How to Install MCollective on Elementary OS

MCollective is a powerful framework for building server orchestration or parallel job execution systems. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps to install MCollective on Elementary OS.

Prerequisites

An Elementary OS installation with sudo user privileges.

Step 1: Install Dependencies

First, update your system's package repository and install the required dependencies.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ruby ruby-dev rubygems build-essential wget unzip

Step 2: Install MCollective Server

Download the latest version of MCollective Server from the official Puppet website:
```
wget https://downloads.puppet.com/mcollective/mcollective-2.12.4.tar.gz
```
Extract the downloaded archive:
```
tar -xzvf mcollective-2.12.4.tar.gz
```
Change directory to the extracted folder:
```
cd mcollective-2.12.4/
```

Install MCollective server:

sudo gem install mcollective --no-ri --no-rdoc

Step 3: Install MCollective Client

Install the MCollective client:

sudo apt-get install -y mcollective-client

Configure the MCollective client:
```
sudo nano /etc/mcollective/client.cfg
```

Add the following lines to the file:

libdir = /usr/libexec/mcollective
# Set SSL mode to none
plugin.ssl_mode = none
# Set connector to activemq
plugin.connector = activemq
# Set activemq settings
plugin.activemq.pool.size = 1
plugin.activemq.pool.1.host = localhost
plugin.activemq.pool.1.port = 61613
plugin.activemq.pool.1.user = mcollective
plugin.activemq.pool.1.password = PASSWORD
plugin.activemq.pool.1.ssl = false

Replace PASSWORD with a strong password for the MCollective user.

Save the file and exit.

Step 4: Start MCollective server

Start the MCollective server:
```
sudo mco rpc status
```
Verify that the MCollective server is running.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully installed MCollective on your Elementary OS system. Now you can use the MCollective client to control your servers and execute parallel jobs.