Show HN: hubot-control - webapp for managing hubots | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: hubot-control - webapp for managing hubots

github.com

12 pointsspajus14 comments

A rails app for managing self-hosted hubot installations.

This is awesome, but it should be easy to actually create a broader framework that allows one to control & monitor processes that run scripts on servers in general, & not just Hubot -- Hubot could be just an adapter for the more general tool, do you think this is feasible? :)

The problem there is that every new service needs its own glue code. I know there are companies (that I'm not shilling for) that are trying to create something like "universal glue code" but I'm not so sure those proprietary solutions are the right way. That seems to be against "the Unix way".

I openly admit that I'm not smart enough. I've thought about it for a while and I'm flummoxed. What's a good way to make glue code easier?

I think this is all about API & modularity, if you define a general API for your monitoring tool (eg. how should an adapter notify you when there is a new job, etc), you can then write an adapter for Hubot, and everyone that has its own solution can write an adapter for it & glue it to your code :)

What license are you releasing this under?

Good question, never thought about licensing until it was needed. I'm thinking GPL v3.

Could you be talked into Apache or Modified BSD?

Comedy answer: WTFPL (though nobody likes that guy).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but GPL protects free software from being converted from free and open into proprietary shareware, and you can use it anywhere.

Why would Apache or Modified BSD be better?

In the strictest sense (at least how I look at it), Modified BSD (or BSD family stuff in general) is freer because it places no moral burdens on me to share with others should I so not choose. Granted, I'm being a greedy antisocial shithead, but maximum freedom ought allow that.

Apache is similar, except that it also attempts to say "hey, you are allowed to use whatever patents I control that would be infringed here".

License folks feel free to correct me on this point.

When choosing a license, I always remember this rant by Zed Shaw: http://zedshaw.com/essays/why_i_gpl.html

This time was no exception. :)

Looks good!

Nice!

Is it relevant/secure for heroku hubots?

It was built for use within your company / personal server - there is no authentication mechanism, so you have to make sure that it cannot be accessed from outside without at least HTTP Basic Auth.

I haven't tried running it on Heroku, it would be insecure, and I guess Heroku infrastructure would forbid some of system calls hubot-control app is doing, like checking pids, killing processes.

Great news, michalmior nearly got it up and running on Heroku: https://github.com/spajus/hubot-control/pull/2

we need to go deeper

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