run the command "uptime".

Change into the directory where you just created the Rexfile (in a terminal).

cd /home/jan
$ rex uptime

Adding a second task

To add a second task, just add the next lines to your Rexfile.

desc "Start Apache Service";
task "free", group => "myserver", sub {

    service "apache2" => "start";

}
            

This task will start the service apache2 on all the servers in the myserver group.

Display all tasks in a Rexfile

If you want to display all tasks in your Rexfile use the following command.

bash# rex -T
Tasks
  free                           Start Apache Service
  uptime                         Get the uptime of all server
Batches 

Comments

 group myserver => "mywebserver:3000";

user "my-user";
password "my-password";
pass_auth;
port "3000";

private_key "/path/to/your/private_key";
public_key "/path/to/your/public_key";