Quick Start Guide

This quick start guide shows the first steps using Machinery to new users.

If you haven't installed Machinery yet, please follow the instructions of the Installation Guide.

Machinery is based on the idea of an universal system description. It creates a system description by inspecting a running system and retrieving information about the machine via SSH.

In the following commands $TARGET is the hostname or IP address of the Linux system you want to inspect. The system has to be accessible via SSH.

If you don't have a separate machine to inspect, set $TARGET to 127.0.0.1 in order to inspect your local machine.

Run the following commands as normal user when inspecting remote machines. For inspecting localhost it is required to execute machinery as root.

1. Generate and copy your SSH key to the host (if you haven't done this yet)

   $ ssh-keygen
   $ ssh-copy-id root@$TARGET

2. Run an inspection of that host

   $ machinery inspect $TARGET

   

3. Review the results of the inspection

   $ machinery show $TARGET

   

4. Review the results of the inspection in your web browser

   $ machinery show $TARGET --html

   

5. Work with system descriptions

   • List all system descriptions

     $ machinery list

     

   • Copy a system description

     $ machinery copy DESCRIPTION NEW_DESCRIPTION_NAME

   • Delete a system description

     $ machinery remove DESCRIPTION

6. Learn more about the usage of Machinery

   Machinery offers help and documentation on the command line:

   • Get a list of all available commands

     $ machinery help

   • Get help for a specific command

     $ machinery COMMAND --help

Machinery also guides you through a typical workflow by showing hints. After many commands Machinery prints a hint on which command you probably want to run next.

There is user documentation which describes the Machinery's commands in detail.