|
USENIX Technical Program - Abstract - 13th Systems Administration Conference - LISA '99
It's Elementary, Dear Watson: Applying Logic Programming To Convergent System Management Processes
Dr. Alva L. Couch and Michael Gilfix, Tufts University
Abstract
In an ideal world, the system administrator would simply specify a
complete model of system requirements and the system would
automatically fulfill them. If requirements changed, or if the system
deviated from requirements, the system would change itself to converge
with requirements. Current specialized tools for convergent system
administration already provide some ability to do this, but are
limited by specification languages that cannot adequately represent
all possible sets of requirements. We take the opposite approach of
starting with a general-purpose logic programming language intended
for specifying requirements and analyzing system state, and adapting
that language for system administration. Using Prolog with appropriate
extensions, one can specify complex system requirements and convergent
processes involving multiple information domains, including
information about files, filesystems, users, and processes, as well as
information from databases. By hiding unimportant details, Prolog
allows a simple relationship between requirements and the scripts that
implement them. We illustrate these observations by use of a simple
proof-of-concept prototype.
|
Need help? Use our Contacts page.
Technical Program