Michael Bellears said on Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 03:04:58PM +1000: > 1. What is the recommended method to synch config files on all "real" > servers (Eg. Httpd.conf, horde/imp config files etc?) - Have only one > server that admins connect to for mods, then rsync any changes to the > other servers? Not sure about "recommended", but cfengine is pretty good. You can go a long way with CVS + cvsup, too, but I think the best solution is to put configs in CVS/subversion, and use cfengine to handle deploying new versions of configs.
> 2. What about logfiles - We would have all users mail etc on an NFS > share - Can you do the same for logfiles?(Or do you get locking issues?) logserver, as mentioned before. > 3. Imaging of Servers - I have looked at SystemImager > http://www.systemimager.org/, and it looks to do exactly what I want > (i.e. be able to create a bootable CD from our SOE for deployment of new > serverfarm boxes, or quick recovery from failure) - Can anyone provide > feedback as to it's effectiveness? I love it. I've got a cluster of about 200 machines that I manage using systemimager. If you're installing onto newer hardware, you will almost certainly have to build a custom si kernel to add newer drivers for ethernet cards or RAID cards. It's not particular difficult, just a tad time consuming. Notes below are how to add a newer e1000 driver to the systemimager kernel; it may help. M mkdir ~/src/systemimager cd ~/src/systemimager apt-get source systemimager # ~ 45MB cd systemimager-3.0.1 tar -xjf systemimager-3.0.1.tar.bz2 cd systemimager-3.0.1 make patched_kernel-stamp There is now a systemimager kernel source tree in src/linux-2.4.20 Download the e1000 source from Intel: http://support.intel.com/support/network/sb/cs-006120-prd38.htm mkdir ~/src/e1000 cd ~/src/e1000 tar -xzf e1000.tar.gz cd e1000/src Edit Makefile: Set KSP = ~/src/systemimager/systemimager-3.0.1/systemimager-3.0.1/src/linux-2.4.20 make cp e1000.o ~/src/systemimager/systemimager-3.0.1/systemimager-3.0.1/initrd_source/my_modules cd ~/src/systemimager/systemimager-3.0.1/systemimager-3.0.1/initrd_source/my_modules Edit INSMOD_COMMAND Add nsmod ./e1000.o' cd ~/src/systemimager/systemimager-3.0.1 Edit FLAVOR Change it to something else (like e1000) for testing. make binaries Go get lunch... this takes a _long_ time. sudo make install_binaries This puts the binaries into /usr/share/systemimager/boot/i386/e1000 Now copy kernel, config, and initrd.img from e1000 to the master "standard" image, and to the master /tftpboot.
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