[clue-tech] Configuration management recommendations?

[Collins Richey]

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 5:44 PM, chris fedde <chris at fedde.us> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Ski Dawg <skidawg at skidawg.org> wrote:
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I have been tasked with getting a configuration management system
>> running at work.
>>
>> We have about 20 CentOS web servers running (some virtual and some
>> physical), and we are trying to come up with a tool that will assist
>> setting up new boxes as we bring them online, as well as maintaining
>> existing systems when changes are necessary.
>>
>> After spending a little bit of time searching over the past couple of
>> days, I have run across four that seem like good options, cfengine,
>> puppet, chef and bcfg2.
>>
>> Does anyone have any thoughts about any of these tools? Is there
>> definite advantage to using one over the other from your experience?
>> Is there a another tool that I should be evaluating?
>> --
>> Doug
>>
>
> I still like rdist. It's small, convenient, and push based. It simply
> extends what you already like about the unix environment. and takes
> advantage of the tools you already know and are comfortable with.
> I think it frequently gets overlooked because it does not have a long
> list of features that some of the  systems have.  But ti my way of
> thinking it has all the features I need for centralized configuration
> management.   Give rdist a look before you jump on some other band
> wagon.
> _______________________________________________

It depends on how narrow you hold the description of "configuration
management". Both cfengine and puppet provide "configuration
monitoring and controll" as well. If you are maintaining desktops in
addition to servers, you may want to restrict users to a "sane"
configuration and restore  standard configuration elements if anyone
tries to change them. Just one example, for security reasons, you may
want to prevent users from turning off locking after n minutes of idle
time.

It goes without saying, that either of these is a much more complex
product than rdist.


-- 
Collins Richey
     If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
     of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.