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REX(1p) User Contributed Perl Documentation REX(1p)

NAME

rex - execute tasks defined in a Rexfile

DESCRIPTION

The "rex" script can be used to execute tasks defined in a Rexfile from the command line.

SYNOPSIS

    bash# rex -h                      # Show usage
    bash# rex -T                      # List tasks
    bash# rex uname                   # Run the 'uname' task
    bash# rex -H server[01..10] uname # Run the 'uname' task on all the specified hosts
    bash# rex -G production uname     # Run 'uname' on hosts on the 'production' hostgroup
    bash# rex deploy --gracefully     # Pass '--gracefully' to the 'deploy' task

USAGE

    rex [<options>] [-H <host>] [-G <group>] <task> [<task-options>]
    rex -T[m|y|v] [<string>]

    -b     Run batch
    -e     Run the given code fragment
    -E     Execute a task on the given environment
    -G|-g  Execute a task on the given server groups
    -H     Execute a task on the given hosts (space delimited)
    -z     Execute a task on hosts from this command's output
  
    -K     Public key file for the ssh connection
    -P     Private key file for the ssh connection
    -p     Password for the ssh connection
    -u     Username for the ssh connection
  
    -d     Show debug output
    -ddd   Show more debug output (includes profiling output)
    -m     Monochrome output: no colors
    -o     Output format
    -q     Quiet mode: no log output
    -qw    Quiet mode: only output warnings and errors
    -Q     Really quiet: output nothing
  
    -T     List tasks
    -Ta    List all tasks, including hidden
    -Tm    List tasks in machine-readable format
    -Tv    List tasks verbosely
    -Ty    List tasks in YAML format
  
    -c     Turn cache ON
    -C     Turn cache OFF
    -f     Use this file instead of Rexfile
    -F     Force: disregard lock file
    -h     Display this help message
    -M     Load this module instead of Rexfile
    -O     Pass additional options, like CMDB path
    -s     Use sudo for every command
    -S     Password for sudo
    -t     Number of threads to use (aka 'parallelism' param)
    -v     Display (R)?ex version

Rexfile

When you run "rex" it reads the file "Rexfile" in the current working directory. A Rexfile consists of 2 major parts: Configuration and Task Definitions.

Configuration

Simple Authentication 

    user "bruce";
    password "batman";
    pass_auth;

Key Authentication

    private_key "/path/to/your/private/key.file";
    public_key "/path/to/your/public/key.file";

Define Logging

    logging to_file => "rex.log";
    logging to_syslog => "local0";

Group your servers

Rex gives you the ability to define groups of servers. Groups can be defined the Rexfile:

    group "frontends" => "frontend01", "frontend02", "frontend03", "frontend04", "frontend[05..09]";

Groups can also be defined in a server.ini file:

    [frontends]
    frontend[01..04]

Other Configuration

    timeout 10;    # ssh timeout
    parallelism 2; # execute tasks in parallel

Defining tasks

A basic task looks like this: 

    # task description
    desc "This task tells you how long since the server was rebooted";
   
    # task definition
    task "shortname", sub {
        say run "uptime";
    };

You can also set a default server group:

    desc "This is a long description of a task";
    task "shortname", group => "frontends", sub {
        say run "uptime";
    };

TAB COMPLETION

Tab completion scripts are provided for Bash and Zsh in the share <https://metacpan.org/release/Rex/source/share> directory. They provide completions for the available CLI options, hosts, groups, environments and tasks.
2020-09-18 perl v5.28.1