Open Remote Systems Management

OpenRSM is an open source remote systems and network management solution. It aims to facilitate management to remote stations by integrating valuable open source tools. OpenRSM aims to be a community based tool.

Architecutre

OpenRSM is composed by three components, the OpenRSM server, the OpenRSM user console and the agent. The console accepts input from the user and conveys it to the server in the form of commands. The server is responsible for action coordination and communication. The agent is a passive component that residing on the managed stations. It accepts commands from the server and conveys them to the operating system of the managed host for execution.

The server comprises of the following components:

:: network monitoring
:: asset management and inventory
:: remote control
:: software delivery

The above components have not been built from scratch. Suitable open source tools have been used and extended according to needs. Network monitoring was intially based on the NINO network management system, a full featured network management platfrom based on perl technology. The inventory subsystem was based on the Winventory assets management web application, now known as OpenAudit. The remote control technology used is UltraVNC , the well-known remote desktop tool. Software delivery has been based on win-get. The primary goal of OpenRSM has been to integrate these tools properly so that it can deliver unified systems and network mangement service. This is the role of the OpenRSM server frontend module, which synchronizes all the components by acuiring user requests, scheduling them and dispatching to the proper subystem.

Features list

Lightweight and easy to use:
:: based on established practices, designed for non experts
:: internationalized, eazy to add translations for new languages
:: generalized job creation

Functionality
:: visual entities are the management jobs and the managed machines
:: visual tree and jobs editor
:: static and dynamic groupping
:: remote desktop control
:: web based assets management
:: network management
:: software delivery (standard, silent, uninstallations)
:: machine discovery and agent type identification
:: reports
:: users management

Multiplatform management
:: Windows XP/2000/2003 server/98 SE/95/NT4
:: Mandrake 9.0, Mandriva 2006/2007, OpenSuse 10.2, Ubuntu 6.10, Fedora core 6, Gentoo 2006.1
:: agent code in delphi or C for windows/linux/embedded systems

Scalability
::passed stress and scalability testing. The results are published in the international journal of network management.

Lightweight
:: small agent, eazy to roll out, to remote areas via slow connections
:: small manager and controlling interfaces

Security
:: secure agent-server handshake, encrypted communication
:: udp and tcp communication
:: web server authenticated access
:: secure libraries
:: single thread execution or forking

Embedded systems management
:: access points management

Wireless sensor networks management
:: integrated with tinyOS

Remote desktop control
:: proxying and network segmentation avoidance
:: user confirmation

Energy management
:: ACPI sleep jobs and wake on LAN
:: router configuration management (under development)

Open source
:: available under the GPL