Re: [gentoo-user] Managing multiple systems with identical hardware

[Grant]

I'm about to embark on this (perilous?) journey and I'm wondering if
anyone would make a comment on any of the questions in the last
paragraph below.  This is basically my plan for setting up a bunch of
systems (laptops) in an office which are hardware-identical to my own
laptop and creating a framework to manage them all with a bare minimum
of time and effort.

Thanks,
Grant


>>>>>> I see what you desire now - essentially you want to clone your laptop
>>>>>> (or big chunks of it) over to your other workstations.
>
> I've been working on this and I think I have a good and simple plan.
>
> My laptop roams around with me and is the "master" system.  The office
> router is the "submaster" system.  All of the other office systems are
> "minion" systems.  All of the systems are 100% hardware-identical
> laptops.  All of the minions are 100% software-identical.
>
> I install every package that any system needs on the master and create
> an SSH keypair.  The only config files that change from their state on
> the master are: /etc/conf.d/hostname, /etc/conf.d/net,
> /etc/ssh/sshd_config, /etc/shorewall/*.  I write comments in those
> files which serve as flags for scripted changes.
>
> I write a script that is run from the master to the submaster, or from
> the submaster to a minion.  If it's the former, rsync / is run with
> exceptions (/usr/portage, /usr/local/portage, /var/log, /tmp, /home,
> /root but /root/.ssh/id_rsa_script* is included), my personal user is
> removed, a series of workstation users are created with useradd -m,
> services are added or removed from /etc/runlevels/default, and config
> files are changed according to comment flags.  If it's the latter,
> rsync / is run without exceptions, services are added or removed from
> /etc/runlevels/default, and config files are changed according to
> comment flags.
>
> All user info on the submaster and minions would be effectively reset
> whenever the script is run and that's fine.  Root logins would have to
> be allowed on the submaster and minions but only with the SSH key.
> There are probably more paths to exclude when rsyncing master to
> submaster.
>
> That's it.  No matter how numerous the minions become, this should
> allow me to keep everything running by administrating only my own
> system, pushing that to the submaster, and having the submaster push
> to the minions.  I've been going over the nitty-gritty and everything
> looks good.
>
> What do you think?  Is there anything inherently wrong with rsyncing /
> onto a running system?  If there are little or no changes to make,
> about how much data would actually be transferred?  Is there a better
> tool for this than rsync?  I know Funtoo uses git for syncing with
> their portage tree.
>
> - Grant