From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Wed Mar 18 01:45:56 2015
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org
 [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1])
 (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits))
 (No client certificate requested)
 by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id BA464A64
 for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>; Wed, 18 Mar 2015 01:45:56 +0000 (UTC)
Received: from pandora.au.calorieking.net (mail.au.calorieking.net
 [115.70.179.114])
 (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits))
 (Client did not present a certificate)
 by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 5D947FC7
 for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>; Wed, 18 Mar 2015 01:45:55 +0000 (UTC)
Received: from pandora.au.calorieking.net (localhost [127.0.0.1])
 by pandora.au.calorieking.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4418691
 for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>; Wed, 18 Mar 2015 09:45:39 +0800 (WST)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at calorieking.com
Received: from pandora.au.calorieking.net ([127.0.0.1])
 by pandora.au.calorieking.net (mail.au.calorieking.net [127.0.0.1])
 (amavisd-new, port 10024)
 with ESMTP id wqNBMzQpzN7G for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
 Wed, 18 Mar 2015 09:45:38 +0800 (WST)
Received: from egeria.internal (egeria.au.calorieking.net [192.168.2.111])
 by pandora.au.calorieking.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id EC5158D
 for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>; Wed, 18 Mar 2015 09:45:38 +0800 (WST)
Message-ID: <5508D8C2.7090303@calorieking.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 09:45:38 +0800
From: Gregory Orange <gregory.orange@calorieking.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64;
 rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.5.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Configuration Management Options
References: <CABMOuVeJuDKoCG68ZgrpwWm7b5PzGzHeowr2JJBpyCy9TdNaAw@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CABMOuVeJuDKoCG68ZgrpwWm7b5PzGzHeowr2JJBpyCy9TdNaAw@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1
Precedence: list
List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/options/freebsd-questions>, 
 <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
 <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 01:45:56 -0000

On 18/03/15 03:44, Alex Thomas wrote:
> Looking for some information on using various configuration management
> tools on freebsd. I have see reports of using puppet and have also heard
> that the freebsd cluster is using saltstack. Can anyone point me in the
> direction of getting more information on how well each of these run on
> freebsd?

We happily use Puppet to manage entire machines, including things like 
freebsd-update, package installation, services, configuration files, and 
even a few user accounts. Support for packages has improved with the 
move to pkgng, so we no longer use our custom built portupgrade package 
provider. We use this module instead:
https://forge.puppetlabs.com/zleslie/pkgng

If we were now starting from scratch, I'm not sure whether we would use 
Puppet, Salt, Ansible, Chef or something else, and if Puppet then I'm 
not sure if we would start out by managing entire machines as we do, or 
just start with smaller components and then build up as required. But 
we're not, so I don't have to make those decisions right now!

HTH,
Greg.