Canonical's Landscape tool maintains Ubuntu environments

Programmable Interface

Landscape doesn't just provide a convenient web interface for managing computers. Using an API, admins also can access the information and functions offered by Landscape directly with their own programs and scripts. Ubuntu provides the Ubuntu landscape-api package in the Landscape repository for this purpose. The following command adds the repository:

sudo add-apt-repository \
  ppa:landscape/landscape-api

You can then install the landscape-api package, which contains the command-line client of the same name and a Python library for direct access to Landscape.

The command-line program accesses the LANDSCAPE_API_KEY, LANDSCAPE_API_SECRET, and LANDSCAPE_API_URI variables to authenticate; you need to export them in the shell before calling landscape-api. The first two are user-specific and can be looked up or generated in the API access key and API secret key fields of the web interface's user settings.

The Landscape URI is generally https://landscape.canonical.com/api, unless you take up Canonical's offer of an on-site Landscape installation. The documentation recommends storing these variables in ~/.landscape-api.rc and parsing them as follows before calling landscape-api:

source ~/.landscape-api.rc

A complete list of available commands is output with:

landscape-api help

For the most part, the functions provided by the API correspond to those of the web interface. However, the API fills a gap in package management, by allowing you to add and delete package sources – also on the basis of computer groups.

The Python library that comes with the API package offers the same functionality. After importing landscape_api, this command in the Python interpreter creates an API object:

api = new landscape_api.base.API(\
  uri,key,secret)

The values of the uri, key, and secret variables match the Bash variables of the same names. The new api object in turn handles the same queries as its shell counterpart – as in api.get_computers(), for example.

Alternatively, access can be handled directly via the HTTP interface using GET and POST. The action parameter here contains the function, for example, GetComputers. The online instructions [2] describe how to generate a valid signature for authentication.

Prices

Landscape is useful for managing servers and desktop systems alike. Especially in the latter case, it's useful for admins to be able to queue tasks, such as package updates, initially so that the clients can process them at the earliest opportunity. This approach prevents problems if desktop computers happen to be switched off.

However, Canonical only offers Landscape as a part of its Ubuntu Advantage packages. These packages include, in all available variants, comprehensive support and a legal guarantee, which is intended to protect Ubuntu users from patent lawsuits. Optionally, Landscape can be installed on your own server (on-site), so that the communication between clients and servers can take place entirely on your own intranet.

Ubuntu Advantage for the desktop is available in two variants: Standard and Advanced. A Standard pack of five costs EUR 473 per year and Advanced EUR 1,014 per year. For servers, Canonical offers an Essential version in addition to Standard and Advanced; the three variants cost EUR 248, 542, and 930 per server, respectively, and yearly discounts are available in all cases for three- and five-year contracts. However, if you would like to familiarize yourself with Landscape first, you can do so for 30 days – with up to 50 computers and five administrators.

Homogeneous

The obvious drawback of the Landscape service is its restriction to Ubuntu machines. Although other Debian derivatives use the same package management system and thus work well with Landscape, no official support is available from Canonical, and this setup is not really acceptable for a paid service. Other distributions (e.g., Red Hat and SUSE) are completely ignored, so the offering reeks of vendor lock-in: Changing to a different operating system  – even just some of your own computers  – makes Landscape worthless.

Furthermore, it is hardly worth buying an Ubuntu Advantage package just for the Landscape functionality, especially considering that free tools exist that at least partially cover the functionality, such as Puppet and Foreman [3] or Chef [4]. For Red Hat-based distributions, the free Spacewalk [5] tool, on which the commercial Satellite [6] is based, is also an option. Thus, Landscape unfortunately can only be recommended for those who want to use other Ubuntu Advantage services. It's a pity Canonical has such restrictive licensing in this case.