Re: Querying clients

[simon]

>  How do you transfer files from client to server? Problem is, when I want to
>  use "out of band" method (say, rsync/scp), I must first provide some way to
>  authorize clients somehow, to make sure that only specific clients can write
>  to masterhost...

That will depend on your exact need. Myself, because I dont really care
too much within the internal network I just email into a specific
account and let a script put the information in a database. Of course
one could filter the headers against a list of known hosts if you liked
(cfrun.hosts file for example).

But if you have some need for real control you'll probably end up using
ssh public keys to allow passwordless copying of the information via
ssh in a controlled way. Which is an overhead agreed, but probably
worth doing if you have a need to control whats placed in your
configuration database.