Re: [gentoo-cluster] Infrastructure Documentation

[Daniel van Ham Colchete]

Hi Andre!

Well done man! That's certainly a great job you did.

Here we also have some automation, but we install everything through a
PXE booted Gentoo and we have scripts and, where there isn't a script,
we have a documented installation procedure. This happens because I'm
also in Brazil and the servers are in The US (14 of them) and in
Brazil (4 of them)...

But, even after the installation there are a lot of information one
would need to troubleshoot a problem or to improve the system. Things
like: how are the databases replicated across servers and data
centers, how does the e-mail servers interact with each other and with
the storage, how the storage replication works, database schemes, how
I configured the replicated load-balancers, what is programmed to
happen when the system detects one server died, maintenance
procedures, how to upgrade all the servers in one shot, things like
that.

Somebody told-me to take a look at Microsoft Visio, I'll giving a shot
at that, but Microsoft Visio is not on-line (nothing is perfect,
right?), so if somebody here is on call at his home and something goes
wrong he doesn't have access to the necessary data unless I have a
terminal server with Visio installed on it...

Best regards,
Daniel

On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 10:23 AM, Andre Guimarães <ramoni@××××××××××××.br> wrote:
> Daniel,
>
>  We have 21 gentoo servers here and I have the same problem, I can't trust any
>  other to do serious configurations on the linux systems because they are
>  still learning things....
>
>  So, I started making an automated gentoo install system to make easy for them
>  to deploy the servers and to basic stuff via a perl shell interface, so all
>  the configurations are made to the right files...
>
>  The CD takes 15 minutes to install a complete Gentoo system and I made two
>  pre-configured servers, for Mail and for Firewall, entirely configurable by
>  the shell (including generating MRTG, nagios etc automagically).
>
>  I made this project available, if one would like to use it.
>
>  The site is:
>  http://www.lseriesos.com
>
>  I need to make clear that:
>  - I made this for my use in my organisation, and made it available to anyone
>  that who likes it...
>  - The primary goal is to automate things, so I won't be called when basic
>  things need to be configured (mails, spam rules, proxy settings), and that's
>  why I created a perl shell with the most common options to the support people
>  configure and I won't be afraid they screw the system, because they dont have
>  access do a root shell prompt.
>
>  Also, I'm sorry my english is not so good.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  On Friday 07 March 2008 10:12:29 Daniel van Ham Colchete wrote:
>  > Hello yall!
>  >
>  > I tried sending this to the gluster-use ml, but didn't get any
>  > answer... I wonder why...
>  >
>  > Here at my company we have 18 Gentoo servers spread over 3 data
>  > centers and our office. We have well defined and time-proven (one of
>  > the servers was installed in 2004 and it's still the same Gentoo)
>  > processes on monitoring, backup, applying security fixes, and
>  > maintenance. We have almost 100% of high availability and some
>  > services even have high availability across different data centers in
>  > Florida and California. We are using catalyst with cfengine to save us
>  > a few hours of work every week and everything is working great.
>  >
>  > I would like to move forward to some other projects but most of the
>  > knowledge (60%) required to do everything resides on my head alone.
>  > I'm hit by a car in the streets and something might go bad, like the
>  > required monthly database partition maintenance.
>  >
>  > I would like to hear from the list what you are using for
>  > infrastructure, software, processes, hardware documentation. I think I
>  > need a system with a good user access control, an all-in-one solution
>  > to document everything. Using Wiki+UML would solve the issue (I have
>  > 30% already documented in wikis) but (a) none of them were designed
>  > for this specific task and (b) they don't integrate, people would have
>  > to use two systems that knows nothing about each other.
>  >
>  > What are you cluster guys doing to be replaceable?
>  >
>  > Thank you very much in advance!
>  >
>  > Best regards,
>  > Daniel Colchete
>
>
>
>  --
>  André Guimarães
>  Databras Informática
>  Matriz RJ - 55 (21) 2518-2363
>  Filial ES - 55 (27) 3233-0098
>  http://www.databras.com.br
>  --
>  gentoo-cluster@l.g.o mailing list
>
>
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