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First of all thanks a lot for your quick reply... I hope you don't |
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mind answering a few more questions, you really caught my attention :o) |
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Kurt Lieber wrote: |
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>On Sat, Oct 16, 2004 at 04:55:10PM +0200 or thereabouts, Jose Gonzalez Gomez wrote: |
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> |
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> |
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>> From my limited understanding, cfengine provides a way to centrally |
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>>manage hosts with common configuration, am I right? |
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>> |
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>> |
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> |
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>Yes. |
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> |
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> |
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> |
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>>Do you have the |
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>>possibility of defining "classes" of hosts? I mean, let's say I have a |
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>>mail server, several web servers, desktop machines.... I would like to |
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>>have common configurations for all of them, is this possible? |
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>> |
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>> |
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> |
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>Yes. You can also have common configurations for most of them, but specific |
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>special configurations that apply to only one or two machines. You have |
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>nearly limitless flexibility in defining classes. |
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> |
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> |
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What about having a common configuration personalized for every |
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machine? Let's say I have a lot of web servers, but there is something |
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inside some configuration files that is dependant on the machine, like |
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the machine name, or the domain name of the machine. Does cfengine |
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handle such a situation, replacing those variables with proper values? |
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|
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If so, I guess I also could automate the process of SSL certificate |
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creation, using a proper name and domain for every machine controlled by |
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cfengine... |
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|
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> |
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> |
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>> Another question... let's say I have to install a lot of machines, I |
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>>understand that I just would install all the required packages, |
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>>configure cfengine, and then all the machines would automatically |
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>>configure themselves using my centrally stored configuration, am I |
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>>right? |
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>> |
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>> |
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> |
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>Yes. That's what we do now, in fact. |
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> |
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> |
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> |
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>>Can you automate the process of package installation, so maybe |
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>>you could have a "desktop profile/class", "mail server profile/class", |
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>>etc... that stores packages and their configurations? |
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>> |
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>> |
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> |
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>You could do this, but I wouldn't recommend storing the packages |
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>themselves. Instead, I'd recommend storing information about how to |
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>install the packages the way you want them. |
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> |
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>In other words, don't store the binaries -- store the ebuilds and have |
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>cfengine emerge the packages you want using those ebuilds. |
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> |
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> |
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> |
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I'm very interested on this. So this means you could make a very |
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basic installation of Gentoo, and then configure cfengine and tell the |
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machine: "you will be a mail server", so the machine then installs every |
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needed package and configure itself? Do you have some pointer to any |
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docs regarding this? |
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This would solve another problem I was thinking about in order to |
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use Gentoo in enterprise environments: the need of a stable snapshot of |
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portage, so you could install a machine with a target known and tested |
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environment. This could be done storing the cfengine configuration, |
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including ebuilds, in a version control system. This would let me create |
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tested portage snapshots with its corresponding configuration, assigning |
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them names through the use of tags, and using them in all my machines |
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once the changes are comitted to a central repository. |
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And again, thanks a lot |
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Best regards |
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Jose |
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