Frequently, administrators need to take care of several servers and clients that have a similar configuration, such as in a company, an Internet café, or the IT laboratory for a school. Although tools such as Puppet and Cfengine make the work easy, they also have steep learning curves. Therefore, it can be easier to rely on built-in tools when dealing with smaller installations.

SSH is a standard tool for administering remote computers. The secure shell makes secure login over a network possible so that necessary modifications can be done on the remote server followed by restarts for the affected services. This works well with just one remote computer, but when several are involved, the process becomes tedious.

Entering a password is the first issue to address in the multiple computer scenario. If you have to log in on multiple computers to make modifications, then is there a way to do this without typing in the password for each computer? Regular and automatic backups also have to run even though the administrator has taken a vacation or has gone to bed for the night. What are the possible solutions for these and other concerns?

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