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points by pteetor 9 hours ago | 0 comments
A tip for anyone playing with tiny Linux boxes: Sys admin can be tedious. I run an AI agent on a bigger computer, I give that agent sudo access to the tiny machine, and I have the agent handle all the sys admin. I just say, "Install this. Configure that.", and it does the work. Makes my life easier! (Bonus: I instructed the agent to keep detailed records of all installations and decision, so sys config is fully documented.)
[–] drnick1 3 hours ago
It seems very unwise to let an "agent" touch a production system with access to personal files, keys, and other things it should probably not see. That being said, I also use AI to write scripts that it tests and runs in a VM. I then run the script myself on the production system.
[–] pteetor 2 hours ago
Perhaps I should have mentioned:

(1) The tiny machines are a cluster of 4 Raspberry Pi's. Administering 4 Pi's is tedious.

(2) They are not production machines. They are toys. Nothing sensitive.

(3) My serious machines are administered by me. Only me.

(4) The agent has saved me a ton of cluster-admin time. DNS service, LDAP service, NFS service, web service, cluster-wide file backup, coding tools, agent software, remote access. All installed for me. All I had to do is ask.

[–] qmr 6 hours ago
This comment really puts a bad taste in my mouth.

https://dn710709.ca.archive.org/0/items/TheFeelingOfPower/Th...

[–] rbanffy 9 hours ago
I’ve been using cssh and keeping the nodes identical. I run Docker Swarm and usually run 3 emulated mainframes and two Z80 machines.
[–] _def 7 hours ago
I like to let the agent use ansible for the configuration
[–] pteetor 2 hours ago
That's a great idea. Thanks!
[–] prmoustache 9 hours ago
It is akin to lightning a cigarette with a nuclear bomb.
[–] pteetor 2 hours ago
The process wasn't nearly that dramatic. I created the sudo-enabled account on the tiny machines. I wrote an AGENTS.md file (104 lines). And fired up an agent. It just worked. Nothing bomb-like. (The LLM model was already running on my server. So no token bill.)
[–] GlacierFox 7 hours ago
What you call tedious, I call fun.
[–] pteetor 2 hours ago
The tiny machine is part of a 4-machine cluster. Administering one machine was fun. Administering 4 machines got pretty tedious. I needed some automation.
[–] jasomill 7 hours ago
Maybe it's because I've been using UNIX systems for many years, but this seems more tedious that simply using built-in tools to do the same thing, which has the added bonus of having at least some concept of how you might fix things when you inevitably break them.

https://xkcd.com/349/

[–] outworlder 7 hours ago
Sure, if it is just about installing a package. But installing a program, reading documentation, then configuring the right settings, confirming it is doing what you want it to do, find out that's something wrong, going back to the docs... all of that can be automated.

And it's not just about installing, it's also about fixing issues. I had an intermittent DNS issue that I was not able to track down, and I didn't have enough time to dedicate myself to instrumenting my devices to chase it. I dropped a single line to an agent. It quickly wrote a test script, kept monitoring, when the problem manifested it tracked it down to a wrong IPV6 DNS config, crafted the pull request to fix it on my router (I have the homelab configured via gitops, local gitea).

I was also playing a windows game on linux and I had a weird mouse issue. Reading forums and bug trackers didn't do the trick and I threw the towel. I asked the agent. It grabbed the system (and game) logs, and figured out a fix. In a couple of minutes.

I would eventually find those issues, given enough time. But I don't have to anymore.

[–] hagbard_c 7 hours ago
> But installing a program, reading documentation, then configuring the right settings, confirming it is doing what you want it to do, find out that's something wrong, going back to the docs... all of that can be automated.

It certainly can be automated. What you gain in productivity you loose in proficiency and self-reliance since you're depending on others, an artificial 'other' in this case but it is more or less like asking your nerdy friend to install that Linux thing for you. When it breaks you'll have to ask that nerdy friend again, or that agent again in this case. When the agent is unavailable it is just as if the nerdy friend went on holiday leaving you to fend for yourself.

You may be OK with this dependency but it is good to realise it exists. Could you still fix things after having used agents for a few months or years? Probably not, at least not without you needing to read all that documentation, try and test, fail, go back to the documentation and try again until you get it to work.

[–] RALaBarge 6 hours ago
> an artificial 'other' in this case but it is more or less like asking your nerdy friend to install that Linux thing for you. When it breaks you'll have to ask that nerdy friend again

It's either asking that nerdy friend again, 2 years from now when it breaks. Just like you would your own documentation and/or SO or Google. Zero difference except one saves you time.