Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2015 14:05:28 -0500 From: Paul Mather <paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> To: Matthew Grooms <mgrooms@shrew.net> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: push a few config files to dozen or so servers Message-ID: <A96E81C0-33DF-4142-8A3F-9C2260BB8900@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> In-Reply-To: <54D3AE68.6040003@shrew.net> References: <20150205130234.3fcbabfb@efreet.mimar.rs> <op.xtk288tykndu52@ronaldradial.radialsg.local> <54D37932.7010808@madpilot.net> <20150205154743.GO88387@mail0.byshenk.net> <3552828A-536D-41AB-B56D-F47AA4164A79@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> <54D3AE68.6040003@shrew.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Feb 5, 2015, at 12:54 PM, Matthew Grooms <mgrooms@shrew.net> wrote: > On 2/5/2015 11:27 AM, Paul Mather wrote: >> On Feb 5, 2015, at 10:47 AM, Greg Byshenk <freebsd@byshenk.net> wrote: >> >>> On Thu, Feb 05, 2015 at 03:07:46PM +0100, Guido Falsi wrote: >>>> On 02/05/15 13:20, Ronald Klop wrote: >>>>> On Thu, 05 Feb 2015 13:02:34 +0100, Marko Cupa?? <marko.cupac@mimar.rs> >>>>>> thanks to virtualization, my fleet of FreeBSD hosts have grown to more >>>>>> than dozen, and it still grows. There are some files that need to be >>>>>> identical on all of them (aliases, sudoers, root crontab, pkg repo >>>>>> files etc.). >>>>>> >>>>>> I was looking at puppet and cfengine but learning and implementing those >>>>>> seem like an overkill for my purpose. >>>>>> >>>>>> Are there any other elegant solutions which can help me achieve my goal? >>>>> Cron and rsync. >>>>> Or create a pkg which you install on all servers. >>>> He could also use an VCS system (subversion, git, fossil, whatever) and >>>> some scripts. >>>> >>>> This adds the advantage of having history. >>> If it's really limited, you should be able to wrap svn/git >>> and scp/rsync in python/bash/<tool of your choice> and have >>> something that works. >>> >>> >>>>> Just some quick ideas. In the end you just want to use something like >>>>> puppet. :-) >>>> I Agree, in the end that kind of solution is definitely more robust. >>> But, agreeing here, as well, there are some real advantages >>> in ensuring consistency, etc. with something like puppet. >>> >>> And a basic, minimalist puppet is pretty basic and minimal. >>> Puppet can get very complex, but that comes from managing >>> complex environments. >> >> I'm familiar with Puppet and agree with your observations above. One >> thing that concerns me with Puppet, though, is that Puppet is not >> considered as a Tier 1 platform by Puppet Labs and so FreeBSD support >> is inconsistent. With the current emphasis on modules and the Puppet >> Forge, the focus on the RedHat and Debian OS families in many modules >> makes it harder for FreeBSD users to use Puppet without reinventing the >> wheel. Unfortunately, with Puppet, a lot of the "magic" happens under >> the covers in these modules, via Types and Providers, and if they don't >> support FreeBSD then they're not much use. (This is another way of >> saying, "Puppet works great when it works.":) I know this is a >> manifestation of the general "Linuxism" of *nix, so I know I'm swimming >> against the tide in a sense in hoping for better support. :-) >> >> However, I don't get a sense of the vibrancy of the community around >> FreeBSD and Puppet. Is it thriving? (Because Puppet abstracts away >> the OS from a sysadmin point of view, people might argue, "why run >> FreeBSD if you're using Puppet?") Also, Puppet seems to have evolved >> rather than being the product of a clean, simple design. (Maybe this >> is endemic to any Ruby-based project.:) The orchestration (e.g., >> Marionette Collective) seems a bit bolted-on to me. >> >> Despite all that, there is still lots and lots to recommend Puppet. >> However, if there's another configuration management framework that is >> more "FreeBSD-friendly," then it would be good to know of that. With >> large-scale system installations becoming more and more prevalent, so >> too does the importance of configuration management and orchestration >> systems. I've been looking at Salt recently, which I've heard is >> supposed to be quite "FreeBSD-friendly." Does anyone know of any >> others that have a great FreeBSD community and support behind them? >> >> Cheers, >> >> Paul. > > Have a look at saltstack. It's easier to setup/deploy, does centralized config management & orchestration in one tool ( like puppet + mcollective ), scales ridiculously well and is more platform agnostic ... > > http://saltstack.com/community/ > http://www.freshports.org/sysutils/py-salt/ I've been looking at Salt (or saltstack, whatever it's called) for the very reasons you mention above. I recently tested it out with FreeBSD/arm Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone Black minions reporting to a FreeBSD/amd64 master. I like what I see so far, and, from my reading, the design seems nice and clean---or at least cleaner compared to Puppet. Still, it's the community that makes or breaks these things, and so it's the one that has the best/most active FreeBSD community that I'm eager to know about. Cheers, Paul.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?A96E81C0-33DF-4142-8A3F-9C2260BB8900>