jansible

jansible is a tiny CLI for running the same command across multiple hosts.

Despite the name, it is not a replacement for Ansible. It does not provide idempotency, state management, playbooks, or convergence. It is only meant for simple batch command execution over SSH.

What it does

• reads a host list from config.json
• runs the same command on all hosts over ssh
• executes hosts in parallel
• prints each host result as soon as it finishes
• can save combined output to a file

What it does not do

jansible is intentionally small. It does not handle:

• idempotent deployment
• drift detection
• rollback
• inventory orchestration
• role / playbook workflows

If you need those features, use Ansible instead.

Why use it

Use jansible when you just want a lightweight tool to run one command on several machines, especially for:

• quick inspection
• read-only checks
• small maintenance tasks
• temporary ad-hoc operations

Node.js compatibility

jansible is built with a relatively low target and is intended to work with older Node.js versions.

Recommended runtime: >= Node.js 14+

Usage

jansible -e "uptime"
jansible -s -e "systemctl restart nginx"
jansible -e "systemctl status nginx"
jansible -o result.txt -e "df -h"

Options

• -s, --sequential: run hosts one by one in config order
• -e, --exec: command to execute
• -o, --output: write output to a file
• -h, --help: show help
• -v, --version: show version

Configuration

Create a config.json file:

{
  "hosts": [
    {
      "ip": "192.168.1.10",
      "user": "root",
      "port": "22",
      "password": "your-password"
    },
    {
      "ip": "192.168.1.11"
    }
  ],
  "common": {
    "user": "root",
    "port": "22"
  }
}

Fields

• ip: host address
• user: SSH username
• port: SSH port
• password: SSH password; when set, jansible will try to use sshpass

Merge behavior

• each item in hosts is one target machine
• common provides default values
• host-level values override common

How it works

jansible is basically a thin wrapper around the system ssh command.

That means:

1. it depends on ssh being available on your machine
2. if you use password authentication, sshpass also needs to be installed
3. it does not inspect remote state before running commands
4. repeated runs may produce different results
5. command safety and repeatability are your responsibility

Example

jansible -o report.txt -e "systemctl status nginx"

This runs the same command on every configured host and writes the collected output to report.txt.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.