Well, this is seriously undocumented code. The short version is: perl Makefile.PL make make install And then create a file called /etc/ghosts which lists all the machines you want to contact. It would look something like this: # Macros sunprod=solaris^e450 # Machines # # Name Group Hardware OS bilbo prod intel linux baggins prod e4500 solaris tolkien devel e450 solaris Machine groups are run together with "+"s and "^"s as you see fit: ghosts intel+e450 ghosts prod^intel The "ghosts" command just shows the resulting list. "gsh" a group to run a command: gsh devel+intel "cat /etc/motd" You'll need to have ssh set up with trusted RSA keys, though. I should cover that in here too, but it's REALLY late tonight, and I just want to get this posted so my buddy will quite bugging me about downloading the "latest" version. :P See the TODO file for the huge list of things I need to do. Mostly documentation. :) Credit where credit is due: this is very very losely based on the "gsh" tool that came (comes?) with the Perl distribution, and on extra work by Mike Murphy. My version will do things in parallel, and does proper macro expansions. It is released under the GNU General Public License. Kees Cook kees@outflux.net