About AutomateIt

What is it?

AutomateIt is an open source tool for automating the setup and maintenance of servers, applications and their dependencies.

What benefits does it provide?

It helps technology-oriented organizations speed up product development, improve agility, deliver higher-quality services, reduce risk and downtime, and simplify change management.

Who can it help?

AutomateIt benefits anyone needing high-quality applications and IT services:

  • Application development teams
  • Online services providers
  • Business-critical technology support organizations
  • System administrators and integrators
  • Change management, migration and disaster recovery projects

What does it do?

AutomateIt includes plugins for:

  • File and directories — create, copy, change ownership, and more
  • Users and groups (e.g., Unix accounts) — create, query, remove
  • Software packages (e.g., YUM, APT, Gem, Egg) — install, query, remove
  • Network interfaces — add, query, remove
  • Services (e.g., Unix daemons) — start, query, stop, enable, disable
  • Tags — assign tags to hosts, query tags for hosts, query hosts matching tags
  • Fields — assign and query configuration variables
  • Platform — query platform properties, e.g., OS distribution release version
  • Edit files — append, delete and replace lines in files
  • Templates — generate files from templates

How are these features useful?

AutomateIt makes it possible to know how everything is setup, easily recreate an environment, and quickly adapt to change. Faster, more efficient systems management will help you run circles around competitors, impress your boss, and sleep better at night. AutomateIt can turn your system administration into a competitive advantage.

How is it used?

The typical work process:

  1. Create a project to store a site’s configurations
  2. Assign roles to hosts so they can be managed as groups
  3. Write recipes that describe how to bring systems to a desired state
  4. Preview the actions recipes will take
  5. Apply recipes when ready
  6. Maintain systems by editing the recipes
  7. Re-run the recipes — they’ll apply only the changes needed

How hard is it to use?

AutomateIt is easy to use and follows familiar conventions. You already know many of its commands and syntax if you’ve written a Unix shell script. You can install the tool, read the tutorial and begin writing recipes in less than an hour.

How is AutomateIt better than shell scripts, Cfengine and Puppet?

See the Compare page.

Where do I learn to use it?

See the Screenshots and Tutorial for more information.

Does it only work on Unix?

No. AutomateIt’s primary target is Unix, but it can run on any platform supported by Ruby or Java. See the Compatibility page.